RABBITS WHICH MUTILATE THEIR PAWS OR FLANKS


"Bailey in bandages" - c. Susan Cleghorn

Self mutilation by rabbits is rare but not unknown. It may start with an itch, then develop into compulsive licking/chewing. They can start biting themselves anywhere they can reach but the paws, particularly the front ones, are the most usual site. It is more common in late summer and autumn.

SYMPTOMS
Persistent chewing/licking by rabbit. There are patches of bare skin. The area chewed is wet. Blood on paws or bloody pawmarks. Eventually the toes may drop off exposing long claws. Rabbit ³boxes the air² or shakes its affected feet.

The vet needs to rule out atopy (allergy), contact allergy, foreign body reactions, localised skin parasites like cheletiella, sarcoptese, neoplasia, bacterial or fungal paronychia.

CAUSES
It may be any of the following:

1. Ergotfrom contaminated food.
2. Stressand boredom because of poor conditions, no activity in a small hutch.Gnawing the foot is something to do.
3. Painfrom arthritis. Rabbits confined in small hutches often develop bonedisease and arthritis due to lack of exercise.
4. Inflamednerves after anaesthesia.
5. Nervousdamage because of injuries etc. this may occur as a result ofintramuscular injections.
6. Hereditarycondition. A tendency seems to run in families. DIAGNOSIS

Careful veterinary examination, blood tests, Xrays etc. These will rule out some of the possibilities. Make sure any possible causes like parasites are treated anyway.

TREATMENT
Depending on the cause, try pain killers like metacam, antihistamines, steroids, antibiotics. Heloperidol (Dozic) has been used at a rate of 0.2-0.4mg/kg on lab rabbits with the heritary problem. Surgery for the affected feet. Animals may need treatment for the rest of their lives. Occasionally, even when medication is continued, the animal starts attacking another foot. Like an addiction, it can break out again.

REFERENCES FOR YOUR VET
Lapis clinical information from Vetstream Harcourt-Brown F, 2002, Skin diseases in The Textbook of Rabbit Medicine, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002. Rees Davies, R, New Direction, CPD Journal, Jan 2003, p 13. Ingluaer, F et al, 1995, Laboratory Animal, vol 29, 385-393. Beyers, R M, et al, Laboratory Animal Science, vol 41, pp 519-520.

BAILEY - A CASE HISTORY
"Bailey who is now just three, and Morag, her mother who is five or thereabouts are two rabbits who have lived with us since Bailey was seven weeks old. They were "rescue rabbits", and both have been spayed. Bailey has always been very lively and inquisitive. When she was about 18 months old, we had noticed that when she was out in the garden, running round, she would suddenly stop and start gnawing her front paw, so vigorously that she sometimes fell over. I took her to the vet who checked her thoroughly and was able to exclude heart or ear problems or fits as the cause of falling over. She was also "air boxing" with her front paws at this time.

About six months on, I noticed faint bloody paw marks on the paper in the hutch where the rabbits sleep over night, and we had another trip to the vet. Both rabbits had all orifices and limbs checked and again we found nothing that could be the cause.

Six months after that, Bailey had been chewing at one of her hocks, which had blood pouring from it. The vet on duty said that she must have had a pressure sore on the hock: this was bandaged up and after a week the problem seemed to have been resolved. Then early in January of this year Bailey's leg started to look all chewed again and we went back to the vet.

He gave her an anti-inflammatory injection but it seemed to make no difference - the leg got more chewed and it had started to turn black. This vet said that he thought the cause was "between the ears" but the leg was bandaged to try and protect it and let it heal up, and we gave Bailey regular doses of Baytril, to fight the infection. We kept both rabbits indoors and could see Bailey chewing at her leg most of the time, like a dog at a bone. In fact, we were rewarding the chewing behaviour, because we tried to distract her with food and attention when we saw her chewing. This was clearly a stressful time for her: one afternoon she had a little fit and we took her along to the vet for a check up and an "all clear" but by evening GI stasis had set in. Four days later she had another very serious bout of GI stasis and we were starting to wonder what her quality of life was like. She pulled through that and her leg started to heal up a bit, although we still didn't know what the cause was. Her leg was mending slowly and, on one of our check ups, one of the vets who had been treating Bailey produced a magazine. It was a copy of "New Direction" that had just come into the practice and included an article about self-mutilation in rabbits . The vet discussed the article with us, and we were offered Metacam for Bailey. We changed their accommodation, too. We don't know whether it was the medication or the change of accommodation, or a combination of the two factors but for the past six months, Bailey hasn't chewed herself.