Today will be a very brief overview of at home health checks for your rabbit. Health checks will contain many components such as hocks, ears, stools, etc. This will most likely will be posted late, only because of my busy schedule.
What to Check
- Ears- Your rabbit’s ears should be what would be a healthy pink, not too dark, not too light. If you don’t know how they should be, feel free to look into pictures.
- Eyes- Make sure that your rabbit’s ears are clear, clean, and don’t look dry or overly wet. If your rabbit’s eyes look red, foggy, wet dry, etc. check the situation with your vet.
- Hocks- Check for sore hocks or any sort of stools that may be stuck. If the stools are stuck, make sure that your rabbit isn’t having any problems with that. Some rabbits will have long fur around their butt, so make sure that they aren’t getting stools in that fur.
- Nose- Make sure that your rabbit’s nose is clear and isn’t runny.
- Fur- This can be due to old age or shedding, but make sure that hair/fur loss isn’t too major. Check for any choppiness in their fur.
- Digestion/stools- If you notice any stools on your rabbit’s bottom, fur, or hocks, make sure that they aren’t in any lack of fiber, because believe it or not, fiber can help your rabbit’s stools to become sturdier.
- Respiratory- Listen closely to your rabbit’s breathing. By instinct, you will be able to tell if they are breathing heavy, or they are breathing raspy.
- Scent Glands- (Optional in some cases, due to the vets and owner) If you want to check your rabbit’s scent glands to clean them, go ahead, yet many will avoid this step since it is on opinion if you will clean them. If they aren’t cleaned, ask your vet about their opinion and see if they will clean them if desired.
In other cases…
- Stomach- If your rabbit is commonly found with GI stasis, you may want to regularly listen to their stomach’s sounds to determine whether they are healthy or not. You will easily be able to tell the difference between a healthy and upset stomach.
- Stitches- If your bunny had a recent procedure, you will want to look at their incisions regularly to make sure they aren’t pulling, scratching, or biting at them.
- Recent problems- If your rabbit has been any issues lately at all make sure to look into how they are doing under that category.
When it comes to actually checking your rabbit over, you may want to pick them up and place them in a non-territorial area if you would like to keep them under control easier.
How Should You do it?
- Ears- You can look at their ears at any time, but up close is best.
- Eyes- It is easiest to look closely when they are moved somewhere, but can be observed from afar. Make sure that their eyes aren’t runny, otherwise they may have a problem with their tear duct. (I will explain soon in another post)
- Hocks- Simply pick up your rabbit to look at their hocks. It will work best to pull away their fur.
- Nose- Look closely to make sure that it isn’t stuffed or runny.
- Fur- You can easily tell from afar, but you may want to look closely for small details that you may not have realized before.
- Digestion/stools- As for digestion, I would look at their stools in their litter boxes first to make sure that they are normal from there, then when you pick them up to look at their hocks, make sure to check for stools.
- Respiratory- You will need to listen close, easily done by laying next to your rabbit. Determine whether their breathing is good, heavy, or raspy.
- Scent Glands- You will need to pick up your rabbit (I made a post recently on this topic).
- Stomach- You will as mentioned before, need to listen close, possibly by laying nearby.
- Stitches- It will depend on your rabbit’s situation. If your rabbit was recently spayed/neutered, the stitches will be in a different area than if they had leg surgery.
- Others- It will depend on any situation, but lets say your rabbit had ticks, you would want to follow up to make sure that they actually went away.
Thank you for coming back for yet again another post. Check out my past posts to get more info. on all of these topics. I have not been posting as often as I’ve been wanting to, so the plan for the next couple of days is to post everyday for a bit to make up for it, otherwise, I will talk to you then, bye.





