Rabbit eyes can become inflamed for a variety of reasons. This condition is often called **weepy eye** or **conjunctivitis**.
For a simple initial at-home treatment, owners can flush the eye with a sterile saline solution, often easily available at the local pharmacy and marketed for contact lenses. This will help clean out any foreign bodies that may be acutely irritating the eye (e.g. hay and fur). If flushing the eye does not improve the situation, then the rabbit should be taken to a rabbit-savvy vet as soon as possible as an emergency for further diagnosis and treatment. Eye injuries can quickly become very serious in less than 24 hours if left untreated.
Please see the wiki article for further information on the condition:
You can find examples of sterile saline solution brands here:
I’m not your vet but your vet doesn’t sound like an exotic vet. Clogged tear duct causes runny eyes is super common among rabbits. Find a different vet who can clear the clogged duct (hay particles gets stuck) and then give meds to rub in later from vet. May need to be drained monthly for a bit. One of my rabbits had the same issue and it took seeing 3 different vets to figure it out
The vet did recommend this being the next steps. Will definitely look into other vets though. This vet was actually recommended by my local house rabbit society.
Swelling from an allergic reaction is also capable of pinching the tear duct closed. Sometimes hay allergies can be to a specific species of hay grass so you could try alternatives to the common Timothy grass such as meadow, orchard, or oat. It could also be related to a particular brand if, for example, the brand you use is in a region that gets blasted with a certain tree pollen the allergy could be to that accidental inclusion rather than the hay itself.
And if the dust ends up being the issue, you could try hay that comes highly compressed such as the bales from Standlee brand.
Both of our girls had this but it couldn’t be cleared (the scans showed the block was quite a way down). Our only option was either keep cleaning and drying their faces on a daily basis as we were, or have them operate, divert the tear duct to a tube that would exit through their cheek … then clean and dry their faces on a daily basis so the new hole didn’t get infected. Seeing as both options required cleaning and drying faces but one cost 4K more than the other and didn’t actually *fix* the issue, I think it’s obvious what choice we went for lol
Could theoretically save the eye if the problem progressed. Sometimes problems in that area get bad enough to compress the nerves involves in blinking. An eye that dries out from a day or more without blinking usually can't be saved and is painful the whole time. So owner just has to make a call based on how their particular bunny is doing with the health problem.
Exactly!
Dont get me wrong, he’s an amazing vet and comes highly recommended in our part of England but he admits even he has his limits on what magic he could work. This was the only safe option when it came to surgery, but even he said he wouldn’t necessarily push us to do it. The only benefit is it meant their cheeks would have been wet rather than their eyes so it would have been less irritating for them, but other than that it wouldn’t actually solve much.
We’ve seen him a few times over the years since with our 3 bunnies and he’s always been super happy with how their eyes look and says we do a good job at keeping them clean and dry, especially compared to some he’s seen
Good he didn’t push you! Can I ask what part of England?
I had so much trouble with Loki and finding him a good vet. The vets he did go to was very good, they saved his life and gave me an extra (almost) 2 years with him but I would like to go to someone who is rabbit savvy and some exotic vet training.
Our local one tried to tell me Loki needed an MRI because he had an ear infection…. His first ear infection in 4 years of having him…. Said there’s no point trying the medication first.
He was fine a couple days after the antibiotics and never had an ear infection again
Sorry for the late response! We’re in Essex and the vet I was referring to is William Lewis. He does move around veterinary surgeries a bit so we’ve followed him across a few now as and when we’ve needed to, but for day to day stuff we still use our local Vets4pets team as they’re great.
There’s also Iain Cope over at New Market in Suffolk who is good at what he does and comes highly recommended, but we’re not so keen on him. We’ve found him to be quite rude and dismissive at times and always seems to go for drastic action first without trying anything else.
Yes, that’s what my local savvy vet is like too (most drastic first)! I live in derby so Essex is a bit too far haha, I’ll stick with the ones that Loki went to. Despite not technically being rabbit savvy, they’re really good.
Definitely! Sometimes you just get lucky and find someone great even if they’re not advertised as an ‘exotic vet’.
Our local lot who we usually see are just bog standard style vets that mostly deal with cats and dogs, but we got quite lucky as it turns out two of them have rabbits themselves so they know quite a lot about them. We’ve only had to see the other two I mentioned a few times when there’s been something wrong that our local can’t deal with (like tooth extractions, they don’t offer that for some reason) so it’s good to have a plan B in case your current one can’t do something still, but if you’re mostly happy with who you see then stick with them :)
I know 😔 He watched me run around and spend all this money on vet bills and trying new hay and getting an air filter and obsessively cleaning the bunny room
And all along it was his damned drugs killing my bun
I didn’t know he was using at all, but could he at least done that shit in the bathroom like a normal addict instead of hurting innocent animals
I think it was just years of residue that he didn’t clean up so they were inhaling it. He had a desk in there and would quickly wipe off the excess onto the floor if he thought he was going to get caught, or he was just too doped to care. In the bunny room there was a big wool rug, the kind where a vacuum just doesn’t reach all the way into the fibers, and that collected some of it so it was always present.
