Early 2007, the Edmonton City Pound contacted us regarding a rabbit that was at her euthanasia date, and the SPCA was full. She had been seized from her owners by the animal control officers.  We named her Sabra. (say-bra). Shortly after her arrival she went to a foster home.

Her foster family contacted us notifying us that they had to take Sabra to the emergency clinic that evening. Her eye was bulging out to the point that she couldn't close it, and looked infected. They didn't notice anything amiss the day prior, so it came on quite quickly.The vet, who wasn't a rabbit vet but the only one available after hours, thought that she probably had an abscess behind her eye. They were given some Baytril, pain medication, and lubricant for her eye.

To Read About Sabras Recovery and the eventual outcome of her condition, visit:

Sabra's Page
Please Note: Sabra is no longer in need of financial support.

She looks very gruesome right now; the abscess is an infection and although they can remove it the infection has to be fought. They took a culture to determine what antibiotic will be the best choice. For now she's on Baytril. She sewed her eyelid closed, leaving a small hole at one corner, and a drainage tube. Rabbit pus is thick...the tube is just to keep it open, and to help flush it. We have to flush it out with saline and her antibiotic eye drops by sticking a syringe in the corner of her eye and into the tube, to push the pus out and keep it clean. They said that if we can stomach it, to use a Q-Tip to scoop it out.

Because their eyelids are so delicate, they reinforced the stitches with light plastic tubing where it came into contact with the eye. This keeps them from becoming irritated or even tearing the skin due to swelling. The stitches go right through the tube.

They did a wonderful job and took excellent care of her. Both Dr.Steele and Dr.Black and the vet techs were very nice and took a lot of time to answer our questions. Dr.Steele added everything up and then gave us %50 off so a huge thank you to the South Side Animal Hospital!!

Sabra had a checkup today at the Southside Animal Hospital to see how her healing is coming along. They're very happy with her progress. Her fever is gone and the swelling has gone down an amazing amount. She'll be getting her drainage tube taken out on monday and her eye will be unstitched in two weeks!




(Don't mind the yellow litter...she needs to be on CareFresh, and they only had the "fun colors" available!!)

Sabra was on painkillers for awhile and now she is just taking her antibiotics. She recieves two seperate eye drops daily, Mucomyst and Ciloxan.  She has been back to the SouthSide Animal Hospital for a few checkups and her recovery is going extremely well. People look at her now and don't even realize that anything is abnormal with her eye! We are so proud of her and very thankful to Dr.Steele, Dr.Black, and the other Drs. and staff at the Southside Animal Hospital.

It is December 2nd and Sabra has completely recoverred! You can barely even tell which eye it was that had the abscess. She is now available for adoption!

Thursday the 27th, we noticed a small lump below Sabra's eye. We called the Southside Animal Hospital the next day and made her an appointment for the next day. She had it biopsied and it was confirmed to be another abscess. She has another appointment this week. The vet is looking into a surgical alternative, where antibiotic beads of some sort (I can't remember what they were called) are packed into the are and work from the inside. She's going to make some calls; usually they are extremely expensive, even more so then the surgery.


Over the weekend, the abscess more then tripled in size. She is on antibiotics to prepare her for whatever procedure we pursue next. Her vet bills are going to be draining on us financially, please consider donating towards her medical care. She is an amazing, sweet rabbit, and she deserves the best medical care available.

Good News!!

Our vet, the Southside Animal Hospital, has been calling around trying to get ahold of a newer form of treatment for abscesses in rabbits, that isn't commonly used around here. They're PMMA Antibiotic Beads. Once the abscess is drained, the beads are packed in and do a more thorough job of killing the infection then manual flushing and cleaning, especially because rabbit's pus is very solid and doesn't run out like other animals, making it difficult to drain.

Dr. Steele called everybody she could think of  and was finally able to find them. We're thrilled!! We hope that this will be the end of it. She has her surgery scheduled for the 15th of Feb. She has to take more antibiotics to prepare her for the surgery.

Here's a bit of a description from an article:

"In the author's experience, the best method for treating abscesses of the head of rabbits involves complete (or as nearly complete as possible) excision of the abscess and filling the defect with antibiotic impregnated polymethyl methacrylate (AIPMMA) beads. The abscess is removed as completely as possible and the defect is filled with AIPMMA beads which release relatively high concentration of antibiotic locally with little systemic absorption. The rabbit is still placed on systemic antibiotics for 2 weeks but long term therapy is not necessary as the beads release antibiotic for many months. The antibiotic chosen is based on culture and sensitivity results. Where there is no growth, a broad spectrum antibiotic with activity against P. multocida is selected. The beads are left in place a minimum of 2 months at which time they may be removed assuming there is no recurrence of abscessation."

If that doesn't work, I've been reading some more recent articles that have been suggesting the use of Calcium Hydroxide, packed into the the cleaned abscess. The article quoted above recommends it as well.