Chandler's Medical Thread

[Sef]

We adopted a 5-year old male (Chandler) two weeks ago, with the hope that we might be able to pair him with our little 8-year old male (Hal---adopted in January) after he had settled in. The previous owner offered to have Chandler vet-checked prior to us taking him, which she did and he had a clean bill of health other than a weepy left eye, so I have had him housed in the same room as our other guys and had planned to let Chandler and Hal have a play date soon. I have been flushing the eye with saline daily and using a little Terramycin on it. He doesn't have any other symptoms.

In the meantime, the previous owner happened to casually mention that Chandler had been housed in the same room as their rabbis. This was the first time I had heard anything about rabbits. Concerned that the weepy eye could be Bordetella or Pasteurella from the buns, I scheduled an appointment with my own vet for this past Friday. Our regular vet was out of town so we saw the new vet for the first time; she is an exotics specialist and seemed pretty knowledgeable.

This new vet didn't think the weepy eye was anything serious and didn't want to put new guy on antibiotics just yet, but she recommended that we keep Chandler housed separately for 3 months just to be on the safe side. Again, Chandler's cage has been in the same room as our other three, so in theory they have already been exposed.

I have never seen a recommendation for a 3-month quarantine but am certainly willing to wait longer than usual just to make sure Chandler doesn't develop any other symptoms. I'm just curious if anyone else has seen or heard of keeping a rabbit-exposed guinea pig separated that long. Had the previous owner not mentioned it, I would have not have known and would have moved forward with introducing him to Hal next week. And who knows how many other pigs we have had over the years who might have been in contact with rabbits that we weren't aware of.

Ugh.

[ItsaZoo]

That seems like an awfully long time. I know they do that with dogs in case of rabies because that can take months to develop, but I thought 3-4 weeks for bordetella.

[Lynx]

I'm with ItsaZoo. It sure does seem like a long time - and with already possible exposure (if there is anything), hard to know if such a long time is warranted.

If he is not showing any other signs of illness, I don't know.

[Sef]

That is my feeling, too. My thought is to maybe continue housing him separately through the end of this month, and then see how he's doing and maybe go ahead and give them a playdate. The vet did not want to do a test for bordetella, as she said it involved sedation. I just have zero experience with it.

[Lisa12]

I think you should watch for nasal discharge, heavy sneezing attacks, lung sounds and stuff like this-from our experiences with uris(including bordetella -what helped Irie was gentamicin nebulizer and he only got nebulizer couple of times in his life-actually beside sneezing and bit of discharge it was no other signs at all..he was always bomb like so happy, so poweful..so..it wasnt big deal)
but as you know Win has some enteroccoccus that is different story..
Anyway i wish you good luck..
And we always diagnosed them without sedation-vet take nasal discharge sample for culture-even with Winnie when there is not any visable discharge as was with Galli and Irie.

And maybe Chandler is not infected , anyway..i think and hope he s not..

[Sef]

Thanks for your thoughts on this. He is doing really well and there have not been any additional signs. I feel as though it will be worth the risk to let him have a meet-and-greet soon with Hal, as Hal is lonely and so is Chandler. July 1 will be one month since we got Chandler, so surely something more would have developed in this period of time if he were dealing with something upper respiratory.

Fingers crossed.

[SardonicSmile]

My nearly six year old has a weepy eye on and off, her cagemates usually help her out by licking it clean. Hal might do the same for Chandler once introduced.

[Renonvsparky]

My nearly six year old has a weepy eye on and off, her cagemates usually help her out by licking it clean. Hal might do the same for Chandler once introduced.

Funny. Wilber used to do that for Grady. Now that he's gone, Grady takes care of it himself. He wipes it with his front paw and licks it clean. Guess Wilber taught him well.