Stormy
Well-known member
OK yesterday's butchering was a new experience. I've been researching old threads and the internet for answers to what I found on 2 rabbits that have been growing out in a pasture pen together.
I'm attaching a pic of a liver with a white lump under the surface of the liver. I really wish I'd taken a picture of the other liver, there were many of them, they looked like grubs I inspected them to see if they were alive - they didn't wiggle, but were crescent shaped or maggot shaped (like fat in the middle and tapering) and perhaps just hardened white pus. Totally gross. (more info after pic)
I saw the other thread on this topic from March but the pic didn't look the same as mine. Those where more varied in shape and seemed more superficial. These whitish spots had more under the surface.
What was really interesting, I butchered a different 3 from a pen where a baby had died of Pasteurella, so I quarantined off the whole section of that exposed herd (from their outdoor pasture pen - dividing the colony) to grow out and butcher all of them. There were no spots on the lungs, they all seemed perfectly healthy. I know all the rabbits in there were sneezing at one point or another. Possible to carry P without making spots? When I butchered in the past from the Bordatella outbreak, I saw red spots on the lungs of some of the animals.
Anyone have any ideas?
(ps. I know some of you will say to eliminate my whole herd from the P... the baby who died of P had escaped the pen and was bit by a cat, whom I got him out of the mouth of. Turns out cats carry Pasteurella IN their mouths - ugh!! and yes, I tested the sick baby's snot and it was confirmed P. No one else has snot. I know there are many things that can make them sneeze!)
One of the grow out does was a beauty and I put her in a cage into the colony - and promptly pulled her back out again soon as I saw those livers! All the rabbits seem perfectly healthy, robust, even fat.
They could have come into contact with anything as these girls were part of a litter that escaped early and often from their mini-pasture pen set up (no longer will I do free roaming kits -I will keep them locked up til they are big enough to not squeeze through/under/over fences so easy!) So they could have contacted anything from our pasture - we have lots of deer, raccoons, coyotes, foxes, etc. even a mountain lion next door, and of course, wild rabbits.
However, in the March thread I noted that if its coccidia - cleanliness and the inability to eat each other's poop is important (why do they do that? grrr...)
How the heck do I monitor that with a colony pasture pen where they are freely roaming and equally free to all-the-poop-you-can-eat??
I'm attaching a pic of a liver with a white lump under the surface of the liver. I really wish I'd taken a picture of the other liver, there were many of them, they looked like grubs I inspected them to see if they were alive - they didn't wiggle, but were crescent shaped or maggot shaped (like fat in the middle and tapering) and perhaps just hardened white pus. Totally gross. (more info after pic)
I saw the other thread on this topic from March but the pic didn't look the same as mine. Those where more varied in shape and seemed more superficial. These whitish spots had more under the surface.
What was really interesting, I butchered a different 3 from a pen where a baby had died of Pasteurella, so I quarantined off the whole section of that exposed herd (from their outdoor pasture pen - dividing the colony) to grow out and butcher all of them. There were no spots on the lungs, they all seemed perfectly healthy. I know all the rabbits in there were sneezing at one point or another. Possible to carry P without making spots? When I butchered in the past from the Bordatella outbreak, I saw red spots on the lungs of some of the animals.
Anyone have any ideas?
(ps. I know some of you will say to eliminate my whole herd from the P... the baby who died of P had escaped the pen and was bit by a cat, whom I got him out of the mouth of. Turns out cats carry Pasteurella IN their mouths - ugh!! and yes, I tested the sick baby's snot and it was confirmed P. No one else has snot. I know there are many things that can make them sneeze!)
One of the grow out does was a beauty and I put her in a cage into the colony - and promptly pulled her back out again soon as I saw those livers! All the rabbits seem perfectly healthy, robust, even fat.
They could have come into contact with anything as these girls were part of a litter that escaped early and often from their mini-pasture pen set up (no longer will I do free roaming kits -I will keep them locked up til they are big enough to not squeeze through/under/over fences so easy!) So they could have contacted anything from our pasture - we have lots of deer, raccoons, coyotes, foxes, etc. even a mountain lion next door, and of course, wild rabbits.
However, in the March thread I noted that if its coccidia - cleanliness and the inability to eat each other's poop is important (why do they do that? grrr...)
How the heck do I monitor that with a colony pasture pen where they are freely roaming and equally free to all-the-poop-you-can-eat??
