Cooling Down your Rabbits & Flystrike Information
     
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One Way of Cooling Down Your Buns!!!
As you can see, rabbits are not afraid of the water and actually can have a lot of fun in the water. Wehave found that the rabbits when really hot, enjoy a 5 minute dip in the pool. When placing rabbits inwater though, set them in hindquarters first. You want to then set the forequarters in and splash some water on them. Before we take the rabbits out of the pool, we will flip them over on their backs and hold shut the ears at the ear base while getting the rest of the ears wet, (this is so no water goes down into the ear canal). This will instantly cool your rabbit down and make them more comfortable.

* I do not suggest doing this with any wool breed rabbits though. I feel that they can get dry enough before the cooler evening air comes and would then endanger them for getting pnuemonia.

** Warning - Never leave buns unattended while in the pool, as there is no Lifeguard on Duty!

How can I keep our rabbits cooled down at home and while showing them?
On this page you will find a few suggestions on how to keep your rabbits cooled down while showing them and while at home. These are just suggestions that we have ourselves used just about every summer with great results. We have not lost a rabbit since 1994 due to heat.

Hope you will find these suggestions helpful to you.

When and How can I Cool Down my Rabbits

Here are some tips on when you should need to cool down your rabbits and some suggestions on how to cool them.

Rabbits are an animal that just doesn't handle the heat very well. They need to be kept cool during the time where the temputures go over, lets say 75 degrees.

When the temps go over 75, you need to give the rabbits a fan to move the air around a bit.

When the temps get over 85, you would need to think about another way of cooling them off. A good way is to prefreeze soda pop bottles filled with water. Rabbits like to play with the frozen bottle and they like to lay next to it or on top of it to cool off.

When temps get over 95, you may want to spray the outsides of the rabbits ears down. The ears on a rabbit are the point of a rabbits body that releases heat. By spraying down the ears with cool water, you are helping cool the rabbit down a bit.

If the temps get really hot, and you can see that your rabbit is having a hard time, you can take a bucket of water, and dunk the rabbit in it up to the rabbits neck. You don't want to get water inside the rabbits ears, eyes or nose. The way you can tell if your rabbit is at the point of needing to be dunked is; The rabbit is breathing heavy almost like a pant, your rabbits nose area is wet, or your rabbit seems to be lethargic. These are signs that your rabbit is or is about to have a heat stroke.

One thing that you would want to be cautious with when you dunk a rabbit is, you want to make sure that your rabbit is completely dried off by the time the cool evening sets in. Other wise, your rabbit could end up getting pneumonia.

When temps are really hot you can also place a sprinkler on top of your rabbit barn/building and let the water cool down the roof which in turn will cool down the inside of the building. If you live in an area where you can use misters then that will also help cool down the building by up to 20 degrees. Misters can be used in areas with little to know humidity factor with no adverse problems. High humidity areas shouldn't use misters because there is already to much moisture in the air and you would be risking your rabbits health by using them.

Suggestions for cooling rabbits down while showing them

With all the talk about showing rabbits at fair or during the hot summer months - Lets be Responsible with our buns. I am not saying that you are not, but you could always give these suggestions to someone that may be new to rabbits or maybe just not know period.

These suggestions may help you and/or them manage to keep your/their buns handle the heat better.

Make sure that you do the following;

1. Bring an ice bottle for each and every rabbit that you have entered plus a couple of extras just in case.

2. Bring a spray bottle to spray down the ears

3. Bring a sheet that you could get wet and drape over the cages to block the sun and cool the imediate area down. You can also use a burlap bag. Just cut it down the seam lines so that it will fold out flat. The air/breeze will go through the holes making it act like a air conditioner somewhat. Just clip the sheet or the burlap sack to the cage with some clothspins. It is also a good idea to have the sheet for when you are traveling. We will wet down the sheet and then place over the top of the cages to block the sun from coming in on the rabbits through the windows and the breeze from the fans located in the back of the car blowing on the wet sheet works really good on keeping them cool.

4. Bring fans for your rabbits if you are allowed to. If you are not allowed to use electic fans at the show, then bring some battery operated ones. Wal Mart sells some little battery operated ones that can clip right onto the carrier and are in a shape that makes it hard for the rabbits to chew on. You can actually place these little fans right inside the cage with the rabbit. They put out just enough air to keep the air circulating and cooled just a bit, but that is better than doing nothing at all.

