wheezy bunny

Question
hi Dana.  I emailed you before about a month ago when my dwarf lop lionhead cross had a dose of the sneezes.  On your advice I took her to the vet.  He suggested she had an allergy to something she was exposed to in her hutch.  It turned out to be sawdust.  We now have her entire hutch lined with wood based litter and she is fine.  I noticed today however that my usually silent wee bunny was making some strange noises!!! I can only describe it as those groan tubes kids play with where you tip it one way and it makes a groaning sound.  The vet had given her a clean bill of health only a month ago.  She seems great in every other aspect except this weird noise.  Could it be gas?  We have recently started giving her some apple as a treat, is this ok for her?Also I have felt some wee lumps on her underside when I was grooming her and wondered if these are maybe nipples forming in preparation for reaching a breeding age, which I have no intention of allowing.She is going in to get spayed in March when she will be 6 months. Your advice on both these matters would be greatly appreciated and I look forward to hearing from you.  My partner thinks I am just fussing, but I just worry about her, because she obviously cant tell me if something is wrong.

Answer
Dear Mandy,

I really am wary of a vet who diagnoses "allergies" in a rabbit who's sneezing.  That really is just so incredibly rare.  And now that you say she's making groaning sounds, it has me very worried that the condition has progressed to pneumonia.  Was this vet a dog/cat vet, or did s/he actually have experience with rabbits?  Either way, I personally do not trust the "allergy" diagnosis, especially if no culture and sensitivity was done on nasal or eye discharge:

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

If there's nothing to culture, but the vet suspects pneumonia, ask about putting bun on ciprofloxacin *and* injectable Penicillin-G Procaine, which will be just about the only thing that can knock out true pneumonia.  Nebulizing with the following cocktail:

10cc sterile saline
0.5 aminophylline solution (opens the airways)
1.0 cc 50mg/ml Amikacin (antibiotic)
0.25 cc Mucomyst (loosens matter in the lungs)

Will also help tremendously.  Please ask the new vet about this, if there is the chance she has pneumonia.

Please also read:

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

If she is breathing with difficulty (nose pointed upwards or neck held high), then this is an emergency, and you must waste no time getting her to a *rabbit* vet.  Be SURE you find an *experienced* rabbit vet!  The one you went to...I have serious doubts!  Please use the list linked here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

The lumps on her underside could be nipples, but if they're any larger than a pinhead, beware of abscesses, which could signal that her whole immune system is crashing and she's got both pneumonia and systemic infection problems.  She really really needs to be seen by a good rabbit vet, now, not later.  

I don't think you're "just fussing."  I think your bunny might be having a serious problem (I can't see her to know for sure), and if you have *any* doubts, get her to a good *rabbit* vet ASAP!

I hope this helps!

Dana