Lets see, the whole experiment and everything that had led up to it.
Sometime last year I had someone deliver a doe to me who had signs hepatic coccidiosis. I didn't recognize it at first and was told she was just skinny from being kept on grass. (red flag)
If I had traveled to pick her up I would have walked away, but since they delivered her to me, and she wasn't overpriced, I figured it was worth a shot to see if I could get her back up to weight.
She was wasted looking, very thin at the hips, but with a hugely bloated belly. She had a good appetite and normal stool. She was perky and friendly. Probably the only friendly SF doe I've ever met!
During this time, I was using a large yard for keeping fryers prior to butchering. (18x24 feet, surrounded by 6 ft privacy panels and with a little roofed pallet shed to get them out of the weather) I had been doing this for a few YEARS without any troubles or disease issues. Never once a spotted liver.
It didn't take me long to decide that SF doeling needed to be on the butcher list and placed her in the ground pen. (still without knowing what was wrong with her, you can see my obvious mistake here)
About a week or two after bringing her home, my caged rabbits starting having digestive problems, just a little diarrhea and then a quick recovery. (I think I butchered that questionable doeling right around then, and although I looked carefully, I didn't see any convincing evidence of hepatic cocci)
When the disease made it way to Pancake, who had a 3 week old litter of 10, things were much worse.
She balled up, looked miserable for a few hours and then crawled into the nestbox, evacuated the largest and most foul smelling mass I'd ever seen a rabbit pass and then just laid in it.
It was cold out. I had no choice but to bring her and the babies inside, and start supportive care immediately.
Because of the kits age, I didn't separate them from the doe, but I knew she couldn't nurse. I feed the kits oats, hay cubes, mashed pumpkin, pellets and a bit of kit formula. The members of RT really helped me through this. Thanks guys!
Pancake continued to pass a tarry nasty and very watery diahrea for almost a week. She was dehydrated and would drink but wouldn't eat. I dropper fed her mashed pumpkin with a bit of salt. Or oats and pumpkin blended together.
I had to clean her backside frequently. She was a very limp animal.
Eventually I was able to get her to take a bit of greens. I offered blackberry leaves, cilantro, dandelions, parsley, fennel. She took fennel greens first. My sickest buns have usually started on fennel first when starting back onto eating on their own. Probably because the sweet anise smell is extra tempting.
I'd like to mention at no point did any kit get thin or have any digestive problems, despite their mothers illness.
Ok, so after almost two weeks of nursing a very very very sick doe, I actually teared up with relief when she was strong enough to struggle out of my hands because she was tired of me stuffing droppers full of pumpkin in her mouth.
She was getting stronger. Oh, right around then she started to nurse again! :shock: What a crazy doe!
Obviously, I couldn't allow her to nurse a litter of 10 in the bone-thin condition she was in. I separated the males, 6 of them between 5 and 6 weeks old, and placed them in my "to be butchered yard" to grow out. By this point, that yard had been empty for at least 3 weeks.
They were meat kits, and not small for their age. They had shelter in there, and I didn't suddenly change their diets.
Pancake was allowed to continue nursing the 4 doelings. Her stool had firmed up, her body weight increased. Eventually they were moved back outside into an all-wire cage.
The kits with her continued to thrive, but something was wrong with the males that were on the ground. They became thin. They ate and drank like horses, but didn't really gain weight. Actually, they were losing it.
We lost a few, and culled the rest far-undersized as a mercy kill.
Autopsy revealed this:
I didn't know enough about the disease at the time to really be sure how to treat it, and most websites were saying sanitation was the best treatment. So I waited until the doelings who had been on wire to reach a good butcher size. What I found in the girls was...clean livers. One had a single white spot.
OK, so cocci seemed a reasonable assumption. The ground pen was put permanently out of use. To this day I haven't even considered putting a rabbit back in there.
But since the wire-kept rabbits were clean and not sick, I didn't worm everyone. I forgave Pancake for getting sick, since she was pretty stressed from nursing a big litter.
A few months of recovery time and I was ready for another litter on her. (we did it inside, since it was winter, but I kept her cage VERY clean)
Everything went well, rabbits reached butcher size on time and had spotless livers. She has another litter now with very good growth. The other rabbits, some who had had just a bit of diahrea also went on to produce healthy kits. I can only assume their immune systems had things under control.
I'm sure the cocci isn't all gone, but very good sanitation has kept it from being a threat to my herd. I don't want them on a routine wormer if they are healthy enough to simply resist it on their own.
I posted this to show how dramatic the difference can be between rabbits kept on contaminated ground, and rabbits raised on wire.
It made such an impression on me that I tore apart and burned all my wooden hutches that had areas where feces could accumulate, and purchased all new wire cages this spring.
