How do you prevent/treat coccidia in your herd?

I am curious if any of you regularly treat for coccidia, or use preventative measures, and if I should. I don't know if this is normal. I do have a great fear of coccidiosis . I am afraid it is hiding in my rabbits for some reason. Anyway, is there anything I should be doing besides maintaining a clean environment, feeding a healthy diet, and only breeding when they are in optimal condition? I am quite new to rabbits and I am not sure.

Most rabbits already have the parasite in small numbers and I don't regularly treat for it. It is when the parasite gets to unmanagble numbers that the rabbits start to get sickly

Good hygiene practices and keeping your rabbits as stress free as possible are the best measures to keep your rabbits immune systems strong so they can keep the parasite, and most disease, in check

I definitely have cocci floating around. I don't treat for it at all, and follow the same basic practices you do, along with feeding high tannin plants, especially to kits.

I look at lots and lots of livers...An occasional white spot crops up, but I do not have any increased risk of mortality. I select only the healthiest and fastest growing kits for my brood stock, and hope that it's helping breed towards good immune systems and natural resistance. Still scared to put any on the ground though.

Since rabbits naturally are ground dwelling animals I think that a sensibility for coccidosis is a bred in fault, different in different lines or populations.

Here wooden hutches are standard, on old time farms they don't get cleaned often, just hay or straw added until the layer is several inches thick. I know people who still keep rabbits this way (and in awfully small hutches, not big enough to stretch, and I've seen claws that were a half circle... ). Anyway, it needs a good immune system to cope with conditions like that, so I think it's pretty safe to let my bunnies turn my garden into a Indiana Jones style Pit Trap Adventure Park. They sure came in contact with everything out there.
Many generations of wire cages could have changed something there.

Ok, that's just my crude theory, but that explains my take on Cocci: I ignore the fact that it exists until any problems pop up. I'm in my fifth year with rabbits, that's not much experience, and I'm not going to tell someone that my way is the right one for their bunnies.
But having the rabbits around me, running around and through the house, is a big part of why I even have them.

Hm, but I will look for plants high in tannins if that is good, I feed mugwort anyway to prevent worms.

I got cocci once in my colonies and I found just stripping things out, making them dry, and rebedding was more useful than treatments. I put them back in and we reduced the risk of moisture build up. We saw no more problems. I never had a problem in cages off the ground.

I did lose a group of guinea pigs many years ago that I put on the ground in an herb garden pen. The property had a ton of wildlife all over and lots of garden plants gone wild for the past decade. They contracted an unidentified illness that may have been cocci and died one after the other. They did not respond to any treatment for anything we could come up with.

Preitler":1vtt9bq2 said:

Since rabbits naturally are ground dwelling animals I think that a sensibility for coccidosis is a bred in fault, different in different lines or populations.

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I've heard from hunters in the US, that it can unwise to shoot cottontail certain times of the year, because their livers are very badly diseased, to the point where it is believed the meat is unsafe. (The meat might actually be safe, but the I'm getting that they must look pretty bad.) I've heard from other hunters that they can have nasty worm infestations.

The point I'm trying to make is that wild rabbits suffer and die from parasites too.
Worms and protozoa definitely help contribute to mortality rates in wild rabbits.
When I really think about it, wild rabbits have higher mortality rates than most breeders would ever accept in their domestic populations.

I feed garlic chives to my rabbits before breeding , a week before kindling, and just as the young start to come out of the nest box, -- allium family plants kill the coccidiosis protozoa.

Thanks everyone! Michaels4gardens, I have a few questions about garlic.


1. What are the benefits? Which exact parasites does it help with and does it kill them or prevent them?
2. What are the risks? I do not want to harm my rabbits at all, they are my pets as well as breeding animals.
3. When would I feed garlic? How often? Every time I breed( 2 or 3 times a year)? And for both the buck and the doe?
4. Can regular plain garlic be used, not just garlic chives? How would I prepare the garlic, as in what part do I give?
5. How much would I give?

Allium family plants also cause hemolytic anemia by destroying red blood cells. No one knows how much is bad since symptoms are hard to see until they are really suffering health problems. I don't feed any allium plants at all. I don't feel the low levels of garlic are useful enough to risk a negative impact on health.

LittleFluffyBunnies":26x5ayfp said:

Thanks everyone! Michaels4gardens, I have a few questions about garlic.


1. What are the benefits? Which exact parasites does it help with and does it kill them or prevent them?
2. What are the risks? I do not want to harm my rabbits at all, they are my pets as well as breeding animals.
3. When would I feed garlic? How often? Every time I breed( 2 or 3 times a year)? And for both the buck and the doe?
4. Can regular plain garlic be used, not just garlic chives? How would I prepare the garlic, as in what part do I give?
5. How much would I give?

