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.

 

[ksalvagno]

Did she just sneeze once or is she sneezing on a regular basis?

If she just sneezed once, then probably just some dust or something. If she is sneezing a lot, then you need to look into it further.

 

[ZCrazychicklady]

If she continues to sneeze and has mucous coming out of her nose, especially white, pussy looking mucous, you need to treat her right away and isolate her. I have used a bicillin with success before. I have been trying it and then baytril after no luck on the first set of injections and it didn't clear up. It must be a resistant strain I have now, but you won't know unless you try one or the other.
The bicillin I got at a farm and feed type store, but I had to get the baytril from a vet and that is what she said she treats snuffles with.
Mine showed up from a doe I bought from a fellow breeder while we were at a show and she was fine when we came home, but 3-months late when she kindled ( that day ) she started sneezing. It didn't spread right away, I couldn't remove her from the litter. I weaned as soon as possible and by then the kits had all gotten it and through the herd it started. I couldn't isolate them since I have had a weasel problem in my out door hutches. I had to cull 10 rabbits a couple of weeks ago finally, and now I have 3 more sneezing who are going to have to go.
Between a dog attack and this respiratory problem, I am almost out of rabbits.
I hope you have better luck and it clears up quickly.
Good luck.

 

[ZCrazychicklady]

P.S. VetRX will help a little with some of the symptoms but is no way a cure.

 

[Lorelai]

I think she just inhaled some hay dust or something, and I overreacted. It's been a long time since I had animals and I think I was feeling nervous about messing up with rabbits so early into our adventure. As far as I know she hasn't sneezed since, and all ten babies are happy, healthy, weaned, and in their own place for the time being. I think mama is happy to have them out from under foot, to be honest...