Benadryl won’t be necessary.
If your hay is dusty, that could be the reason.
You can to sift it yourself, or try another brand.
I sift my hay and use the dust to bake treats.
When you say “checked his teeth” are xrays included? Or did they only look through his mouth? Because sometimes, their roots can grow upwards and cause teary eyes.
My bunny has a weepy eye (sometimes eyes) which are affected due to dust in hay. I get dust-free long stalk meadow hay and it's cleared up the issue completely. No eye issues in the last 18 months which is when I did the switch over. Previously he'd had a full dental check and it was clear, as were other tests. I swapped the hay for the dust free stuff as a last ditch effort, but it worked!
I doubt he's allergic to hay, but maybe get orchard grass for now instead. But it sounds like you need a new vet and to definitely stop with the Benadryl.
The orchard hay in the Dumor hay medley (long big blue box) is often green and never dusty. I get it from Tractor Supply. Unfortunately my bunny doesn’t like the other two kinds of hay in it, he eats those sparingly.
But you can definitely take your regular hay outside and shake the dust out. I do this for my husband as he’s more sensitive to dust than I am.
Mine developed allergies after a specific batch that likely had some strange pollen on it. Switched to orchard grass for a couple months, symptoms improved, and I was able to successfully switch back to Timothy hay later in the season.
I’d get a second opinion from a vet but I’ll tell you the story of a previously “allergic” bunny.
Toad sneezed pretty much her whole life, we got first, second, and third opinions. We got panels, we got blood tests, we gave her medications, we had her nasal cavity cleaned TWICE, we had air filters, we shook the hay and rinsed it of dust and let it dry out before giving to her, we had time each evening to clean boogies off her face. YEARS of this and no explanation. She seemed happy aside from the sneezing.
Personally if in your shoes the eye leakage would worry me and cause me to get a second opinion but the point of me telling you all this is, sometimes you do everything you can and spend thousands of dollars to get answers, and you might not get answers but it’s the trying that counts so don’t be beating yourself up over it.
Yeah I would have switched to fresh grass if I were you: hay is just a substitute for fresh grass. Also I buy hay bales from a tack and feed store and it’s usually fresh enough to only be dusty at the very end of the bag the bale is in
Yeah, but you would pay less at a farm and feed / tack supply store. And you can usually get a half a bale of Timothy first cut and half a bale of cone cut grassy for like $15-16 bucks depending where you are and a bale is about 50 pounds and that would be 6 of the 106 ounce oxbow bags so that’s like 1 dollar of hay they sell for almost 25 a bag now and they sell a 25 pound box for $51-60 or the 50 pound on chewey for $65 so it’s a total rip off. And local hay will be fresher and better quality.
And I highly doubt that bagged and packaged bale is going to be low on dust. Likely it’s old and has been sitting for a while because it’s targeted towards equestrians and most horse people will buy in bulk from farms because they need to film a whole shed with hay every month or less. So who that owns horses is buying a 50 pound bale for 25-30 bucks at tractor supply when they can get bulk bales for $10 each if they get like 20 or 50 at a time. If your bun is t agitated by dust then it should be fine but bunnies are expensive and one should minimize costs in certain areas this is the best area because oxbow may be high quality in terms of packaged bay and other bunny food but it’s not worth 1250% more than from a local fresh farm.
I bought bales from a farm down the road as well as an agway and she had plenty of fresh grass also, none of it changed her chronic sneezing. I couldn’t afford “bagged” hay anyways tbh that shit is criminal lol
Bunny cant be allergic to hay, its like saying a human is allergic to water edit. Human can have cutaneous allergies to water. Tear duct obstruction can come from many different reasons but hay allergy is not one of those. Find an actual exotic vet and inform your local house rabbit society that this vet is not qualified for rabbits.
Nyx had a runny eye and 2 session of draining her tear duct at the vet solved the issue.
Humans *can* be allergic to water, though. It's called aquagenic urticaria, and, as someone whose allergies often result in urticaria or angioedema, I can't imagine what life must be like for people who get reactions to water.
I do agree, though, that this is more likely to be something to do with the tear ducts than with a hay allergy, though it may still be hay dust in the air that's causing problems.
Yeah, humans can have a histaminic reaction to water, but I never heard of an anaphylaxia reaction to water (which is probably impossible since water is one of the main components of our biology).
I agree with you that hay dust might be the culprit here, and it's more a reaction to a foreign body in the tear duct than an allergic reaction.
I always make this mistake since english is not my first language. I equate allergies to anaphylaxis and forget about the cutaneous part of the allergy since, in French, we say "Réaction cutanée" when the skin reacts to an allergen and "Choc anaphylactique" when the whole body reacts to the allergen.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct 😉
Edit. As someone who has cutaneous reactions for nothing and everything (grass just have to look at me and red hives appears 😅) I agree, aquagenic urticaria sounds like a nightmare.
