Gardening with Rabbits
Garden Master
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He is one of the 5 babies that were born in the hutch. I had caught 5 abandoned rabbits in 2012 and one of them was pregnant. Over the years I have lost Pickles and Twinkie, both from the 5 babies. Now, Hot Shot is gone. He was unusual. He was not like a rabbit. He acted more like a dog. He wanted to be held. He loved live and played and played and loved his pen. Nothing ever upset him. Then in March he got an abscess on his cheek. I took him to the vet and the vet said it was Pasteurella. I already knew that it probably was and the vet put him on antibiotics. I had to moisten his pellets. He could not eat greens and he refused to eat unless I put the food in a spoon and held it up. If I walked away and left the food in the bowl for him it would be there when I returned. I have a callous on my finger from that spoon. He would eat and eat and he kept losing weight. I took him back to the vet and asked to try a different antibiotic. He got Snuffles and his lungs were not working good. The new antibiotic was helping. His Snuffles cleared up and his abscess on his cheek was getting smaller. They had put 2 drain holes in and I had to open and drain twice a day with the help of DS. Then, he started to stumble. I am not sure what was wrong, but I think one of his hindlegs had been effected in some way, but also he was getting weak. He never stopped eating and just never stopped trying. He was getting weak where he was not comfortable and so I decided it was time to put him to sleep. I did learn that i will not go through this with the other rabbits. For one thing, the other rabbits would not be like him. He never was upset. He never ran from me. He always came when I came out there. He would stand on his hindlegs at night and climb up in my arms to be held. I hated putting him back in the hutch. The other rabbits if I even just take then out and put in the pen so they can eat grass and get exercise, will start running from me if they think I EVEN DARE make a move towards them. Takes a few days before they stay to get petted when I feed them. This rabbit was something else. I believe all of these rabbits are carriers of Pasteurella and if they are stressed they will show signs. Several have on and off had a watery eyes. I had bought a sack of food in January that was not good. I found out the company had sold and there were recalls on the product. At that time, it was cold and another rabbit was losing weight, an extreme amount. I had to start feeding him a supplement along with his pellets. I now think he had Pasteurella. He was a skeleton. What he has in common with Hot Shot is they both do not eat hay. He was starving with hay in his hutch. Hot Shot also was acting like he was starving and was just starting to lose weight when I started feeding him the supplement and switched them all over to a different pellet. Hot Shot and Cream both put on weight and I thought it was all over until the abscess appeared on his cheek.
It sounds like you did all you could. I think I may be dealing with this same very frustrating disease in our pet rabbit. I took him to the vet and she said she didn't think it was pasturella and she didn't do a culture because he didn't have much discharge in his eyes at the time. He still doesn't now, but she also sent him home with an antibiotic "just in case". She said if it were pasturella it couldn't be cured and could only be managed. She also took a look in Thumper's mouth. He doesn't have any abscesses, but she said his back teeth were a little too long on the bottom. There's a vet an hour from here that will file them down under anesthesia for something like $200, but I can't do that. It's just not reasonable for me to take it to that level. She also said I messed up by giving him free choice pellets and that he should be eating mostly hay. I never knew that before. We had rabbits when I was a kid and I don't know how but they never had any trouble like this. I had one live to be 8 and another 13. 
So I mix a little alfalfa hay into his timothy hay to try to entice him to eat it. He won't eat it unless he is really desperate (although he loves alfalfa by itself, but it's too rich to give all the time.) His 1/4 c. of pellets are gobbled up quickly. He did lose a lot of weight while the eye problem was going on, but has held about the same since, although I'd swear he's eating even less.
