What do people do if they find a wild rabbit with myxomatosis?

Yesterday I found a very poorly wild bunny on the patio, just sat there hunched up with sore bulging eyes and obviously had mxy. I put him in a box and took him up to my vets so he could be pts. The vets is literally a two minute car journey and the bunny barely struggled when I picked him up. I would have been happy to pay for him / her, I just couldn't leave it, knowing that it can take so long for them to die. I left it in the car and went in, the VN said that was fine, bring it in and they would deal with it.

Afterwards I wondered if that is frowned upon in any way as if everyone bought them in, vets would spend a good chunk of their day dealing with them? I know vet surgerys are full of animal lovers but obviously it is also a business at the end of the day.

I have found a number of mxy bunnies at the country park where I walk so I let the park rangers know and they take care of them. But what do people do if they find a mxy bunny in the middle of nowhere, do you despatch it yourself or do you just leave it? I have despatched a number of smaller creatures but a bunny would be a bit bigger and harder to deal with I imagine?

I despatch them myself, I would not take a flea infested wild rabbit into the vet.

Me personally (If I find it before the dogs do) despatch it, take home and once frozen for long enough, it would be fed to the dogs/cats

Hi J - Not sure what I would do I don' think we have mixy here and we don't have rabbits, what we do have is hares, do they suffer from mixy too our vet is over half an hour drive and probably would think it odd if we brought a mixy hare in to them

But well done for taking some positive action, your vet probably wouldn't want people bringing them in every day but at least that one was dealt with properly.

I dont think so Losos...I think Myxy is species specific...off to google

http://www.mammal.org.uk/index.php?o...content&id=224

Wow what a fabulous quick response, thank you

Yes that photo of the 'Brown' hare is exactly what we have, one actually ran past me last week, (only ten metres away) so I got a good look at it and for once both the dogs were too far away so they didn't see it they did go a bit berserk when they came back to us 'cos they had to cross the path the hare had taken but it was well gone by that time. They've never caught one

I have to be ultra careful with regard to bunnies (I have pet adults in the garden)

I couldn't dispatch them personally (it took me years to be able to kill a dying fish!). Luckily myxi rabbits don't seem to be too commonplace around here at the moment; it comes and goes. In the past though my dogs have killed them.

I went to Gamekeeper who taught me how to do it correctly. My view, better for me to break its neck/kill immediately than for it to be stuck in the middle of a field, confused, blinded, in pain, unable to get out of the way of cars/dogs/cats/crows etc

For those that despatch, what do you do? I've heard that neck breaking is not effective and it is better to bash them on the head. Do you use a stick or your boot?

Harvey I don't think I'd have taken it for a half hour drive either, I'd have probably got a bit attached to it by then

That was why I put it in a cardboard box which could be detroyed rather than a carrier and left it in the car and asked their advice before bringing it in.