This is a post from my mum about the previous rabbit Thumper:
We had Thumper for a little over 8 years and for the first 6 years of his life he had no health issues then one day he suddenly became ill.He was off his feed his head was tilting and he wouldn't drink and water and he was extremely lethargic.We rushed him to the vets and was told that the symptoms were consistent with E.cuniculi.We had never head of this before,the vet said it was preventable by worming with panacur on a regular basis.We had never wormed our bunny,we didn't know that you needed to.To cut a long story short that Christmas we near lost Thumper.the vet kept him overnight gave him saline injections under the skin to rehydrate him,critical care food,panacur and some other injections.After this he seemed to pick up so we was allowed to take thumper home,we carried on with the panacur and the critical care.After a couple of days Thumper went down hill again after taking him back to the vets we had to carry on with the saline injections and other meds too.It took a long time but after a while Thumper pulled through but this parasite left damage,luckily he only had scaring to his eyes and early stages of cataracts but we would have to treat him with panacur wormer 4 times a year especially after stressful situations as once a rabbit gets this parasite you can never completely get rid of it.but you can control it with panacur rabbit wormer.This parasite does kill so I would recommend that all rabbit owners worm their pets regularly.
Encephalitozoon cuniculi also known as E.cuniculi for short is a intracellular protozoan parasite for those that are unsure what that is malaria in humans is the same type of parasite which those that contract it will also know that you can get relapse of symptoms.
EC is a really bad problem. I'm sorry Thumper got EC. Two of my bunnies died from EC, also, Rosie and Brewster. They were best friends! I do not worm my bunnies regularly. Possibly, I will start doing that, as I did not know there was anything to prevent EC. My other four bunnies did not get it. Thank you for the informaiton.
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome for the info,until Thumper got E.C I had never heard of it didn't even knew that rabbits should be wormed so I am sure that alot of rabbit owners have no idea either.There are spot wormers that prevent E.C but the panacur oral paste wormer for rabbits is the best one and seems to be the best one for treating it once a rabbit has it we had to do the first treament for 28 days to get to the recovery stage after that it was just the normal 1 tube of treatment unless he had a relapse of symptoms then it was another 28 days of treatment.from Speedy's mum
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