Stupid weather change......

Stupid weather change....

The best of my six young growers that I plan to keep has a tummy ache this morning.
He was FINE last night.

I was keep a tight look on my "kids" whenever the weather changes and now the best of the six is looking a bit better than death warmed over...

Gave him probiotics, forced some water down this throat and said :LIVE:

Of course now I"m left with this question.....
Do I want to keep this young buck or do I cull him out?

I want to breed resilient rabbits (very important to me)....
yet I want to breed more to the breed standard for size and type... and this little guy is quite nice in that regard..... but most of my rabbits go to the pet crowd where that isn't quite as important.....

Why did it hit him and not the so-so polish next door to him? same age, smaller even! Same area of the tent and everything! Why him? Why not one of the does that's in the cage that got hit in the spring? One of the does yeah...I'd be sad but not as concerned as I've got three others that are similar in type... but nope...got to hit my promising young buck.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate this......

I don't quite understand, Ladysown, what the weather change has to do with it... unless it got a lot colder where you are than here. Rabbits should thrive in the cooler temps... are you sure that this was not just coincidence?

Ladysown,
isn't that the way it always is!
The one you really want tends to try to rollover.
Are there any specific signs of illness?
Is he still eating and drinking?
Make sure he IS drinking, if not you must syringe feed him water as
dehydration is a rabbit killer. If you can keep him eating
and drinking he may get past this glitch in time.
Give him a chance to improve before making any decision as to what to do.
Dennis, C.V.R. [I'm not an evil Rabbit Breeder/DEMON!]

It happens too often to be coincidence Maggie.

The weather changes from hot and sunny to cold and breezy and that's when I get bunnies get sick.

what I see is: runny poops and huddling in a corner.

This spring I had six youngsters get hit, four of them pulled through. Of those four I still have three but two are intermittent dry sneezers and will be culled out before Christmas. Doesn't matter if they have a sitting block, nestbox, or nothing but wire (as some rabbits just make it filthy). It just seems to strike randomly...and always the youngsters under four months of age OR rabbits new to the rabbitry.

Now of six youngsters I have.. one gets sick.
Always and only happens whenever theres a weather extreme change. No weather change and my buns are the total picture of health.

My rabbits are housed in a portable garage where I need to watch breeze currents carefully. I call it getting cold belly. They get a cold breeze on them that just hits them wrong.

I'll give him his fighting chance with syringed water 2-3 times a day for three days, a variety of feeds (hay, safe greens, oats, tiny bit of pellets) to nibble on, and probiotics but I've learned pretty much that if they aren't willing to fight through it, there's not much sense helping them too much. Sometimes the stress of being helped shuts some rabbits down even more. It's a fine balancing act AND some babies get sick and all they want to do is die. This kit has that look about him....doesn't mean that for three days though I won't try to change his mind though.

I really really want to change his mind for him... hopefully the probiotics will work to settle his tummy and hopefully he'll start to eat. I'll give him more water after church and then at supper time.... we'll see how he does.

Okay, this does seem to be weather-related. Maybe some rabbits just can't cope. I was doubtful because I've never seen it in my summer rabbitry, which is a tarped structure under the willow tree. It is sheltered enough to break up the wind, but not to block it entirely. And boy, do we get wind at times, being so close to the Lake.

Hope your little buck is a fighter and decides to live. :clover:

hmmmm. so is wind bad for bunnies?

I live in a nice temperate climate and thought the breezes we've had would be good for the buns, with the high 70's weather we've had. Currently, i don't have a structure.. just a corner of the property shaded and blocked by the back side of a large garden shed, fence and some roofs over the hutches. We are going to build a structure that we can have open in hot weather and put up tarps in the winter to block wind and such.

What do you all think? do i need to do more to protect them from the elements? they don't get rained on at all and the breezes aren't too bad through their corner..

They are probably fine, Dee. It think it is the sudden change in temperatures plus the winds that must be causing the problem in Ladysown's rabbitry. Temperatures dropped from 85-90 to about 50 over a short period of time with high winds... Rather extreme.

Rain and wind on the bunnies together are definitely not good. Strong breezes on their own, especially if broken up by various barriers, are unlikely to be problem except in winter. Add tarps if the winds are extreme. My rabbits get some wind from spring to late fall, but I move them into a shed for the winter.

well...lost him.
hate it. died sometime between lunch and supper. Bummer.

He was eating and drinking fine all week. Even finished his chow from last night completely and drank water as well. 7 a.m. found him looking poorly - had the runs and looking all hunchy .... and now he's gone. That is indeed that fastest I've ever lost one....

So sorry you lost him, Ladysown. That really sucks. (((Hugs)))

I wish I knew something to suggest to prevent this kind of thing happening.

what a shame (((hugs)) glad for him it was fast I guess but brutal for you ...

the sudden change has me watching every one carefully - so far so good here .. but I'm hanging on to wood as I type

I wish I could figure it out too.

I've tried a variety of things, but it all seems so random. One cage of youngsters the entire group will get sick, sometimes it's just one, sometimes it's one that is in a really quiet area of the tent that shouldn't get any wind at all and it gets ill and one that gets a bit of wind is fine. So I can't quite figure it. ALL I know is that I need to watch my kits closely whenever we have a drastic weather change.

EVERYONE will look the very picture of health, be eating, drinking, pooping, I"ll get a weather change and then bam...someone isn't feeling well. Usually I have three days to win them back, for this one to go so fast tells me that something wasn't right....they shouldn't go that fast.

Sorry to hear what happened. Did you necropsy him?

Nope, I don't do that on Sundays.

Just stuck him in the freezer. He'll be garbaged or corn field tossed one of these days.

I have in the past and found empty tummies and runny poops in the digestive track. No air pockets or gelantinous areas, no hair in tummy, just empty tummies and runny poop. Livers and lungs and hearts have always looked fine.

Got the thought from a different board about limiting feeds and feeding more hay. So I'll work on doing that next drastic weather change though everyone else weathered this one just fine.