Lucky save!

So, this is rather a long story, but it has a mostly happy ending...

A little over 2 weeks ago, 7 of my does were showing full blown GI stasis. It started with my broken black NZ (that took BOV at meaford) and over the course of the week, 6 other does followed. The does ranged in age from 3 months to 2 years, were housed in 3 different locations (1 in the basement, 1 in an outdoor hutch, 5 in the main rabbitry). By GI Stasis, I mean untouched feed and no droppings -- NONE! I pulled the pellets, offered oatmeal, hay, raspberry leaves, plantain (the weed, not the banana), dandelion, prickly lettuce and replaced water crocks with Acid-Pak (a probiotic/electrolyte solution).

The 3 month old doe I butchered after 3 days because I wanted to see what was going on inside. Everything looked perfectly normal except the stomach and intestines were empty -- EMPTY!!! Ok, there was a tiny bit of feed in there, but I have NEVER seen such flaccid intestines or stomach. With Mucoid Enteropathy, they are usually impacted and swollen and smell really bad. This rabbit was perfectly fine other than having almost nothing in it's belly. :?

Five of the other six does eventually recovered and all but the one are completely back to normal. I did endure 4-5 days of panic with them though. I had no idea a rabbit could survive 4 days without eating or pooping!! But in all but one case, they slowly started nibbling at the hay and greens after about 3 days, gradually pooping one or two little rounds, then over the next day or two eating a bit of pellets and oats and pooping a bit more, then by day 5, almost normal levels again. The one exception was my new broken red NZ doe from Pennsylvania (of course :x ) who died after about 48 hours of not eating or pooping. Sigh. No surprise, there, the one rabbit that I would have sacrificed all the others to keep. My guess is that her immune system was not as good as the others and whatever caused the GI Stasis in the first place was too much for her to fight off.

Ok, so it's been about 4 days with everyone normal, and my choc harle doe Star goes off her feed yesterday. I'm about crushed at this point because I thought it had run it's course, but I go ahead and pull her feed, hand her a pile of hay and oatmeal and head off to mix up some Acid-Pak. I get back and she's madly digging in the corner of her cage with a mouthful of hay. Now yes, I did try to breed her 4 weeks ago, but it was to a 1st time buck who seemed to have no idea what to do and he DEFINITELY did not grunt and fall off. In fact, he seemed to do nothing but pull hair from the back of her neck. But hey, it's been 30 days and she's making bones, so I give her a nestbox.

This morning there were 9 fat little chocolate magpie babies in the box and Star was happily chowing down on her pellets. WHEW!!!! I guess everything is still ok in the barn and I apologized to Chester (the buck) for cursing his useless inability to breed even though he was 5 1/2 months old. Obviously he snuck it in there somewhere while I blinked. :mrgreen:

yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (sorry about the doe, but YEAH for everyone else recovering)

Really sorry you lost your broken red doe... but on the whole, things ended not too badly. Did you ever get to the bottom of what precipitated the GI stasis?

I should mention that I've learned that rabbits can survive about 6 days without eating/drinking and be able to come back from it. You do need force-feed fluids after two days and by day four offer some type of mushed pellets by mouth ... even just a mouthful helps I find.

I find that they simply won't come back (at least under my care) if they don't eat or drink after six days at least a little bit on their own.

I too would wonder, what caused it?

I'm a bit in the dark with My son's bunny. She stopped eating pellets last week. Just stopped one day. And then stopped eating greens. Maintained decent condition - no bloated belly, no teeth grinding, just NOT EATING. Didn't eat for two days, and only drank what I forced her to. Then she started eating raspberry leaves, and then dandelions, and then some timothy grass and then started drinking and today I finally caught her nibbling on pellets. Got poops again on day four. What the cause is? No clue. Just glad I don't have a really really sad boy again.....

What a rollercoaster! Bittersweet Sorry about the doe, but WHOOOOPEEEE!! about the happy fat kits! And a big PHEW for Chester! I guess some guys ARE subtle...