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I feed garlic chives to my rabbits before breeding , a week before kindling, and just as the young start to come out of the nest box, --.

allium family plants kill the coccidiosis protozoa.

I feed a hand full, [quarter to 50 cent size bunch] of garlic chives at the times stated. I remove any uneaten garlic chives when I have finished with chores. [about a half hour to an hour] garlic tops work as well as garlic chives, and green onions also work but require a little more.
There is plenty of research showing that garlic fed to rabbits "cured" coccidiosis.
there is plenty of research showing garlic did not harm the red blood cell count, or any other observable blood values in rabbits.
Statements made regarding garlic and allium family plants harming rabbits, was based on research on cats, or on research where concentrated garlic extracts was injected into the bodies of rabbits.

I have fed garlic chives for years, as mentioned, -- I have does still in production at 6 years old.

Long story short, out of 20 weanlings, I lost one to two per day starting 2 weeks after weaning, until there were only 6 left. Talk about hurting the profit margin on my meat rabbits!

A fecal float was performed by my vet who stated that the kits had intestinal coccidiosis rather than liver (hepatic) coccidiosis. The recommended treatment was Corrid for 5 days (max dose) then preventative for 21 days. There is no withdrawal for meat.

Basically, what happened is that my business partner allowed her chickens on top of her rabbit cages, unknown to me, which caused the intestinal infestation. Then, we moved a doe from her herd (without me knowing of her conditions) to my location for breeding. Without thinking, I handled the doe during a sale, and then handled several of the just weaned kits without proper quarantine procedures. (OK, I have had a major health issue that has been detrimental to my cognition for a bit, doing much better now)

Also during the consultation with my rabbit-knowledgable vet, he recommended treatment for coccidia 2-3X per year in this area (Oklahoma) as the local cotton-tail population carries the liver coccidia and it can be transported in the hay.

As for garlic, I had a rabbit that loved to eat the tops of garlic, but would not touch the bulb

Thanks so much!

I will probably have to find a garlic top somewhere, or green onion. I don't know where I would get garlic chives so the others would have to do. I am thinking of doing that, I can't get actual coccidia meds, at least I don't know where to find them. I am just also nervous about garlic. But I'm also nervous about coccidia. I live in town, so my rabbits have no contact with other rabbits. They are all off of the ground except for a solid bottom cage I use for kits and breeding does at the moment, until I build better cages. I have let my rabbits graze occasionally, and I let them run on a leash outdoors. But if it's better I can always keep them off of the ground.

http://www.jefferspet.com/products/cori ... owder-10oz

I raise garlic chives in a little flower bed [between the flowers]near the front door, -- it makes it easy to get a handful for use in our kitchen, as well as for the rabbits.

What exactly IS coccidia? What are the symptoms? I've heard a lot of people experiencing it but not much about it....

Easy Ears":310l9407 said:

What exactly IS coccidia? What are the symptoms? I've heard a lot of people experiencing it but not much about it....

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I generally suspect coccidiosis any time I have any GI issues in my rabbits, as well as when I have more than one sudden death in 4 to 9 week old rabbits. weaning stress, food changes, weather changes, mold in feed, - almost anything can cause a drop in the immune system. infection severity is affected by the number of disease causing eggs the rabbit ingests.- cage cleanliness is the single most effective tool we have to limit the severity of symptoms. Healthy rabbits will develop immunity if exposed to small amounts of eggs at a time-[like in a clean cage] - but if a rabbit ingests a lot of them it will overwhelm the system ,and the immune system[especially if depressed] will not be able to protect the rabbit.
the info in the above link to medirabbit is very good and has good pictures.

In my experience- [JMHO]- moldy feed, and feed contaminates are the biggest cause of depressed immune system, and all problems, in caged rabbits.

I feed weeds, and root crops, grown in cocci infected soil-- I must always have a proactive approach to coccidiosis control...

So, if coccidia are in the ground, does that mean my rabbits should not go on the ground? I have a pen I was going to use for exercise out on a bare patch of ground in my yard.

michaels4gardens":2f7zjv3s said:

I feed garlic chives to my rabbits before breeding , a week before kindling, and just as the young start to come out of the nest box, -- allium family plants kill the coccidiosis protozoa.

Click to expand...

Michael, I have read several of your posts regarding using plants from the allium family as preventive medicine. I don't have any garlic chives in my garden, but I do have some leeks. Would they work as well?

I have not tried the leek -- but they are not much different from Elephant garlic-- and that I have used...