Hugo’s First Vet Visit
Liz and I went together with the bunnies to Ness Exotics. Both were there to get a vaccination shot for a particularly scary disease, that has officially cropped up in Illinois: Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease.
It seems to be primarily spread by wild rabbits, but indoor/domesticated rabbits are still at risk. Sometimes infected rabbits will bleed from the eyes or mouth, but oftentimes there are no symptoms, other than death.
The vaccination process involves an initial shot, and then a follow-up booster some 3 weeks later. Then, 20 days after the booster… the vaccine should be fully in effect. Daisy hasn’t had any shots yet, but Hugo has had his (we adopted him about a year ago, and he got his shots at Red Door).
Daisy’s used to coming to the vet (her blindness probably helps here), but Hugo’s a different matter. He’s still not that used to being handled, and was a bit of a… well, handful. Liz and I need to work on desensitizing him to being picked up, and to get him more comfortable with that.
The virus sounds pretty serious, and is definitely concerning.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the first documented cases originated from Cuddle Bunny (a place Liz and I stumbled across a few years ago). Also looks to be a lot of controversy over the timing of things, as the business solicited donations for vaccinations for their rabbits well over a year ago. And many of their rabbits remain unvaccinated.
As a place of business that also boards rabbits… with so many different rabbits coming/going, it seems incredibly risky to not have had these vaccinations done. And to not have warned boarders about this as well.
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