By Mark:
Two bunnies named Matisse and Kahlo recently had to go to the vet for what we think was a urinary tract infection. Still don't know for sure. During our every-six-weeks health check of the rabbits, we noticed they had white stuff in the little ducts where their urine comes out. (The rabbits often have urine crystals that we clean out with cotton swabs, but this was creamy and white.) Their fur down there was also a little urine-soaked, which made the skin raw. The vet wasn't positive what was wrong but said she thought antibiotics would clear it up. The plan was to give them a half-pill each of Baytril a day for 21 days and keep them isolated from the other rabbits and each other during that time. This led to three things we had to figure out: how to get the two rabbits to take their pills, how to better clean their bums while they healed and how to clean their carriers while they stayed inside during their recovery (bunnies poop and pee a lot!).
Pills
Regarding the pills, the vet said that we could grind them up and disguise them in some strawberry jam. It didn't quite work that simply, in part because Matisse literally attacks his food dish when you put it in. He bites it, kicks it and throws it around and then eats whatever food manages not to get buried in the straw in his carrier. And Kahlo just didn't care for it that much. So here's what we figured out:
We grind up the pills in a mortar and pestle. Then we put in a couple of dollops of jam (cherry is what we had on hand) and stir it up so the pill powder is mixed in really good. You can still taste the pill flavor, so then I put in a couple slices of banana (a bunny's favorite food) and mashed it in too. Finally, I used a spatula to get every last drop out of the mortar and put it atop their fresh greens and carrots in their food dishes. (For Matisse, we switched to a ceramic dish he couldn't knock over.) They liked this and ate it all gone.
Carrier and butt cleaning
Dianne figured out good solutions for the butt and carrier cleanings. The main concern with cleaning their carriers is what to do with the bunnies. They are feral and don't like to be handled and, in the case of Matisse, will mess you up by scratching your arms up and down with the nails on their back feet. So we got a third carrier to use as a temporary holding pen. We'd pull one rabbit out and into the other carrier, then we'd take the first carrier outside to dump out all the straw and muck into a box and clean it out and put in fresh straw.
Then we'd fill up a bathroom sink half full of warm water and hold the rabbit's butt in the water and wipe it clean. Aloe vera was put on any raw skin from urine burn (but this went away fairly quickly). Unless their bums are soaked and matted, you don't need to use the sink. If they've got a couple of turds in their fur, you can just (gently) pull them out. Or comb them out. Or you can spray them with a water bottle and then gently blot the area clean.
Finally, with a clean carrier and a clean bunny, we put the rabbit back in the fresh carrier. Then we repeat with the other rabbit.
Matisse and Kahlo seem to be recovering well.