Mama rabbit sneezed!

[Lorelai]

BF and I have been building up our small rabbitry for home meat production, and we recently acquired a New Zealand Black doe with a litter of ten (they are approximately three weeks old) from a family downsizing their stock. We also bought a younger New Zealand Black doe without a litter at the same time. They have been in our garage, isolated from our other rabbits, since we brought them home on Thursday.

Today, we were cleaning out the pans and I noticed the mama rabbit sneeze. Now, I'm pretty new at this, but I've been lurking around this forum for a while and reading a lot of books; from what I understand, sneezing equals BAD. We don't really have the facilities to isolate the mama and her babies, or even the other black doe, without potentially contaminating our other rabbits. Inside the garage is kind of the isolation; the others are outside in a hutch. BF wonders if maybe we just kicked up a lot of hay dust or something that caused mama rabbit to sneeze? Am I overreacting?

We purchased some water soluble vitamins at our local feed store when we first began buying our rabbits, in case they had diarrhea or whatnot in response to their location/feed changes, but I don't know how successfully vitamins can treat colds (or worse, snuffles). It's upsetting, because there are twelve rabbits involved in this, and we are just getting started.

Any advice would be appreciated. I really don't want to lose this doe... she's really sweet and an excellent mama. Worse, I don't want to lose the rest of the rabbits.

 

[Bunnylady]

Did she just sneeze, or did she sneezeandsneezeandsneezeandsneeze and wipe at her face with her paws? Did you see any discharge (particularly white discharge) from her nose, or on the insides of her paws? One sneeze does not an epidemic make, but it is good that you are paying attention!

Pasteurella (snuffles) doesn't usually kill, but it does drag a rabbit down and make it unthrifty. It can impact the value of your animals, simply because nobody wants to buy sick rabbits. Some rabbits may recover from this condition, either with antibiotic treatment or spontaneously, only to have a recurrence when they experience some stress.

I hope for your sake that it is just a little dust, or a hair up her nose. Good luck with your new rabbits!

 

[Lorelai]

I'm probably paying a little too much attention... I'm a worrier by nature.

BF did the reasonable thing and pulled her out, examined her nose and toes, and determined that she was fine. No discharge and no crusty fur. She sneezed and swiped at her nose a bit, but it probably was a bit of alfalfa hay up her nose. Can't fault a girl for sneezing it out.

Thank you for the advice and support! I'm already feeling very attached to the ones we hope to keep around for a good long while.