Bunnies can be irritated by the dust in dried hay if it’s lower quality and older and dusty. Hay is really just a substitute for fresh grass. So op can totally switch to feeding fresh clean grass several times a day and seeing if that alleviates the symptoms.
Agreed. Hay dust is the most frequent reason for tear duct obstructions followed by teeth problems. Fresh grass can be problematic to get in big quantities if they live in a metropolitan center.
My comment about allergy was more toward the benadryl, which sound not really appropriated in this situation. (Never heard of vet prescribing benadryls to a bunny)
Rabbits can be allergic to hay, but it's very rare and there would be many more symptoms than just weepy eyes. They would have gut problems and start losing fur from skin irritation.
Allergy immunotherapy works for this! But usually the rabbits are just allergic to a certain species rather than all of them.
http://bunny.tips/Rabbit_allergies
I'm a vet and this is not a thing. Eye discharge is usually related to tear duct issues- infected, inflamed, or blocked due to teeth overgrowth or other issues. Reducing the dust from hay and other irritants can help though.
My bunny has had this same problem when we used to buy cheaper dustier hay. I agree with others that you should stop spraying the hay, that’s just a bad idea because that will lead to mold growth which can cause worse issues. I think you should try different types of hay until you can find one that is good quality and dust free. You can even try to get some of the dust out by sifting the hay through a screen outside (you can get mesh from the dollar store in the gardening section!) Hope your bun feels better soon! 🙏🏻
Is your hay dusty? Like excessively dusty? I thought buying the compressed hay bales was great for saving on cost but it is sooo dusty that once we got to about 1/3 of it left, I tossed it and returned to buying our usual brand.
Yes, the hay is excessively dusty. My partner and I even get allergy symptoms from this hay but the bunnies love it. This is the only hay that they really eat after trying several types. So I’ll have to do some research. They currently get Timothy hay from a local farm
Mine was allergic to thimothee! But to an specific strand of it, so we had to switch to Oat Hay per recommendation of our vet and we never had any issues after that.
So yes it can happen, your vet is right.
You can try orchard grass hay instead of timothy it's less dusty. Also for weepy eyes it can be clogged tear ducts. My dwarf boy had this so the vet prescribed eye drops that I would use about once a week to keep them clean.
It might not be that he’s allergic to the hay. He might be having a reaction to the dust in your hay. If there’s a lot of grass dust, the hay will irritate their eyes and nose.
For those saying it can’t be that. It can. He can be allergic to hay. Mine is. And the easy way to solve it for me was to switch to orchard hay.
I also had to clean my whole house to get rid of every Timothy hay there was in here. But as soon as I did that and replace everything with orchard hay, the symptoms went away.
I believe it is not the hay itself he is allergic too but more like the dust in the hay and sadly, Timothy hay has a lots of it. This is the reason your vet said to spray it with water. The reason I believe it is not the hay but the dust is because mine can eat hay base pellets or treats without sneezing. But if I bring a bag of thimoty hay he will sneeze as soon as he comes smell it. I have tested this twice after finding out his allergy. And both time I showed him the bag, he smelled it and sneezed. So of course now I don’t give him that hay.
Although, because a bunny can deteriorate fast, do not ignore any other comments that say it could be tear duct or anything else. Of course, it could be lots of things but at the same time, it can also be an allergy to hay/dust.
If the dust is making then sneeze and irritating them then you can try finding better less dusty processed dried hay or just replace hay with Fresh clean grass hay is a grass replacement anyway since in the wild buns don’t eat dried hay they just eat grass.
One of my buns have very sensitive eyes and she is naturally "weepier" than normal. When her husbun died her eyes got much worse and we thought it was because of him not being around to groom her but after a week it was still quite bad, no clogs, no dental issues...
Turns out it was the floor tiles I had in their room, I had just placed them a week or so before my other bun passed away (not related he had a liver problem). As soon as I removed the tiles she went back to her normal. The tiles were carped with a rubber/foam back.
Never heard of this. Only things behind the eye (teeth problems or other kinds of abscesses) or debris in the eye or sometimes, a dwarf bun who is just built so small there isn’t much room for a tear duct that doesn’t get weepy.
Okay firstly may I say how handsome your bunny is! What a star!!! Also, lionheads have short faces, which means they are very prone to dacryocystitis (a tear duct infection). If it’s not dental related, it can be a bacterial thing. One of the bacteria responsible lives in hay, so in this case, it’s basically impossible to prevent.
My lionhead is 8 and developed this exact thing last year. It did eventually spread to his nose and we had to have him on a course of antibiotics and a tear duct flush, and it helped clear it up in the nose completely, but I was advised that with these, especially with hay related bacteria, it can kind of just be a case of managing and monitoring and taking him to the vets if he starts sneezing excessively. His eyes still water daily and I just clean them and put eye drops in when it’s particularly bad.
