In which I'm bad at injecting antibiotics.

12:22 PM

DISCLAIMER: I am not a veterinarian, nor a vet student. I have simply learned everything I'm writing about here from 4H, books, the internet, and other farmers. I really have no idea what I'm doing. I am simply blogging about my life right now, and this is what is happening. If you have any advice, please comment.

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My short attention span is nothing new. I've dealt with it my whole life, and the hobbies I've invested in over the years has reflected that. 

While it started out simply as a fascination with horses, I dedicated ten years of my life to 4H.

If you didn't grow up in a small town you likely don't know what 4H. Let me explain.

4H is a youth organization that is very similar in essence to FFA (Future Farmers of America). 4H is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (you know, USDA, the people who control your food). While most of 4H's teaching tools are on the topic of agriculture, they encourage personal growth by working in the community and living healthy. Members are encouraged to learn, and the organization encourages studies in science outside of animal and plant science.There are currently over 6.5 members in the United States.

And what does 4H stand for? Head, Heart, Hands, and Health. 

So, I participated in my small little club for ten years before other parts of life began to get in the way. You can probably guess what I was left with when I stopped being active in the organization.

A lot of livestock.

Over the past five years, my animal population has been steadily declining. The goats were given to friends and rabbits and other small creatures were taken by predators and not replaced. I am currently left with the animals I have the time to dedicate to: horses, two geese, a turkey, a small flock of chickens, and three rabbits.

Through my years of keeping many pets, I've learned to do my own basic veterinary care, as sick animals tend to break the bank. Chickens are the mostly with broken legs, pneumonia, a punctured trachea, etc... and I've only ever had four animals die on me: a pigeon that went into shock after being attacked by a hawk (I was eight), a rabbit that started seizing and died within the day, a goat with tetanus, and a rooster who died of seizures after an attack (I will not go into the gory details, it was one of the most disgusting experiences of my life).

Most of the time, I can manage these problems on my own. It's not usually difficult, a large majority of the time they make a full recovery. 

Which, leads me to my current dilemma. 

If you own rabbits and have the personal misfortune of having to know what wry neck is, I sympathize with you. Wry neck, also called head tilt or torticollis, is a set of symptoms that are...well pretty gruesome. I'm not going to post a photo here, if you want to see it, you can google it. 

Wry neck in rabbits can be brought on by a variety of causes, thus making it fairly difficult to treat.
Possible causes include: 
1.) A parasite called Encephalitozoon cuniculi 
2.) Inner ear infection
3.) Dehydration
4.) Stress
5.) Brain stem damage from disease, trauma, or stroke. 

Now, here are my rabbit's specific symptoms.
1.) Head tilt
2.) Loss of balance
3.) Unable to gain footing, or rolling
4.) Rolling eyes
Luckily, that's about it. 

Since Alex the bunny is not experiencing any sort of paralysis I can semi-rule out stroke or brain stem damage. Her stress level hasn't changed significantly recently, and she was not without water at any time before her symptoms appear.

Which narrows it, hopefully, down to two possibilities: parasite or infection.

Now comes the tricky part. Trying to figure out how to treat her. 

This is the stuff I used. You know, thought I should provide a photo. 

First step: I separated her from the two other rabbits. I set up a cage in my garage, filled it with soft towels (since she's rolling), a water bottle she can still reach when lying on her side, and timothy hay. 

Second step: Monitor feeding and drinking at least three times a day. While she can eat if the food and water is close enough to her so she doesn't need to move, she needs to be monitored to make sure she eats it and drinks enough water.

Third step: Give her a daily dosage of wormer, I've been using fendendazole which had been recommended as successful. You can find this wormer as the puppy wormer Panacur (which you can get from your vet or online) and the horse wormer Safe-Guard. I've been using Safe-Guard because it was the only one I could find in the area. I usually give this to her in the afternoon, and mix it with water so she can drink it from an eyedropper. 

Fourth step: Give her a daily dose of antibiotics. I use Agri-Cillin a livestock antibiotic. This may be difficult to administer if your rabbit is in the rolling stage, which I continue to have trouble with. I'm sorry Alex that you have to deal with my less than stellar injecting skills.

I repeat steps two through four everyday. I'm not sure for how long we will keep this up, but I will update soon. We've only been at this for three days.

I'm so scared of failing this rabbit. Luckily, she is no longer getting worse, and she's slightly getting better (she stood briefly under my watch last night). I just hope that, first she isn't left with permanent brain damage, and second that she doesn't get worse. In that case I may have to take her to the vet to be put down.

So, I'll keep updating. This treatment has worked for others, and I hope it does the same for Alex.

Wish me luck, I'll see you tomorrow. 

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Author

Kali Kavouklis is a journalism student with a focus on photojournalism. She also minors in entomology and nematology and wildlife ecology and conservation.