Pink eye

[dcpac]

Hello,
I am new to this forum and new to rabbits. I have been reading all I can for the past month and after I had every thing in order I got 3 Californian rabbits. One of the does has what looks like pink eye, small amount of white discharge. I have been wiping it with cotton balls dipped in green tea and using NFZ puffer powder for 5 days and it seems a little better but not much.

Could I use some left over pink eye medication drops that my son used when he had pink eye?

Thanks,
Steve

[MaggieJ]

Is there any discharge from the nose, any sneezing?

I've used black tea and chamomile tea with and without honey to good effect on kits with nest box eye, but never tried green tea.

I don't know if the pink eye medication your son used would be safe. If the active ingredients are listed you could try doing a google search using the name of the ingredient and the word rabbits.

[dcpac]

Originally Posted by MaggieJ

Is there any discharge from the nose, any sneezing?

I've used black tea and chamomile tea with and without honey to good effect on kits with nest box eye, but never tried green tea.

I don't know if the pink eye medication your son used would be safe. If the active ingredients are listed you could try doing a google search using the name of the ingredient and the word rabbits.

Thanks for the advice. I bought some Chamomile tea last night and will give that a try. There is no discharge from the nose or sneezing, just a half closed eye with alittle white dischage from the eye and it is not as active as the other rabiits.

[MaggieJ]

I'd isolate it and care for it after the other rabbits to avoid any danger of spreading the infection.

I hope someone with more experience of medications will be able to help you out on the question of the pink eye meds. I tend to favour natural remedies and, most fortunately, have had no need to anything more so far.

BTW, welcome to the forum!

[dcpac]

Thanks again. I do have it isolated. I will give it a few more days and ethier spend the money and take it to a vet or cull the rabbit if it looks like she is really doing bad.

This is a great forum I am glad I found it!

[o&itw]

If you get to the point that you are ready to cull the rabbit, there would be no reason not to use the pink-eye medicine. There are very few human external medicatons that can not be used on a rabbit. If you have been using the NFZ medication consistently for 5 days and there is little or no improvment, I would discontinue it. If it were going to work, you would see marked improvment by now, and there is no use to cause further irritation.

[kareninaustria]

I have used human pink-eye medication several times recently on rabbits and have had good results. Mine was left-over too; it is Gentamicin. I googled "Gentamicin rabbits" to find out if it was safe, you could do the same with any medication name.

[Somerhill]

If you have any injectable pennicillin on hand, you can use one drop in the eye. I used to use the eye ointments my vet suggested, and often did not have much luck clearing up eye infections. Since a long-time angora breeder gave me the penn idea, weeping eyes clear up - often with only 1-2 treatments.
Lisa