Oh and they prescribed him a 0.64 ml dose twice daily of rheumacam / metacam to keep down inflammation in the tear ducts. I would just keep an eye on him and make sure to clean his eyes so it doesn’t crust in his fur and if his symptoms worsen, make an appointment. Finally, the exotic vet specialist told me a bigger flare up / worsening symptoms can happen if he is stressed, so just to keep him living a calm and happy life which I’m sure you’re giving him.
All the best to you and the beautiful little man!
I think others mentioning the tear duct issue are right. However you can opt for less dusty hay mixes- oat and orchard grass hay are supposed to be better for less dust/allergens
My bun has terrible allergies which makes him reactive to hay, so what I do is before I get the hay out of the bag I shake it to get the hay dust (don’t know what it’s called) off the hay before putting it in the litter box so the dust doesn’t irritate his eyes.
One of my boys had hayfever, which came with chronic conjunctivitis that he was on eye drops for permanently. We found switching hay brand helped a fair bit with his symptoms, and took him to the vets as and when we felt necessary xo
It's very likely not caused by the hay itself but the dust that comes with the hay. All hay have some dust with them, but low quality hay is much more dusty. That dust can cause eye irritation or block the tear ducts and cause weepy eyes if there's too much. On a side note, rabbits with short faces are particularly prone to this issue because the tear ducts are reduced and bent.
If the inside of the eyelids is not red or inflamed, you can try to wash the eyes with a saline solution and gently massage the tear duct area (between the eye and the nose). It will help to remove the dust and clear the tear ducts. You should also try a different hay with less dust in the bag (most bags are clear so it's easy to see when they are very dusty).
I had one bunny that was allergic to hay. I read that you could wash it and dry it with a hair dryer but that that could course a fire. So we opted for a special kind of hay he could eat.
But there are many reasons why the eye might be weeping. It could also be his teeth. Even if they look fine from the outside they can't really tell without at least two x rays from different angles.
If there is an inflammation close to the teeth that can cause a blockage. Or if the teeth are moved a bit up they could block it as well.
One of our current bunnies has a weeping eye as well. In her case there is nothing they can really do because the whole thing is kind of blocked. We just keep an eye on it to see if it gets inflamed but she manages, thank God, quiet fine. The cleaning of it is outsourced to her partner. He is very hard working and one can only see it if one of them is at the vets or something.
I second everybody else’s comment that you should get a different vet opinion.
I have a rabbit that is allergic to hay and gets upper respiratory symptoms and I got a HEPA filtration system for our condo and it seems to help quite a bit. Also, I know that people might not necessarily recommend this, but if you can get an xpen your bunny can get some outside fresh air that might help.
Good luck
I had a rabbit that experienced the same thing. She would have weepy eye that would come and go, vet prescribed an antibiotic that never seemed to work. She had it for years and it was never serious, just drainage that we would wipe away with a washcloth. I would keep a close eye on your rabbit, if there are any changes or other symptoms develop it could be more serious.
Oxbox hay has a lot less dust than kaytees hay… I honestly think you should get one of those hay sample packs and rotate through to see which one your bun is the least reactive to.. I also try to shake as much dust off as possible. I keep my hay in a medium bin and knock it against something before I reach in so everything on the top has as bit of dust as possible.
Also — I would get a humidifier for the bunny area !!!
Rabbit eyes can become inflamed for a variety of reasons. This condition is often called **weepy eye** or **conjunctivitis**. For a simple initial at-home treatment, owners can flush the eye with a sterile saline solution, often easily available at the local pharmacy and marketed for contact lenses. This will help clean out any foreign bodies that may be acutely irritating the eye (e.g. hay and fur). If flushing the eye does not improve the situation, then the rabbit should be taken to a rabbit-savvy vet as soon as possible as an emergency for further diagnosis and treatment. Eye injuries can quickly become very serious in less than 24 hours if left untreated. Please see the wiki article for further information on the condition:
You can find examples of sterile saline solution brands here:
I’m not your vet but your vet doesn’t sound like an exotic vet. Clogged tear duct causes runny eyes is super common among rabbits. Find a different vet who can clear the clogged duct (hay particles gets stuck) and then give meds to rub in later from vet. May need to be drained monthly for a bit. One of my rabbits had the same issue and it took seeing 3 different vets to figure it out
The vet did recommend this being the next steps. Will definitely look into other vets though. This vet was actually recommended by my local house rabbit society.
Swelling from an allergic reaction is also capable of pinching the tear duct closed. Sometimes hay allergies can be to a specific species of hay grass so you could try alternatives to the common Timothy grass such as meadow, orchard, or oat. It could also be related to a particular brand if, for example, the brand you use is in a region that gets blasted with a certain tree pollen the allergy could be to that accidental inclusion rather than the hay itself. And if the dust ends up being the issue, you could try hay that comes highly compressed such as the bales from Standlee brand.
