Sick and dead rabbit questions

[Melissa]

I'm so upset! I've never in all my years of raising rabbits had illness in my herd. 5 days ago I found a Silver Fox doe aged 7mos dead in her cage. No prior symptoms. She seemed fine just hours before. She was very healthy. When we carried her body to the house some blood dripped from her nose. We have had. A house full of family visiting so we put her in the freezers to necropsy at a future date. All nearby rabbits were moved since we did not know the cause of her sudden death.

A doe the same age who had been housed next to her has been off feed for 2 days. Won't touch hay or pellets. Not drinking much if at all. Stools were soft but formed and much larger in size than normal. Today when I got home from work she was very listless with yellow nasal discharge. She has not been sneeezing or showing any other respiratory symptoms. Just the GI symptoms. We culled her and examined her.

We found her stomach to be full of partially digested food and her intestines had little in them. Colon had stool in it. No hairballs or masses were seen. Her bladder was very large with sludge in it. This is in a rabbit that I am absolutely certain has not eaten anything in days. Her liver was not a healthy red color but instead a greyish. Her lungs were very weird! Grayish with hemorrhage seen.

Please help me! What are we dealing with here? I cannot keep losing my herd this way! I will try to post pictures. I'm so worried that this will take out every one!!

 

[Northwinds Rabbitry]

I am so sorry to hear this just horrible.
A while back I was having kits die one after another and they all look ok on the outside?:/
I hope all works out ok for you

 

[Dood]

Rabbit Viral Haemorragic disease

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_h ... ic_disease

A fatal bloody discharge from the nose has been exhibited

The liver of RHD rabbits may have a fine reticular pattern of necrosis outline each lobule and maybe yellow, gray or pale in colour.

This is getting scary.

I think you should get the government involved and have these rabbits tested by a lab to identify the disease and prevent an outbreak of RHD across the country.

RHD is a reportable disease in the United States.

 

[AmysMacdog]

I know how you feel Melissa. I had a intestinal virus hit my rabbits earlier this year. I'm so sorry you are going through this. Hope the rest of your rabbits will be ok. Prayers sent your way.

 

[Melissa]

We did find this on a sticky here. I don't think this is what we have. The pictures don't look at all like mine. I can't get them to load though... the first rabbit was found dead on the 2nd. We culled this one today. No other rabbits have any symptoms. We house over 100 in our rabbitry.<br /><br />__________ Sun Oct 06, 2013 9:57 pm __________<br /><br />Thank you! We have a very clean operation. Two separate barns are available so any new stock is kept in quarantine. These two have been here for since they were 9 weeks old.

 

[OneAcreFarm]

Rabbit Production talks about "young doe syndrome" where a seemingly healthy young doe will go downhill and die very fast, for no apparent reason.....

 

[AmysMacdog]

Oh wow! You have a big place! Got my fingers crossed it won't spread!

 

[Melissa]

I'm leaning towards two separate issues?? The first doe just up and died. She is still in the freezer awaiting necropsy. The second one maybe GI stasis? So far no other symptoms. I just got back from checking everyone again. This has me in a panic. Very sad since this is my favorite line!! Thank you so much everyone for your ideas and encouragement! I really appreciate any help!!