I'm sorry your rabbits are ill. I had what I suspect was Pasteurella run through quite a few of my breeding animals after exposure at a show, and culling them was very hard. I routinely dispatch rabbits for meat, but having the choice of who to kill taken out of my hands made it all the more difficult to do.
I tried to look at the "bright side" in that it removed animals with weaker immune systems from my herd, but most of them were does with litters so were a bit stressed already. It was awful.
Trust me, you don't want this as an ongoing problem. Hard as it will be, I would strongly recommend culling anyone with symptoms. :encourage:
Sometimes white snot indicates disease other than Pasteurella, one of which is Bordetella, which can be treated. You can get a culture done on the mucous to determine the exact cause.
That said, I would not want to treat and save a bunch of infected rabbits because the fact that they became ill with anything at all indicates a weak immune system, and you don't want to perpetuate that. Unless, of course, you don't mind routinely medicating your herd.
Most of us raise rabbits for meat in part because it is free of antibiotics, so we cull (kill) anything that shows symptoms.
Zass":1v1p5h2l said:
Once every sign of disease has been eradicated (for several months) you will want to sterilize everything and start re-building your herd.
Pasteurella is actually a very fragile organism, and lives less than 24 hours outside of the host. It spreads by direct contact, so you need to make sure that there is a barrier between cages to prevent one from sneezing and propelling a globule of snot into reach of another rabbit.
I would still steam clean or disinfect the cages with bleach, vinegar, or betadine before using them again. Both vinegar and bleach will harm the wire if left to dry, so make sure to rinse well with water.