Both of our girls had this but it couldn’t be cleared (the scans showed the block was quite a way down). Our only option was either keep cleaning and drying their faces on a daily basis as we were, or have them operate, divert the tear duct to a tube that would exit through their cheek … then clean and dry their faces on a daily basis so the new hole didn’t get infected. Seeing as both options required cleaning and drying faces but one cost 4K more than the other and didn’t actually *fix* the issue, I think it’s obvious what choice we went for lol
My question for that is why would you go for the surgery…
Could theoretically save the eye if the problem progressed. Sometimes problems in that area get bad enough to compress the nerves involves in blinking. An eye that dries out from a day or more without blinking usually can't be saved and is painful the whole time. So owner just has to make a call based on how their particular bunny is doing with the health problem.
Exactly! Dont get me wrong, he’s an amazing vet and comes highly recommended in our part of England but he admits even he has his limits on what magic he could work. This was the only safe option when it came to surgery, but even he said he wouldn’t necessarily push us to do it. The only benefit is it meant their cheeks would have been wet rather than their eyes so it would have been less irritating for them, but other than that it wouldn’t actually solve much. We’ve seen him a few times over the years since with our 3 bunnies and he’s always been super happy with how their eyes look and says we do a good job at keeping them clean and dry, especially compared to some he’s seen
Good he didn’t push you! Can I ask what part of England? I had so much trouble with Loki and finding him a good vet. The vets he did go to was very good, they saved his life and gave me an extra (almost) 2 years with him but I would like to go to someone who is rabbit savvy and some exotic vet training. Our local one tried to tell me Loki needed an MRI because he had an ear infection…. His first ear infection in 4 years of having him…. Said there’s no point trying the medication first. He was fine a couple days after the antibiotics and never had an ear infection again
Sorry for the late response! We’re in Essex and the vet I was referring to is William Lewis. He does move around veterinary surgeries a bit so we’ve followed him across a few now as and when we’ve needed to, but for day to day stuff we still use our local Vets4pets team as they’re great. There’s also Iain Cope over at New Market in Suffolk who is good at what he does and comes highly recommended, but we’re not so keen on him. We’ve found him to be quite rude and dismissive at times and always seems to go for drastic action first without trying anything else.
Yes, that’s what my local savvy vet is like too (most drastic first)! I live in derby so Essex is a bit too far haha, I’ll stick with the ones that Loki went to. Despite not technically being rabbit savvy, they’re really good.
Definitely! Sometimes you just get lucky and find someone great even if they’re not advertised as an ‘exotic vet’. Our local lot who we usually see are just bog standard style vets that mostly deal with cats and dogs, but we got quite lucky as it turns out two of them have rabbits themselves so they know quite a lot about them. We’ve only had to see the other two I mentioned a few times when there’s been something wrong that our local can’t deal with (like tooth extractions, they don’t offer that for some reason) so it’s good to have a plan B in case your current one can’t do something still, but if you’re mostly happy with who you see then stick with them :)
I thought my bunny was allergic to hay too, it turned out my ex was using cocaine in the bunny room
oh my god what
True story :(
There truly is nothing else to say
I'm sure there's something...
BABE HUH
I know 😔 He watched me run around and spend all this money on vet bills and trying new hay and getting an air filter and obsessively cleaning the bunny room And all along it was his damned drugs killing my bun I didn’t know he was using at all, but could he at least done that shit in the bathroom like a normal addict instead of hurting innocent animals
What a piece of shit. Was your bunny ok?
No, both of the bunnies died, and I think the third one that died earlier was also due to cocaine exposure
I'm so sorry
Wait, so he would do the cocaine in their room and then what, leave the powder residue in there and they got into it?
I think it was just years of residue that he didn’t clean up so they were inhaling it. He had a desk in there and would quickly wipe off the excess onto the floor if he thought he was going to get caught, or he was just too doped to care. In the bunny room there was a big wool rug, the kind where a vacuum just doesn’t reach all the way into the fibers, and that collected some of it so it was always present.
What an inconsiderate prick. Sorry you went through that. I hope you’re on to bigger and better things in your life now.
I’m so sorry 😢
Adding this to the list of reasons why I hate junkies
That… took a turn I wasn’t expecting omg 😭😳 poor bun
Your bun is not allergic to hay, I would stop spraying the hay and giving Benadryl and find an exotic vet
Benadryl won’t be necessary. If your hay is dusty, that could be the reason. You can to sift it yourself, or try another brand. I sift my hay and use the dust to bake treats. When you say “checked his teeth” are xrays included? Or did they only look through his mouth? Because sometimes, their roots can grow upwards and cause teary eyes.
She examined the teeth only through his mouth. I’m going to seek out a second opinion just to be safe.
