At The Animal Doctors, we provide health checks, medical and surgical care of your pet rabbit.
Basic Health Care:
Feeding the right diet to your pet rabbit is essential as many disease problems of house rabbits result from an improper diet. Our rabbit friendly veterinarians will be able to advise you on the right dietary needs for your rabbit.
A full physical exam, including a dental exam is performed during a health check.
We are also able to advise you on the following:
• Housing and bedding
• Socialisation
• Handling
• Toilet training
• Exercising your rabbit
• How to rabbit-proof your house
• Flea and tick prevention
• Control of gastrointestinal parasites
• Any other health problems
We also offer in house laboratory tests and diagnostic imaging for our rabbit patients.
Rabbits carry bacteria known as Bordetella bronchiseptica in their respiratory system, rabbits are not commonly affected by this bacteria but if housed together with guinea pigs, this bacteria can be fatal in guinea pigs. It is our recommendation that both these species are not housed in the same environment together.
Preventative Desexing:
It is our strong recommendation that all pet rabbits are desexed. There are distinct benefits to desexing both female and male rabbits.
Female rabbits: 80% of female non-breeding rabbits develop large ovarian cysts or a nasty cancer of the uterus by the age of 3. De-sexing your rabbit has been shown to prolong their lifespan from 3-5 years old to a ripe old age of 10-12 years old. The ideal age for de-sexing a female rabbit is 6 months.
Majority of behavioural problems exhibited by rabbits are due to their hormones. Common encountered behavioural problems include, territorial marking, aggression, fur pulling, barbering, self mutilation and many more are all induced by hormones. De-sexing both male and female rabbits is the first step to controlling these behavioural problems.
We all know that rabbits are prolific breeders; most will be able to reproduce by the age of 4 months. Once given birth, rabbits can reproduce again after 2 months. Desexing reduces many problems our house rabbits face and we strongly recommend doing so at the age of 6 months.
Don’t hesitate to contact us to book a health check for your rabbit!
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