Patrick had surgery to correct this problem when he was two. Holly has slight folds on both eyelids, and her chronically watery eyes are due, in part, to the lids' irregular shapes. Without enough tears staying on the eye's surface to keep it moist, the cornea is subject to scratches and erosions. Symptoms of corneal ulcerations, which also occur from external trauma in normal eyes, include eye discharge, redness, and inflammation. Bunny may squint and be head shy.
Treatment is usually antibiotic drops.
When a set of Holly's eye lesions were slow to heal, Dr. Penney recommended she see a veterinary ophthamologist. Dr. David E. Lipton, Holly's eye doctor from Richmond, explained that rabbits are unusual in that they only blink once or twice a minute. He suspected that Holly's eyes were drying out from lack of moisture and that the corneal abrasions were self-induced, probably from Holly washing her face. We'd used eye ointment between episodes of corneal scratches but usually stopped when her eyes seemed to be doing well. Then we moved to Texas.