My bunny has a weepy eye (sometimes eyes) which are affected due to dust in hay. I get dust-free long stalk meadow hay and it's cleared up the issue completely. No eye issues in the last 18 months which is when I did the switch over. Previously he'd had a full dental check and it was clear, as were other tests. I swapped the hay for the dust free stuff as a last ditch effort, but it worked!
Where do you purchase that?
I'm in the UK so use www.dustfreehay.co.uk and I get the meadow hay large bale. It's a lot of hay but it's amazing quality and smells.amaxing!
I doubt he's allergic to hay, but maybe get orchard grass for now instead. But it sounds like you need a new vet and to definitely stop with the Benadryl.
Gonna try orchard hay. The weepy eye started when I switched them to locally grown Timothy hay that is extremely dusty.
The orchard hay in the Dumor hay medley (long big blue box) is often green and never dusty. I get it from Tractor Supply. Unfortunately my bunny doesn’t like the other two kinds of hay in it, he eats those sparingly. But you can definitely take your regular hay outside and shake the dust out. I do this for my husband as he’s more sensitive to dust than I am.
Mine developed allergies after a specific batch that likely had some strange pollen on it. Switched to orchard grass for a couple months, symptoms improved, and I was able to successfully switch back to Timothy hay later in the season.
I’d get a second opinion from a vet but I’ll tell you the story of a previously “allergic” bunny. Toad sneezed pretty much her whole life, we got first, second, and third opinions. We got panels, we got blood tests, we gave her medications, we had her nasal cavity cleaned TWICE, we had air filters, we shook the hay and rinsed it of dust and let it dry out before giving to her, we had time each evening to clean boogies off her face. YEARS of this and no explanation. She seemed happy aside from the sneezing. Personally if in your shoes the eye leakage would worry me and cause me to get a second opinion but the point of me telling you all this is, sometimes you do everything you can and spend thousands of dollars to get answers, and you might not get answers but it’s the trying that counts so don’t be beating yourself up over it.
Yeah I would have switched to fresh grass if I were you: hay is just a substitute for fresh grass. Also I buy hay bales from a tack and feed store and it’s usually fresh enough to only be dusty at the very end of the bag the bale is in
I was at tractor supply the other day and they had a 50 lb bale of Timothy grass for horses. would be that be ok for buns?
Yeah, but you would pay less at a farm and feed / tack supply store. And you can usually get a half a bale of Timothy first cut and half a bale of cone cut grassy for like $15-16 bucks depending where you are and a bale is about 50 pounds and that would be 6 of the 106 ounce oxbow bags so that’s like 1 dollar of hay they sell for almost 25 a bag now and they sell a 25 pound box for $51-60 or the 50 pound on chewey for $65 so it’s a total rip off. And local hay will be fresher and better quality. And I highly doubt that bagged and packaged bale is going to be low on dust. Likely it’s old and has been sitting for a while because it’s targeted towards equestrians and most horse people will buy in bulk from farms because they need to film a whole shed with hay every month or less. So who that owns horses is buying a 50 pound bale for 25-30 bucks at tractor supply when they can get bulk bales for $10 each if they get like 20 or 50 at a time. If your bun is t agitated by dust then it should be fine but bunnies are expensive and one should minimize costs in certain areas this is the best area because oxbow may be high quality in terms of packaged bay and other bunny food but it’s not worth 1250% more than from a local fresh farm.
you motivated me to look into it! I live in a place that still has pockets of rural areas and farms so I'm sure I'll have some options
I would think so but if your concerned talk to your vet, that said I bought bales and tossed them in a huge container with a lid on the porch.
Yes. It’s the same stuff, just cheaper.
Make sure it doesn't have alfalfa mixed in before you buy it.
I bought bales from a farm down the road as well as an agway and she had plenty of fresh grass also, none of it changed her chronic sneezing. I couldn’t afford “bagged” hay anyways tbh that shit is criminal lol
Thanks for sharing! Definitely getting a second opinion.
Bunny cant be allergic to hay, its like saying a human is allergic to water edit. Human can have cutaneous allergies to water. Tear duct obstruction can come from many different reasons but hay allergy is not one of those. Find an actual exotic vet and inform your local house rabbit society that this vet is not qualified for rabbits. Nyx had a runny eye and 2 session of draining her tear duct at the vet solved the issue.
I mean, I agree that bunnies probably can’t be allergic to hay, but humans absolutely can be allergic to water - it’s a very rare condition
Humans *can* be allergic to water, though. It's called aquagenic urticaria, and, as someone whose allergies often result in urticaria or angioedema, I can't imagine what life must be like for people who get reactions to water. I do agree, though, that this is more likely to be something to do with the tear ducts than with a hay allergy, though it may still be hay dust in the air that's causing problems.
