Young rabbit with sudden diarrhea

Question
Back in December our family rabbit became suddenly ill with diarrhea, would not eat, but would drink and died within 9 hours.

2 weeks ago we got a new rabbit. A baby, so I would guess she is around 10 weeks old now. We got a new cage, new feed, new water bottle, new dish incase anything was still contagious from the last rabbit. Sunday morning I checked on her quick before going to bed around 3am, she was good as always. When I got up at 10:30 am and checked her she was sick with the diarrhea, not eating, but drinking water, lethargic. I have no way to get her to the vet. I have been giving her pedialyte, water and baby food carrots via syringe. I tried to give her mashed up rabbit feed but it clogs the syringe and that seems to be the only way I can force food into her. The vet recommended feeding her the droppings of my neighbors healthy rabbit, but again, no matter how much water I add it clogs the syringe.

The feed store recommended I give her water soluble Terramycin. But I see online that that can actually cause diarrhea, and I don't want to make it worse. She won't eat any Timothy hay, and not sure how to force feed that.

She has alot of fight in her still. She just lays in the cage but when I get her out to feed her she moves around and puts up a heck of a fight, so I'm holding out hope. She's fought it for 27 plus hours, 3 x's longer than the last rabbit.

I don't know what else to do for her. I don't know how much/how often I should be giving her the baby carrots, pedialyte, water etc. And I just don't know what else I should be doing for her. Any help?

Answer
It sounds as though you are dealing with the common problem of coccidiosis -- a parasite the invades the intestines of rabbits and other animals.  You MUST treat the rabbit with the correct medicine that you can only get from a vet to kill the parasite (terramyacin will not do the trick since it is an antibiotic and you are not dealing with an infection).  What you are doing now is all good to keep the bunny strong for a short time until you can begin treatment.  Young rabbits are very suseptable to coccidiosis and without treatment, most die quickly.  She probably also needs an injection of liquids to keep her strong.  My advice is to get this bunny to a vet asap, if you can't take the rabbit see if the vet will give you the wormer to take home for her.

BRenda