(corrected for spelling, and will probably do so more when I find more errors)
Sometime last year I had someone deliver a doe to me who had signs hepatic coccidiosis. I didn't recognize it at first and was told she was just skinny from being kept on grass. (red flag)
If I had traveled to pick her up I would have walked away, but since they delivered her to me, and she wasn't overpriced, I figured it was worth a shot to see if I could get her back up to weight.
She was wasted looking, very thin at the hips, but with a hugely bloated belly. She had a good appetite and normal stool. She was perky and friendly. Probably the only friendly SF doe I've ever met!
During this time, I was using a large yard for keeping fryers prior to butchering. (18x24 feet, surrounded by 6 ft privacy panels and with a little roofed pallet shed to get them out of the weather) I had been doing this for a few YEARS without any troubles or disease issues. Never once a spotted liver.
It didn't take me long to decide that SF doeling needed to be on the butcher list and placed her in the ground pen. (still without knowing what was wrong with her, you can see my obvious mistake here)
About a week or two after bringing her home, my caged rabbits starting having digestive problems, just a little diarrhea and then a quick recovery. (I think I butchered that questionable doeling right around then, and although I looked carefully, I didn't see any convincing evidence of hepatic cocci)
When the disease made it way to Pancake, who had a 3 week old litter of 10, things were much worse.
She balled up, looked miserable for a few hours and then crawled into the nestbox, evacuated the largest and most foul smelling mass I'd ever seen a rabbit pass and then just laid in it.
It was cold out. I had no choice but to bring her and the babies inside, and start supportive care immediately.
Because of the kits age, I didn't separate them from the doe, but I knew she couldn't nurse. I feed the kits oats, hay cubes, mashed pumpkin, pellets and a bit of kit formula. The members of RT really helped me through this. Thanks guys!
Pancake continued to pass a tarry nasty and very watery diahrea for almost a week. She was dehydrated and would drink but wouldn't eat. I dropper fed her mashed pumpkin with a bit of salt. Or oats and pumpkin blended together.
I had to clean her backside frequently. She was a very limp animal.
Eventually I was able to get her to take a bit of greens. I offered blackberry leaves, cilantro, dandelions, parsley, fennel. She took fennel greens first. My sickest buns have usually started on fennel first when starting back onto eating on their own. Probably because the sweet anise smell is extra tempting.
I'd like to mention at no point did any kit get thin or have any digestive problems, despite their mothers illness.
Ok, so after almost two weeks of nursing a very very very sick doe, I actually teared up with relief when she was strong enough to struggle out of my hands because she was tired of me stuffing droppers full of pumpkin in her mouth.
She was getting stronger. Oh, right around then she started to nurse again! :shock: What a crazy doe!
Obviously, I couldn't allow her to nurse a litter of 10 in the bone-thin condition she was in. I separated the males, 6 of them between 5 and 6 weeks old, and placed them in my "to be butchered yard" to grow out. By this point, that yard had been empty for at least 3 weeks.
They were meat kits, and not small for their age. They had shelter in there, and I didn't suddenly change their diets.
Pancake was allowed to continue nursing the 4 doelings. Her stool had firmed up, her body weight increased. Eventually they were moved back outside into an all-wire cage.
The kits with her continued to thrive, but something was wrong with the males that were on the ground. They became thin. They ate and drank like horses, but didn't really gain weight. Actually, they were losing it.
We lost a few, and culled the rest far-undersized as a mercy kill.
Autopsy revealed this:
I didn't know enough about the disease at the time to really be sure how to treat it, and most websites were saying sanitation was the best treatment. So I waited until the doelings who had been on wire to reach a good butcher size. What I found in the girls was...clean livers. One had a single white spot.
OK, so cocci seemed a reasonable assumption. The ground pen was put permanently out of use. To this day I haven't even considered putting a rabbit back in there.
But since the wire-kept rabbits were clean and not sick, I didn't worm everyone. I forgave Pancake for getting sick, since she was pretty stressed from nursing a big litter.
A few months of recovery time and I was ready for another litter on her. (we did it inside, since it was winter, but I kept her cage VERY clean)
Everything went well, rabbits reached butcher size on time and had spotless livers. She has another litter now with very good growth. The other rabbits, some who had had just a bit of diahrea also went on to produce healthy kits. I can only assume their immune systems had things under control.
I'm sure the cocci isn't all gone, but very good sanitation has kept it from being a threat to my herd. I don't want them on a routine wormer if they are healthy enough to simply resist it on their own.
I posted this to show how dramatic the difference can be between rabbits kept on contaminated ground, and rabbits raised on wire.
It made such an impression on me that I tore apart and burned all my wooden hutches that had areas where feces could accumulate, and purchased all new wire cages this spring.
(corrected for spelling, and will probably do so more when I find more errors)
