hi all, we need some advice please, my wifes pet rabbit (BUGS) has been diagnosed with snuffles, we first noticed he was off colour tuesday night around 11pm, no visible signs of illness other than lethargy & the fact he hadn't wolfed down his favourite food, which was enough to raise our concerns.
by 8am wednesday he had yellow discharge around his nose & his breathing was slightly laboured so we rushed him to our vet & he was seen by 0930, unfortunately our usual vet who we trust completely is on vacation & we had to see a VERY young locum who had her nose in a book most of the time, she diagnosed the snuffles & gave an injection of baytril & also an injection of metacam.
+ we were also given some baytrim & metacam to continue treating him at home, total cost so far for treatment £57.42.
the cost isn't an issue, we have been cleaning BUGS nose almost every hour & this is really distressing my wife, BUGS is probably our tenth rabbit & has been the best so far, super friendly with people & other animals, & a real character, but he's nearly six & seeing him like this is very hard on us.
we have researched "snuffles" extensively on the net & its pretty gloomy, most opinions being that this may improve short term but will stay with him for the rest of his life, probably reducing his quality of life.
im about go back to the vet to get a liquid food supplement as he's not eating & we are going to continue his treatment BUT i guess the big question is: Are we doing the right thing or are we maybe prolonging his pain because of our emotional attachment, if anybody reading this has had a bunny with snuffles please let us know how you coped & if the treatment worked, we're really torn on this.
thanks in advance............mark & karen

Ah so sorry to hear this. Snuffles is a pet name for Pasteurella, there is no cure im affraid all you can do is see how he goes, sadly alot of breeders carry Pasteurella and would never even know it them selves its very contagious and spreads really easy.

Ive not come across Pasteurella full blown so cant help you with what needs doing but maybe wait until your usual vet comes back.

Hope he gets better x

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This is quite a good site to read Pasteurella multocida: How to outwit this dastardly villain of rabbits

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pasturella CAN be treated, but it is however a very hard battle, i had an out break of it not so long ago, i lost my beautiful chocolate
as it advances more the gunk will effect the eyes as well as the nose





the gunk is from internal abcesses, i found it NOT to be responsive to baytril, unfortunatly, by the time we figured that out it was too late for chocolate, and the night i decided to try controversial penacillin injections, i lost her

in all i had 4 come down with it, jenny and magic made a full recovery on septrin, vodka is still in isolation, she has been on medication for months, the septrin is holding it at bay, and preventing the abcesses from forming, but we have yet to find anything to beat it for her

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They will always carry the snuffles, the symptoms can be treated but never cured.

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90% of all rabbits carry the bacteria naturally any way, the illness is when it takes over, and that can be treated

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I don't have much advice on snuffles as I've never had to deal with it. I can however suggest offering baby food to tempt him to eat. Ella's Kitchen stage 1's are very good, nothing but fruits and veg in them. Also Hipp organic do a couple of veggie ones too. Look out for ones that don't contain milk or meat. I swear by baby food when any of mine stop eating, its not ideal as a long term diet but short term gives them most of what they need and you can even mush up a few of their normal pellets into the food.

I give mine a little bit as a treat during summer to cool them down since I keep them in the fridge. Now I'm starting to wean Jack the rabbits even come and lick the baby food off his face and hands.

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hi guys, thanks for all the advice, we carried on with the baytril & metacam & we started feeding Bugs supreme science Recovery liquid feed yesterday but rather than perk him up it seemed to have a detrimental effect, causing diarrhea although this also contained a lot of mucus so we assumed this to be the infection spreading.
this morning at 7am we found his eyes were also showing full blown signs of infection & his breathing had worsened, including what appeared to be some sort of spasm in the chest/abdomen area as he breathed.
with very heavy hearts we agreed that his quality of life was deteriorating rapidly & i returned to the vets at 10am, this time seeing a much better locum who confimed it was now in his lungs & that he was very very poorly.
at this point i decided he should suffer no more, the vet initially gave him some gas which put him in to a deep sleep, which at this point was quite comforting as he was snoring & probably comfortable for the first time this week, then she gave him an injection, of which only a little was needed which indicated to me how poorly he was.
im now going to bury him in his favourite sunbathing spot in the garden, which we will mark with a suitable ornament, only seems right after the happiness he gave to us.
thanks again for the kind words of advice, they were very much appreciated.
mark & karen xx

We are sorry for your loss. We lost our Pinky very quickly too (although not to Snuffles)

You have given him a comfortable end and that is the best (although no doubt heartbreaking) you could do.

Our thoughts are with you

Stu and Fi xxx

I am so so sorry for you loss.

For anyone else who may read this thread at a further date please note that it would be wrong to assume this poor bunny had pastrella. There are lots of different respitory infections and the only way to determin which one it is and what antibiotics are effective is by having a culture and sensitivity test.

Whilst baytril is normally the first option in some cases it may not be the correct treatment and you may need to try others like septrin, alamycin or depocillin. In addition to the antibiotics NSAIDS such as metacam are good for helping to reduce the inflamation and a powder called biosolven is excellent for thinning any mucus. Also it is wise to give a probiotic such as bio lapsis alongside the antibiotics to counter the negative affect they have on the gut bacteria. You can also administer some meds via a nebuliser so they get straight to the problem area.

Sorry for all the rambling, I have a long term respitory bunny whos been on meds over 6 months so have a bit of experience with this.