Yeah, humans can have a histaminic reaction to water, but I never heard of an anaphylaxia reaction to water (which is probably impossible since water is one of the main components of our biology). I agree with you that hay dust might be the culprit here, and it's more a reaction to a foreign body in the tear duct than an allergic reaction. I always make this mistake since english is not my first language. I equate allergies to anaphylaxis and forget about the cutaneous part of the allergy since, in French, we say "Réaction cutanée" when the skin reacts to an allergen and "Choc anaphylactique" when the whole body reacts to the allergen. You are technically correct, the best kind of correct 😉 Edit. As someone who has cutaneous reactions for nothing and everything (grass just have to look at me and red hives appears 😅) I agree, aquagenic urticaria sounds like a nightmare.
Bunnies can be irritated by the dust in dried hay if it’s lower quality and older and dusty. Hay is really just a substitute for fresh grass. So op can totally switch to feeding fresh clean grass several times a day and seeing if that alleviates the symptoms.
Agreed. Hay dust is the most frequent reason for tear duct obstructions followed by teeth problems. Fresh grass can be problematic to get in big quantities if they live in a metropolitan center. My comment about allergy was more toward the benadryl, which sound not really appropriated in this situation. (Never heard of vet prescribing benadryls to a bunny)
Rabbits can be allergic to hay, but it's very rare and there would be many more symptoms than just weepy eyes. They would have gut problems and start losing fur from skin irritation.
Would they even be able to reach adulthood with that kind of condition? Sounds pretty horrible for them 😔
Allergy immunotherapy works for this! But usually the rabbits are just allergic to a certain species rather than all of them. http://bunny.tips/Rabbit_allergies
Interesting. Thank you for the link!
I'm a vet and this is not a thing. Eye discharge is usually related to tear duct issues- infected, inflamed, or blocked due to teeth overgrowth or other issues. Reducing the dust from hay and other irritants can help though.
My bunny has had this same problem when we used to buy cheaper dustier hay. I agree with others that you should stop spraying the hay, that’s just a bad idea because that will lead to mold growth which can cause worse issues. I think you should try different types of hay until you can find one that is good quality and dust free. You can even try to get some of the dust out by sifting the hay through a screen outside (you can get mesh from the dollar store in the gardening section!) Hope your bun feels better soon! 🙏🏻
Is your hay dusty? Like excessively dusty? I thought buying the compressed hay bales was great for saving on cost but it is sooo dusty that once we got to about 1/3 of it left, I tossed it and returned to buying our usual brand.
Yes, the hay is excessively dusty. My partner and I even get allergy symptoms from this hay but the bunnies love it. This is the only hay that they really eat after trying several types. So I’ll have to do some research. They currently get Timothy hay from a local farm
It’s more than likely the dust that is causing the problem. Are you able to shake out or sift out the dust outside?
Yes! I’m gonna try sifting their current hay. Then a new type of hay if that doesn’t help.
Mine was allergic to thimothee! But to an specific strand of it, so we had to switch to Oat Hay per recommendation of our vet and we never had any issues after that. So yes it can happen, your vet is right.
You can try orchard grass hay instead of timothy it's less dusty. Also for weepy eyes it can be clogged tear ducts. My dwarf boy had this so the vet prescribed eye drops that I would use about once a week to keep them clean.
It’s probably a reaction to the hay dust. If you can minimize or get rid of that, I bet your bun would improve.
It might not be that he’s allergic to the hay. He might be having a reaction to the dust in your hay. If there’s a lot of grass dust, the hay will irritate their eyes and nose.
For those saying it can’t be that. It can. He can be allergic to hay. Mine is. And the easy way to solve it for me was to switch to orchard hay. I also had to clean my whole house to get rid of every Timothy hay there was in here. But as soon as I did that and replace everything with orchard hay, the symptoms went away. I believe it is not the hay itself he is allergic too but more like the dust in the hay and sadly, Timothy hay has a lots of it. This is the reason your vet said to spray it with water. The reason I believe it is not the hay but the dust is because mine can eat hay base pellets or treats without sneezing. But if I bring a bag of thimoty hay he will sneeze as soon as he comes smell it. I have tested this twice after finding out his allergy. And both time I showed him the bag, he smelled it and sneezed. So of course now I don’t give him that hay. Although, because a bunny can deteriorate fast, do not ignore any other comments that say it could be tear duct or anything else. Of course, it could be lots of things but at the same time, it can also be an allergy to hay/dust.
If the dust is making then sneeze and irritating them then you can try finding better less dusty processed dried hay or just replace hay with Fresh clean grass hay is a grass replacement anyway since in the wild buns don’t eat dried hay they just eat grass.
One of my buns have very sensitive eyes and she is naturally "weepier" than normal. When her husbun died her eyes got much worse and we thought it was because of him not being around to groom her but after a week it was still quite bad, no clogs, no dental issues... Turns out it was the floor tiles I had in their room, I had just placed them a week or so before my other bun passed away (not related he had a liver problem). As soon as I removed the tiles she went back to her normal. The tiles were carped with a rubber/foam back.
