Osteoarthritis is increasingly recognized as common in elderly rabbits and causes significant pain that is often missed because rabbits conceal discomfort, requiring proactive assessment and multimodal management.
Rabbit arthritis welfare is frequently overlooked because rabbits suppress pain expression more effectively than most other companion animal species. An elderly rabbit that moves less, grooms its hindquarters less thoroughly, leaves cecotropes uneaten, or sits in a hunched posture may be displaying significant chronic pain from arthritic joints. The reduced cecotrope consumption due to inability to adopt the flexed posture required to reach the cecal area creates a secondary nutritional deficit on top of the primary pain problem. Veterinary assessment of elderly rabbits routinely misses arthritis if it is not specifically sought: rabbits require radiography and targeted physical examination including joint palpation rather than simply observing locomotion. The welfare improvement from appropriate pain management in arthritic rabbits is often dramatic - owners report animals that seemed 'elderly and slow' becoming noticeably more active and engaged after starting analgesic therapy.