Motor oil and rabbits

Question
First and foremost, I don't know how many times that I have told my husband to secure and keep secured the 'used' oil container in our outbuilding, but today, the supposedly impossible impossibility happened.  My Holland Lop (who was apparently a goat in her previous life) jumped on the unsecured lid of the oil container and then fell down into the oil.
Having found out what happened, I immediately called our vet, who recommended that I give my doe a bath in a mild solution of Dawn...with the accompanying words of advice, "Good Luck!"
Well, rabbits are not like dogs or cats, particularly with the type of hair that they have, so I was still finding oil in my doe's fur even after two Dawn baths.  So, I towel-dried her as best as I could, and then applied baby powder to her skin, in the hopes that a pseudo-dry-bath might help to get rid of the remaining oil.  Well, she not only has oil in her fur now, but baby powder...and I am at a loss as to what I should do next, particularly since vets in this area appear to be more clueless than even myself in working with rabbits.
In the interim, I have caged her, providing her with a good bit of dandelion greens, in the hopes that she will eat the greens and thereby detoxify her blood.  Is this a wait and hope for the best situation, sort of situation?  
I gave her a third of a banana, which is one of her favorite treats that she very infrequently gets, and she has only eaten half of that.  So, she's still eating, and likewise drinking water, but then, she's not eating much and I can tell that her stomach is upset since she's been grinding her teeth off and on.

Any input would be much appreciated!
Thank you!
__Contessa__

Answer
Dear Contessa,

What a nightmare!  Your vet had the right suggestion with the Dawn dishwashing liquid.  It's what wildlife rehabilitators use to remove the petroleum from wildlife in oil spills.  It's a very powerful detergent, but it can take several washes and rinses before all the oil is gone.

If this were my rabbit, I would continue the Dawn bathing until the fur is absolutely free of oil, and then complete the process with a rinse of Hy Lyt pet conditioner to help replace some of the natural oils she lost in the bathing.  Blow dry on medium (be sure not to burn her delicate skin, especially if it's dried out from all that Dawn!) until she's fluffy.  It helps to use a flea comb to separate the fur for better drying and reaching the skin. Same goes for when you bathe her.

To help remove toxins from any oil she might have ingested in licking her fur, you can buy activated charcoal from the local drug store, and suspend the contents of a capsule in clean drinking water.  Administer by syringe.  An even better compound for sequesting complex molecules from her gut is Questran (cholestyramine resin), for which you will need a prescription from your vet.  Be sure to administer it with lots of water.  It is highly adsorbent, and the last thing you want to do now is to dehydrate her intestinal contents.

I would also recommend that she be given typical supportive care that wildlife coated with oil would get:  subcutaneous fluids to help replace what she's not getting if she's not eating normally, as well as careful force-feeding of Critical Care (which you can get from a good rabbit vet, or directly from Oxbow Hay Company at www.oxbowhay.com).  Alternatively, you can soak her pellets in warm chamomile tea, then add enough tea to make a pasty slurry, and feed that with a pediatric medication dosing syringe (this has a wider bore than a typical injection syringe, so the food won't get stuck).

Whenever you administer anything by mouth, be sure to squirt it in *sideways*, behind her incisors, so she doesn't aspirate.

Please find a good rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

who will do more than wish you a flippant "good luck."  This bunny may even go into ileus from the shock of this trauma, and that must be treated aggressively and immediately.  Please read:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.html

and if you can't find a good vet who is familiar with the special needs of rabbits, you might want to print and share this:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.pdf

I suggest that a couple of cc's of pediatric simethicone suspension will help relieve her if she has gas from this (quite likely), and your vet can prescribe any other medications (including pain meds, if her gut is slowing down) s/he deems necessary.

I hope this helps!  Please write back if you have any other questions.

Dana