Grow outs dying for no aparent reason.

Hi Everyone, it's been a while buy I'm back...Anyway I have lost 4 grow outs from 2 litters. Over the course of three weeks. There has been no snot or sneezing. No diarrhoea. I keep thinking it is inbreeding but I don't know because the one I lost today was not from the same pair as the last three.' It is still kinda hot here and a little humid but no one has shown signs of heat distress. They have shade cloth and misting system, and a roofed area with 2 fans. I opened up one of the ones I lost 2 weeks ago everything looked good except the lung cavity it had a white paste like substance,in the cavity and the lungs were dark red....any ideas???? Getting ready to throw in the towel..... :shock: :evil:

Could it be some kind of mold? I never had any luck with misting systems, very short try here for hot summer but it gave me too many problems with my asthma as it made mold grow like wild fire (mold/mildew sends me into terrible fits). It was a mister system for a green house though, don't know if that makes any difference.

Lost another one. one left...We are going to butcher the three from another litter who are two weeks older, and this last little guy.
Ready to just give up...I don't know what to do, Hubby is really not doing well with the losses. He is trying to decide if we are going to stop, and get out of rabbits all together. He overreacts with each loss.
I have COPD and just can't take the stress any more.what began as a relaxing fun hobby has turned to an expensive heartache.. Maybe after a little more thought he will make a decision we can deal with...I just don't know....

I'm so sorry this is hitting you and your hubby so hard. It must be very frustrating to lose them and not know why. It sounds from your description of the lungs as though it may be respiratory in nature. The pasty substance you mentioned in your first post -- is it inside the lungs or on the outer surface of the lungs or on the chest wall around the lungs? I think you would handle the losses better if you had some answers.

That said -- and I don't mean to be unsympathetic or to minimize what you are going through -- you've been a member for just over four years, so I am assuming you've been raising rabbits for at least that long. If this is your first patch of bad luck, you've been fortunate until now. Rabbits are fairly fragile creatures and in nature the weak and the ill soon fall prey to other animals. When we remove the predators from the equation, we are left with facing deaths that would not be obvious in a wild population.

I'll poke around a bit on the Internet and see if I can offer any answers, but I think most of us have experienced something similar to what you are going through. I once lost a whole litter of very promising young kits. They dwindled, one at a time, and I still don't know why. But it never happened again.

Sometimes we just have to accept that we don't have all the answers and move forward anyway. So hang in there for a bit if you can. (((HUGS)))

Thank you so much for the encouragement. This is almost word for word what I told Joe last night, about the losses..sometimes it just happens. I think he has been touchy this year with his mom then his dad passing away. Trying to figure out my illness, and dealing with our daughter and her two boys moving back after only 6 months away.
Yes the one that had the white substance in it was in the chest cavity and the lungs were red. I only opened one of the natural death ones because timing was not good.. The last of that litter was just processed this morning and looked perfect inside..so I am thinking that she was the strongest.??.. The three in the lower cage all looked great also.
It is still hot here so I am not going to start breeding again until October, He wants to shoot for the last two weeks of September. I guess we will see. I want to pressure wash the cages and thoroughly clean the bunny "barn" I want to change out the shade cloths,fresh is good..

A thorough cleaning and if possible the cages being put in sunlight for a few days could help head off future problems.

I did poke around on the Internet and found a reference to pleuritis in rabbits - an inflammation of the tissue around the lungs - but I haven't found a really good description of it or what it does. It might be a place to start, however.

I can certainly understand your hubby being particularly sensitive to losses at present. Sometimes life just seems to heap on the troubles. Maybe by the time your rabbits kindle again later in the fall, he will be feeling more optimistic.

Weanling Enteritis may be the problem.. No outward signs other than a 'fuzziness' around the head area and a stand-offish behavior. They'll die within 24 hours... and nothing seems to help once they've reached the point of the owner noticing it. Open one up and the lower bowel will be filled with gas.. and 'sometimes' a greenish liquid.

Alfalfa hay cubes free choice when they begin to leave the nest seems to allay this problem. Some commercial producers were losing upwards of 50% of the youngsters, until this was discovered. This simple addition reduced the losses down to less than 3%.

Hope this helps.

Grumpy.