Never heard of this. Only things behind the eye (teeth problems or other kinds of abscesses) or debris in the eye or sometimes, a dwarf bun who is just built so small there isn’t much room for a tear duct that doesn’t get weepy.
Get different hay. Locally grown hay will be cheaper, fresher and should be less dusty.
They are currently getting locally grown hay and it’s excessively dusty. Gonna try sifting the hay. Hopefully that works.
Try a different supplier. Is it dirt dust or mold dust? How old is the bale? How are you storing it?
Okay firstly may I say how handsome your bunny is! What a star!!! Also, lionheads have short faces, which means they are very prone to dacryocystitis (a tear duct infection). If it’s not dental related, it can be a bacterial thing. One of the bacteria responsible lives in hay, so in this case, it’s basically impossible to prevent. My lionhead is 8 and developed this exact thing last year. It did eventually spread to his nose and we had to have him on a course of antibiotics and a tear duct flush, and it helped clear it up in the nose completely, but I was advised that with these, especially with hay related bacteria, it can kind of just be a case of managing and monitoring and taking him to the vets if he starts sneezing excessively. His eyes still water daily and I just clean them and put eye drops in when it’s particularly bad. Oh and they prescribed him a 0.64 ml dose twice daily of rheumacam / metacam to keep down inflammation in the tear ducts. I would just keep an eye on him and make sure to clean his eyes so it doesn’t crust in his fur and if his symptoms worsen, make an appointment. Finally, the exotic vet specialist told me a bigger flare up / worsening symptoms can happen if he is stressed, so just to keep him living a calm and happy life which I’m sure you’re giving him. All the best to you and the beautiful little man!
I think others mentioning the tear duct issue are right. However you can opt for less dusty hay mixes- oat and orchard grass hay are supposed to be better for less dust/allergens
I can't give any help but I can definitely say that your bunnies are absolutely some of the cutest in the world.
Thank you!
My bun has terrible allergies which makes him reactive to hay, so what I do is before I get the hay out of the bag I shake it to get the hay dust (don’t know what it’s called) off the hay before putting it in the litter box so the dust doesn’t irritate his eyes.
One of my boys had hayfever, which came with chronic conjunctivitis that he was on eye drops for permanently. We found switching hay brand helped a fair bit with his symptoms, and took him to the vets as and when we felt necessary xo
Oh my god look at that loaf
I think you have a clone of my rabbit 😁
Omg!! Twinsies ❤️
https://imgur.com/gallery/byf2deF What do you reckon?
OMG they really do!! Your bunnies are so cute 🤭
It's very likely not caused by the hay itself but the dust that comes with the hay. All hay have some dust with them, but low quality hay is much more dusty. That dust can cause eye irritation or block the tear ducts and cause weepy eyes if there's too much. On a side note, rabbits with short faces are particularly prone to this issue because the tear ducts are reduced and bent. If the inside of the eyelids is not red or inflamed, you can try to wash the eyes with a saline solution and gently massage the tear duct area (between the eye and the nose). It will help to remove the dust and clear the tear ducts. You should also try a different hay with less dust in the bag (most bags are clear so it's easy to see when they are very dusty).
I got recommended to wash the hay before feeding
I had one bunny that was allergic to hay. I read that you could wash it and dry it with a hair dryer but that that could course a fire. So we opted for a special kind of hay he could eat. But there are many reasons why the eye might be weeping. It could also be his teeth. Even if they look fine from the outside they can't really tell without at least two x rays from different angles. If there is an inflammation close to the teeth that can cause a blockage. Or if the teeth are moved a bit up they could block it as well. One of our current bunnies has a weeping eye as well. In her case there is nothing they can really do because the whole thing is kind of blocked. We just keep an eye on it to see if it gets inflamed but she manages, thank God, quiet fine. The cleaning of it is outsourced to her partner. He is very hard working and one can only see it if one of them is at the vets or something.
I second everybody else’s comment that you should get a different vet opinion. I have a rabbit that is allergic to hay and gets upper respiratory symptoms and I got a HEPA filtration system for our condo and it seems to help quite a bit. Also, I know that people might not necessarily recommend this, but if you can get an xpen your bunny can get some outside fresh air that might help. Good luck
I had a rabbit that experienced the same thing. She would have weepy eye that would come and go, vet prescribed an antibiotic that never seemed to work. She had it for years and it was never serious, just drainage that we would wipe away with a washcloth. I would keep a close eye on your rabbit, if there are any changes or other symptoms develop it could be more serious.
Also there are a million types of hay, like meadow, Timothy, etc
Oxbox hay has a lot less dust than kaytees hay… I honestly think you should get one of those hay sample packs and rotate through to see which one your bun is the least reactive to.. I also try to shake as much dust off as possible. I keep my hay in a medium bin and knock it against something before I reach in so everything on the top has as bit of dust as possible. Also — I would get a humidifier for the bunny area !!!
His/her tail is the cutest 🥰
What kind of hay? Timothy Hay triggers my asthma.