emaciated rabbits with possible ear mites, Help please!!!!

[amyandkids]

Ok so yesterday I got in touch with a woman who had rabbits for sale, 4 of them and she told me the 2 Flemish were small for the breed but they are still kind of young so I wasn't to concerned, so we decided to trade her rabbits for some of my hens. She arrived at my house with the rabbits just before sundown. She gave me the whole cage they were all in, so I looked them over quickly there fur looked good there eyes looked ok but they were all scared huddled together, and she traded her large French lop for a tiny serama hen. The French lop looks beautiful and big, so we made our trade and she went on her way, and in a rush I didn't REALLY check the bunnies to good as my children needed to get to bed and I was busy! This morning as I was putting all the bunnies in there new homes I noticed the French lop was very thin, and the female Holland lop is very thin, the male and female Flemish aren't too thin but thin, the male Holland is the best weight out of all of them! So I went and got T&A hay cubes and show feed and other little rabbit treats along with the mineral blocks for all of them! Then I noticed tonight they are shaking there heads a bit, I also have 20 other rabbits so I know this is not normal! I don't see any mites or scabs, but I did notice some of the bunnies have a weird scar on there ear as if they had cattle tags, or even worse someone pierced there ears for earings!!!!!! I don't know how they were housed before so I don't know if the females are pregnant or not, I hope not as they are in no health for that! What else should I do for them and feed them to get them to a healthy weight? Thank you in advance!

 

[SA Farm]

Congrats on the new rabbits!
Go slowly with the feed - you don't want to upset their digestion! Especially if they're already underweight, the stress of a lot of new and high protein foods can be very dangerous for their health. Introduce everything very slowly rather than just trying to stuff their faces to get their weight up. Gradual is best.

As for the ear mites, if you have some oil, usually mineral oil is good, you can put 2-3 drops in each ear and gently massage the base of the ear. Repeat every couple of days for a week or so, then every 10 days twice just to be sure.
Here's a link for more information: http://riseandshinerabbitry.com/2012/10/30/ear-mites-causes-and-remedys/

 

[amyandkids]

thank you, I believe she may have been feeding just carrots and maybe scraps they have very soft rusty colored poo! Poor babies, even if it was light out I still would have taken them, to save them the best I could!

 

[amyandkids]

oh and im now giving them mostly coastal hay that they were afraid of and im going slow on grain, I will take pictures of my new family members and post them later today!

 

[Hens and Roos]

Good Luck with getting these guys healthy! I agree with @SA Farm about slowly adding feed. Free choice hay and fresh water

I'm guessing that you are keeping them away from your rabbits and handling them last to be safe.

 

[amyandkids]

biosecurity is important here! These new bunnies now have nice poo! and are a lot less afraid when they see me coming! now another thing, the French lop had eye crusties, not terrible but they were there I didn't want to stress her out by cleaning it before, so I did it tonight, witch I think she actually ENJOYED!!!!!! Now she has soars were the crusties were, what if anything should I put on it for it to heal? I had thought it was soar because of her maybe trying to scratch them out herself but I never seen her scratching, and her nails are not bad at all! I think she is younger than they thought she was!

 

[Hens and Roos]

how close to the eye are they? maybe just keeping the area clean will help them heal- especially if she doesn't feel the need to rub that area all the time. my concern with using anything to help the area heal would be that she rub it into her eyes.

glad to hear they are starting to be less afraid!

 

[amyandkids]

yeah I didn't want to put anything that close to her eye. Sorry for the poor quality pics but I don't know how to adjust my daughters monster high camera,LOL, but this was before I cleaned the crusties!

 

[amyandkids]

After we cleaned her eyes we let her play in the bunny run for a while and she would stay about 5 feet away and stretch her head to us and smell but would not come too close! she jumped and twisted in the air like it was celebration time! I love how happy she was, then when she layed down back feet kicked back, she let me walk right over to her and pick her up and put her back in her cage with no problem!

 

[Hens and Roos]

maybe give her a day or 2 and see how/what happens- it could possibly be from her living conditions and diet