5. If you are showing at a fair then plan on staying around the rabbit area during the hot part of the day so that you can take care of your rabbits. Don't count on fair personal to care for your rabbits. They can't be in all places taking care of everyones animals at the same time.

6. Don't take your best bun if you are worried about the heat. It is better to leave your nice rabbits at home than to sit and worry about them or to loose them.

7. Make sure that you take something to help you keep cool also. If you get overheated it is just as bad. Take a handtowel that you can get wet and wrap it around your neck or buy a neck cooler.

8. Make sure that your rabbit has plenty of cool water, and you too. If you do sell rabbits at the fair. Tell the people that the rabbits must stay in the barn until they are ready to go home so that the rabbit is drug around the fair or you could offer to take the rabbit home with you and then deliver the rabbit at a meeting place in the morning on your way back to the fair. Make sure that you give them some paperwork on how to care for their new bun and explain about the dangers of letting bunnies get to hot. Help educate people on how to keep their rabbits cool.

If you are planning on selling rabbits at a show, then make sure that you bring extra frozen ice bottles so that the new owners can take the rabbit home a little bit cooler. Not all cars have air conditioning in them.

Please Remember, when we are hot, we can take layers of clothes off or go get into a pool or the A/C but rabbits have a permanent fur coat!

Flies and Flystrike - *Warning* This contains some graphic content
Another problem with summer is Flies and Flystrike.Flies are a big problem with rabbits. Not only are they a pesky little insect, they can be the death of a rabbit.

Some flies called Botfly cause a problem called Warbles. Warbles can be found on mainly on the neck and shoulder area. They can be identified by seeing a lump or swelling in that area and on the swelled area of lump you will find what is called a breathing hole that the larve uses. You would want to find the breathing hole and enlarge it so that you can remove the larve. You really need to becareful when doing this though, if not done correctly and the larve parasite is tramatized, it can cause sudden death for the rabbit because of shock.

Once you have successfully removed the parasite, you would need to apply an antiseptic ointment.

Flystrike -*WARNING-WARNING* If you have a weak stomach, STOP READING AT THIS POINT, THIS IS CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT!

Flystrike is probably the grossest thing I have ever come across. Flystrike as I describe is where flies have entered the body of a live rabbit and has made a home within the rabbit. It is where the maggots have literly started eating the insides of a rabbit. If Flystrike is caught in time, you can save the rabbit. If not, then it can be very gross and the maggots will eat the rabbit until it dies a very terrible death. Trust me, you will know if your rabbit gets flystrike, if by nothing else, the smell. The smell is awful.

This is where the gross content comes in. I am going to tell you how to clean your rabbit up from flystrike if you are able to catch it in time.

The first thing that you are going to want to do is have some needed supplies ready. You are going to need some Piperzine, (this is a wormer found at most feed stores) peroxide, luke warm water, towels, antibiotic ointment, tweezers, and if you have it, an old turkey baster, or a syringe with no needle on it, a good light sorce and it would help if you had someone there to help you that had a strong stomach to give you a hand.

Now that you have all your stuff together, pour a bit of Piperzine, (wormer) on the area where you saw some maggots at. Wait a minute, and then rinse with some water. Check the area to see if/how much damage has been done. Once you have done that, then pour a bit of peroxide on the area and allow to bubble up for a minute. This should bubble up some dead maggots that were missed in the rinsing. Rinse again with some more water. If you can see an open area where maggots may have gotton under the skin and into the body, then take the syringe or the turkey baister and try flushing out the area. You may need to use the tweezers to remove some of the stubborn maggots that were still missed. I have found though that using the piperzine, the peroxide and the flushing seems to do a pretty good job.

Once you are sure that you have the area cleaned out of all maggots, then you would want to apply a topical antibiotic ointment or cream like neosporin or something simular. I would follow up with a treatment of injectable antibiotics to play it safe. I would also leave the rabbit indoors away from fly prone areas until the animal has healed. You would want to keep a very good eye on the rabbit and make sure that the area stays clean and dry.

This is just a suggestion on how to take care of this at home. If it is too infested, then you might want to make the descission to put the rabbit down, but hat would be your choice. Or you could take the rabbit to a vet for his or her opinion.

One way of prevent Flystrike is to prevent flies. You can do this by using a fly spray mister that is on a 15 min timer, or fly trap bags, and or fly strips. I happen to use all 3. I figure that I am going to get those little pest one way or another.