Rabbit Care - How to Give Medications to your Rabbit

Aileen Kara Hudspeth: Hi, my name is Aileen Kara Hudspeth with Friends of Rabbits. I am here talking about how to care for your rabbit. Now we are going to discuss giving medications. Giving medications to rabbits can be difficult. However, it is doable as being at home and not being at the doctor's office. We are going to try and help you learn up techniques that you can use to make those pills getting down a little easier. Now currently we have been telling you that treats are not to be given regularly for an animal. However, if medications need to be given, treats seem to be the best way to look at it because if you know that your rabbit is going to want to bite into a banana which is his or her favorite treat, why not? Take a piece of that banana and then what you can do is, say you have been given a pill that you need to get down. You can hide this pill in the banana and then there is a possibility it's going to get down because you know your bunny really loves having this banana. But there are other also treats you can use to incorporate with pills. For instance, if you have a smaller pill you could be able to possibly pocket it into a raisin or a piece of dried fruit like an apple. At some points you are going to have to ask your doctor if the pill that you are about to use can be crushed if your rabbit is kicking the pill back out spitting it. Then you may need to look at making it more of a powdered consistency and again, taking powder and then we will use the powder into a piece of fruit and that's another way to try administer that pill that you are having problems getting down. You can easily use a rolling pin with some weight, very easily over that pill, just a little bit of weight, easily crush it, don't have to roll, you could also take that same pill and crush it using an apothecary. Now some of the ways you are going to have to give medications can be different. We are obviously here talking about oral. There are also medicines you are going to have to give that are not going to be oral. Oral medications could also be given through the syringe and if you are having problems with the medication you have been giving actually going down you really want your rabbit to lick the medication out of the syringe on their own. However, that's not always possible. You can use alternatives like baby food or a smoothie consistency fruits to be able to put in here and mix with the medication so that it gives them a consistency they like the taste of and it still gets the medication down which is truly what your goal is here. Now sometimes, you will find that you need to be able to feed your rabbit and they don't want to eat at all. That means no treats, they are not eating and you need to be able to not only get medication down, but you need to be able to get some substance in them. You need to make sure that they are getting their nutrients. There are things such as this Critical Care here that you would take, mix with water. The portions are listed and your veterinarian can provide you with an adequate amount you should use per day to supplement what they are not getting, that they should be getting because they have failed to continue eating proper diet. Now the rarity would be that your doctor would expect you to start giving medications under the skin or even have fluids like this one. If you have any questions on how to do this or if you are prepped with having to do this, make sure you ask your veterinarian to run you through it so that you can make sure that you are comfortable with doing that at home. Obviously, that would include any type of medications you would have to give under the skin. I am sure that they would be willing to show you how to make sure that you are doing that properly. So when you go home, you are a little bit more comfortable than perhaps the doctor was giving it to your pet when they were at the veterinary clinic. These are some of the hints that you can use especially if you have a rabbit that doesn't want to work real well with you. You can easily take a blanket or a towel like this one and wrap them up gently and hold their feet down so that you are not going to get scratched or kicked when you are trying to administer some of these medicines because not necessarily do they taste well that they may not go down real well and you need to make sure that you are protecting yourself and the rabbit from either one of you injuring themselves. These are just some things that you can think about when you have to give medication to your rabbit. Next we are going to talk about rabbit housing.