Emergency Kit For Rabbits

Having an emergency kit for rabbits is extremely important. Rabbits are vulnerable to their environment, and even if you have the best biosecurity possible, things still happen. When we first began breeding and showing rabbits, we learned very quickly that when a rabbit gets stressed out, chaos can erupt in the barn. So we put together a emergency kit for rabbits to make sure that we are always ready to help them if needed. Want to know what we keep in our emergency kit?

Let me tell you why we began keeping an emergency kit for rabbits. A couple of years ago when we first began breeding and showing rabbits, one of the judges saw something nasty in the ear of a fuzzy lop that Peyton put on the table. The rabbit was perfectly fine when we left the house, but by the time we arrived to the show her ear had a lot of discharge coming out. The judge assumed that it was ear mites and loudly embarrassed my daughter. Luckily there was a vet in the building, and we were relieved to learn that it was not ear mites. The rabbit did, however have a pretty severe inner ear infection due to the numbing spray that dripped down into her ear canal when we were tattooing her ear. Now we use a cotton ball in the ear.

The vet wrote us a prescription for some ear drops and told us to give her penicillin shots, but to watch for diarrhea because sometimes penicillin can cause that. Unfortunately the rabbit did get diarrhea, and the vet told us to give her some Imodium AD. Unfortunately we were too late, because we weren’t prepared. We ended up losing the rabbit.

We decided then and there that we wanted to keep an emergency kit for rabbits on hand in case something like this ever happened again. Our emergency kit contains items that we have found necessary over the last few years, but this is definitely not a complete list. As a matter of fact, if you have suggestions for anything that I should add to the kit, please let me know.

Emergency Kit Items

• Imodium AD – If a rabbit gets diarrhea, they can die very quickly. This is a must have for us, although we’ve only had to use it once.
• Mylicon Infant Gas Drops – If you notice that your rabbit isn’t pooping as much as usual, this could be caused by GI Stasis.
• Wet Tail – It never fails. If I take our lionheads to a show, at least one of them will have sticky poop stuck to their wool by the next morning. I use this to combat this problem that can occur due to stress.
• Ear Therapy Drops – Before I started using cotton balls in the ear while tattooing, we noticed that their ears were getting irritated and infected. Using these ear drops immediately after tattooing helps.
• Styptic Powder – We all know I’m prone to clipping nails to short. Peyton has actually banned me from the job forever. But if this happens, styptic powder will stop the bleeding.
• Critical Care Herbivore – This is great to have on hand when you notice that your rabbits are stressed out from heat, travel, or molting.
• Ivermectin – We have started treating our rabbits with Ivermectin twice a year. When late spring and early summer begins, so do the creepy crawlies. We keep an extremely clean barn, but we don’t take chances when it comes to mites or fleas.
• Bene-Bac Plus – We administer this gel anytime there is a rabbit who slows down their food or water intake.
• Bounce Back – Provides vital electrolytes when needed.
• Immunize – This comes in a tube as well as a food topper. I have both. I administer Immunize to all of our show rabbits every day for a week prior to a show. This helps boost their immune system to fight off any germs that they may come into contact with at a show.
• Core Nutrition Silver – This stimulates a rabbit’s appetite and water consumption to help them avoid getting stressed.
• Toltrazuril – I administer this twice a year to fight off any coccidia that may become a problem. All rabbits carry it. Don’t let anyone tell you they don’t.
• Baby food – If a rabbit goes off food or water, adding a small amount on top of their food will entice them to eat.
• Homemade food topper – It doesn’t have a name, but it is pictured above in the little silver pouches. It is baby food that has been mixed with critical care and other beneficial supplements and then freeze dried into a powder. This is another item that we now keep on hand because our rabbits devour their food when added. We get this from Noelle with Angel’s Echo Rabbitry. She always brings them to the shows so I grab a few each time. This is my go to when I notice a rabbit not eating well.

I am not a vet

I think it is important to state here that I am not a vet. This is not a professional recommendation by any stretch of the imagination. This is simply an informative article sharing with you what we have used in our barn. Do your research on each product before using in your rabbitry. Most of these items were suggested to us by other breeders that we trust, but this is not a complete list. Like I stated above, if you have any suggestions for what we should add to our emergency kit for rabbits, let me know! We love to be prepared for the unseeable.