BUNNY BRONCHITIS? RESPIRATORY INFECTION

Question
PLEASE HELP... today i took my Jersey wooley to the et to get checked out because he has not eaten in 2 days and has drank very little water. he has not pooped or anything or at leat very minimal compared to when he is normal. he is also very lethargic and was not responding to when he would hear your voice like he normally would. I took him to the vet to get him checked out because he was breathing very shallow and seemed to be very laboured.... anyway the vet said he had bronchitis. does this exist in bunnies and is there a prognosis? he gave him a double dose injection of an antibiotic called bayil i think and then gave me some pills to give him every 24 hours. he is not eating at all so i am concerned ... what should i do? should i try feeding him with an eye dropper to keep him hydrated. i love him very much and do not want anything to happen to him as he is part of the family. please offer whatever advice you can. once i took him to th evet and he got the injection he did seem to be a bit perkier? is this normal.... what are the signs of bunny illness and will he bounce back or ...... thank you in advance for your time in reply, i greatly appreciate your service.

Answer
Dear Laura,

I hope this message gets through, because the AllExperts server seems to be up and down constantly at the moment.  I have been trying to answer your question since yesterday, but the server keeps timing me out!  Very frustrating, given the seriousness of your situation!

Of the most critical concern with your bunny now is is lack of appetite and his failure to produce poops.  This means that the stress of his illness has elicited ileus, a potentially life-threatening condition that must be addressed immediately and aggressively.  You can start some things at home, so please read this article completely:

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

and print this one for your vet:

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

If you do not feel your vet is willing to get help from outside sources, then please find another vet immediately, because I don't think this one may know enough about rabbit medicine (just judging from what you've told me, which I admit might not be the whole story).  You can find another vet, more experienced with rabbits, here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

A very sick bunny can sometimes have an abnormal body temperature, and it's critical to normalize it, especially if he's hypothermic (too cold).  You can find instructions on how to take his temperature here:

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

If your bunny is laboring to breathe, he may have something more serious than bronchitis.  He may have pneumonia.  Chest radiographs would reveal this, but at this point he might be in no condition to undergo that stress.  That said, I hope you can find a vet who can nebulize your bunny with the following "cocktail" for 10 minutes 2-3 times per day:

5ml sterile saline solution
0.5ml aminophylline (to open the air passages)
0.25ml Mucomyst (acetylcysteine solution, USP; to loosen mucus and infection in the lungs so it can be coughed up and removed)
1.0ml 50mg/ml amikacin (antibiotic that works synergistically with fluoroquinolones such as Baytril)

This will really help, as will very gentle cuppage after his nebulization (this is gently tapping him, with the flats of your fingers, on his ribs, to help loosen his congested lungs).

If there is no nasal discharge to culture, then it might not be a bad idea to ask the vet about adding Penicillin-G Procaine (plus Benzathine, if possible) injectible to the mix, as this antibiotic tends to work very well against most of the bacterial species that cause pneumonia in rabbits (these can be anything from Pasteurella to Pseudomonas to Enterobacter, and beyond).  If there *is* nasal discharge to culture, then a culture and sensitivity test will help you narrow down to the right antibiotics:

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

A recipe for force-feeding can be found in the ileus article above, but be sure to do this very carefully if he's mouth-breathing.  The last thing you want is for him to aspirate food!  I will get this off to you as quickly as I can (AllExperts @&(#*$)@# server permitting!), but if you have more questions, let's not trust this site.  Please write to me directly at dana@miami.edu

I hope this helps!

Dana