Why are my rabbits dieing?

First some basic info:
Breed new zealand white, and nz white crossed with nz red
age: 4-8 weeks
Housing: 20ft. by 20ft. pen on grass. I think either fescue or brome
Feed: nutrena pellet being supplemented every other day, also feeding red clover ( trifolium pratense) every other day

The rabbits are dieing 2 or three at a time, sometimes during the day sometimes at night. I have given them plenty of shade and a mister, so I do not believe it is heat related. I have stopped giving clover for a few days and still lost more rabbits so I am beginning to rule out the clover being the problem. There are no physical signs, no matted hair, no runny nose.

I have butchered some of the healthy rabbits for consumption and noticed something odd.
The abdominal cavity seems to have some clear fluid in it, not a bunch but enough to notice.
It is not in the thoracic cavity with the heart and lungs, just in the gut cavity.
this could be normal, The only other animal I have butchered is deer, and I have never noticed it then. So I thought it was odd to see it in the rabbit.

Were the livers normal ?

I've butchered rabbits with abdominal fluid but the livers were always damaged as well and looked like hepatic coccidia

The livers looked perfectly healthy.

I am studying what type of grass they are on now. I think it might be fescue, and there is a fungus associated with fescue that is deadly to rabbits. Researching now.

I'm guessing they were separated from their mother too young and fed greens too early.

Greens and clover are considered safe only so long as the kit's dam has always been given them, and the kits started on them, otherwise, they may not have the proper gut bacteria to digest those foods. Leading to potential mucoid enteritis, and/or death. Sometimes without any visible symptom.

I wouldn't rule out greens or clover being a potential problem if they had only been off them a few days.
Gi issues in rabbits can take a while to develop.
For example, I've seen mold toxins trigger diahrea, which caused the buns to feel unwell, leading to feed refusal. Feed refusal leading to gi slowdown, stasis and death well after the initial trigger.

Intestinal coccidia is another possibility.

I saw one doe with an abdominal full of liquid - she was suffering from wry neck... the owner had a HUGE case of snuffles going around, but was either in denial or totally naieve that he had a major problem (the wry neck he thought was a neuro issue and genetic, the sneezing and snot he though were symptoms of a "cold")...

Is the grass area clear of weeds? I remember one post shortly after I joined on here and the buns were housed on the ground... they were asking what was going on because they were starting to lose them. The pic of their area shower some potentially poisonous weeds.

Have the growouts always been on grass, or is that a new thing? Thinking along the lines of Zass as to what their diet has been leading up to this...

It's a form of enteritis.... give alfalfa cubes to the young when they start leaving the nest.
This is a common issue in commercial rabbitry's that have reduced losses from 10-15%
to less than 3%. It works.

Grumpy.

I'd research mucoid enteritis and see if it looks like that if I were you.

Its odd to me that one age group is all dieing but the older age group is doing fine.

I took the last three rabbits out of the grass pen and put them in a cage with timothy hay. They have survived two days so far. And at the rate their siblings were perishing I do not think they would be alive right now if I left them on the grass.


Would it be safe/ a good idea to put the does on grass with their newborns so that they grow up on the grass?

Or is there still risk of fescue fungus? I wouldn't think it would be the grass being the problem if the older rabbits are doing fine on it. Maybe the older ones are just tough enough that the fungus doesn't bother them? Or maybe its not a fungus at all?

Sorry this is happening!

DoubleA":fjcvqqhv said:

Its odd to me that one age group is all dieing but the older age group is doing fine.

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I had this happen. It even kept happening where when they reached a certain age they died. We finally diagnosed mild cocci exposure. The older ones had a mature immune system and the kits were born with the dam's immune system but at a certain point when converting from one to the other they were vulnerable. Cocci is an increased risk of keeping them on the ground but can happen in wire cages. Ours were in horse stalls on mats with shavings. We stripped all bedding, cleaned the area, bedded it back down with an aim toward keeping things drier, and quit breeding for awhile. That was middle of summer. By fall we were producing litters without problems again. I learned not to let the floor get too damp.

Its odd to me that one age group is all dieing but the older age group is doing fine.

Click to expand...

This isn't strange at all. Kits in 4-8 week range have extremely fragile systems. When I use the term weanling, I'm pretty much describing those specific ages.

Anything that upsets their digestion during that period can be fatal, and even mild parasite exposure (cocci) can kill.

Many breeders refuse to sell kits before 8 weeks due to this, even where it's legal.


You will probably see the term "weaning enteritis" kicked around, but, I feel that is kind of misleading, since there is always something more going on than just weaning.

Again, as an example, mold in pellets or hay has killed my weanling kits well before anyone else has symptoms.


I tried having a very large colony pen for raising babies at one time. It worked for about a year, until I introduced a rabbit that had been on pasture.
The issue with pasture in this regard, is that domestic rabbits can come in contact with cocci protozoa left by wild cottontails.

It was about a month after I butchered the pasture bun (who I didn't realize was a cocci carrier)...I placed all the males from the litter in my colony pen, and females were kept in cages.
ALL the ground dwelling kits died horribly from hepatic coccidiosis. The females in cages did fine.

Thus ended the use of my colony pen.