If you have rabbits and live in the UK we strongly advise that you consult your vet about vaccination. Myxomatosis is carried by biting insects and your pet does not need to be in direct contact with wild rabbits in order to be at risk. Cambridge is a very high risk area because of the large numbers of wild rabbits living on the beautiful commons and fen areas scattered through the city and along the river.
It used to be necessary to vaccinate rabbits at 6 month intervals but more modern vaccines should give twelve months protection.
If you are on means tested benefits (which does include working tax credits) and live within a 19 mile radius of Cambridge you would be eligible to use our clinic at 1 Pool way. Rabbit vaccinations cost £17 per rabbit (used to be £7 for the old 6-month vaccine) and provide protection against both myxomatosis and Viral Haemorrhagic disease.
The clinic is open for general treatments on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday between 8.30 and 10.30 am. There is also a vaccination and micro-chipping session on Wednesdays at the same times.
Had a call to our helpline yesterday which left me feeling exasperated and upset in more or less equal measure. The person concerned clearly did love animals but also had some issues which meant she wasn't really capable of looking after them properly. She'd "rescued" three rabbits from someone else who'd been threatening to kill them by wringing their necks, but couldn't afford the cost of vaccination at her local vet and didn't have transport to get them to our clinic from the remote village where she lived.One rabbit had already had to be put to sleep because he had myxomatosis and now a second was showing the same symptoms but the vet wouldn't see her because the owner hadn't yet paid off the debt for treating the first one.
In any case, because it was Saturday afternoon, the surgery she could reach on foot was closed and being covered from their other one in Cambridge which would have cost her £100 for an out of hours consultation and in any case wasn't accessible because she had no transport and no money for a taxi.
Our fantastic inspector offered to go out to the rabbit as she clearly needed to be put to sleep to end her suffering but the owner called back about twenty minutes later to say the bunny had died.
I've offered to cover the cost of getting the surviving rabbit vaccinated at the private vet, which is trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted but will give him a chance if he's not already incubating the disease.
We can't offer to pay off her existing debt, both because we can't afford it and because it would risk opening the floodgates to everyone who hasn't budgeted for their pets becoming sick.
The problem of vet treatment costs isn't straightforward. The only way we could provide anything like an NHS for animals would be if virtually every animal lover in England and Wales joined us and helped raise funds to do it. We can't simply wash our hands of it and say it's the owner's responsibility and that's it because there are too many people with animal who really are not capable of making the hard decisions needed to ensure they only have the pets they can afford to care for properly. On top of that there are the good owners who lose their jobs, have accidents themselves or take on uninsurable animals with existing medical problems.
Please don't forget that mosquitos and biting midges will become active about a month from now as the weather gets warmer. Now is the time to make sure that your rabbits are up to date with their myxomatosis vaccinations so they are protected from this dreadful disease, which is spread by biting insects.
If you are on benefits, you can get your rabbits boosters done at our clinic for only £7.
Spring is just around the corner, and with it will come the first of the two annual peaks of myxomatosis (the second is in the Autumn). If it is more than six months since your rabbit was last vaccinated then you need to be thinking of arranging for a booster.
Every year rabbits are brought to us suffering from myxomatosis because their owners did not realise that urban (even indoor) rabbits are still at risk, because the disease can be spread by biting insects. Vaccination does not provide 100% protection, but a vaccinated rabbit will almost always throw off the disease with no permanent ill effects, while an unvaccinated rabbit will almost always die.
We're still seeing cases of myxomatosis in pet rabbits, probably because of the unusually warm and humid weather. Unless the rabbit has been vaccinated this is almost always fatal. For best protection, rabbits need to be given booster vaccination every six months. They may still get the disease, but will usually only suffer a mild infection, which should be thrown off with careful nursing.
Myxomatosis is spread by biting insects, including midges and mosquitos, so pets don't need to be in direct contact with wild rabbits to get the disease. Cambridge is a high-risk area, because of the large numbers of wild rabbits living on common land along the river and the streams which feed into it and on the chalk grassland areas of Cherry Hinton and the Gog Magog hills.
Spring and Autumn are high-risk periods for myxomatosis in the UK. Rabbits who are not regularly vaccinated (most vets recommend vaccination at 6 monthly intervals) are at high risk of contracting the disease and dying. This is the case even if your rabbit does not normally go outside and you live in an urban area, because the virus is spread by biting insects, such as mosquitos and midges.