Man, I'm glad you saved most of them. I never realized that rabbits are so sensitive! What do you think caused it??

Wow... Man, I hope I don't ever have a run like that! Congratulations on the unexpected popples, and on saving almost everybunny!

It's pretty hard to say what caused the problem. It only happened with about 1/3 of my does and about 15% of the herd and there wasn't really anything they had in common other than being does, which could easily have been coincidence. They were not all in the same location, or the same breed, or the same age. I don't handle my rabbits much except for nail clipping, and there was none of that during the week before symptoms started. They are watered from a watering can into crocks and feed from a scoop into a J-feeder, so it's not like I could have carried something from one set of cages to the others unless it was airborne and really contagious, and if so, then why did none of the other 40 rabbits come down with this?

I would like to blame it on the feed, because I had just started a new batch and it did look very poorly mixed (some dark green, some yellow, some normal green) but feed problems usually hit the weanlings the hardest since they are consuming so much more per body weight and not one of my 5 unweaned litters had any symptoms. In fact, one doe was nursing a 2 week old litter that got DRASTICALLY skinny when she stopped eating (I assume she stopped nursing too). But I offered them oatmeal, greens and made a mush out of rabbit pellets/calf manna/baby cereal/banana and they scarfed that down. All 9 survived and although they are smaller than the other litter the same age, they are very feisty and growing like weeds.

It's so hard to pinpoint something like this. I did have 5 of Ladysown's rabbits here overnight just 2 days before symptoms started, and then brought in a bunch of meat juniors from HCF that I didn't process until the next day. Who knows what low level stuff might live in someone else's herd that mine have simply not built an immunity to? :shrug: Or did I bring something home from the Meaford show that took 9 days to show up? :shrug: But it certainly wasn't lethal except for my poor broken red, and only affected a very small percentage of my herd. Sometimes we just never know. :wall:

I'd hate to think that my rabbits caused a problem in your herd. All four were healthy, two in moult, and had never shown signs of anything wrong with them....

ladysown":2m6dfgvw said:

I'd hate to think that my rabbits caused a problem in your herd. All four were healthy, two in moult, and had never shown signs of anything wrong with them....

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Sorry, wasn't suggesting that your rabbits aren't healthy! But often rabbit herds can be exposed to and develop immunity to different things. Bring in a new rabbit (or send one out) and problems can arise because the new rabbit or new herd has not been exposed and needs time to develop their own immunity.

But what you described with your son's rabbit is exactly what my 7 does went through, so it does seem like something is going around, although it's a fairly minor bug/virus/irritation that is quickly overcome by healthy rabbits. Who knows where it came from originally. These things are in the environment and we pick them up and carry them with us from all sorts of places including the park, the mall, etc.

I'm just glad it seems to be a non-lethal issue for the most part.

I'm glad that all seems well again! And I am so sorry to hear about your broken red. I know you were looking forward to more. I sure wish you were closer! We are waiting on a litter of broken reds very soon.

It's a shame about your doe but I'm happy that all the others are doing better. Congrats on the beautiful new litter!

moonkitten":2u6ucalv said:

Obviously he snuck it in there somewhere while I blinked. :mrgreen:

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Sigh, there's one buck I have who seems to only be able to do it if I blink. I've yet to see him do the act and yet he sires every time.

wow - glad you are coming through it ok - but that is stress for sure ...

first time I've had that with a kit. Not eating with no explanation. So that was an odd one for me. She was an in the house rabbit so it was a one off. But she's doing well for me now. (knock on wood)

moonkitten":2tl69mv0 said:

ladysown":2tl69mv0 said:

I'd hate to think that my rabbits caused a problem in your herd. All four were healthy, two in moult, and had never shown signs of anything wrong with them....

Click to expand...

Sorry, wasn't suggesting that your rabbits aren't healthy! But often rabbit herds can be exposed to and develop immunity to different things. Bring in a new rabbit (or send one out) and problems can arise because the new rabbit or new herd has not been exposed and needs time to develop their own immunity.

But what you described with your son's rabbit is exactly what my 7 does went through, so it does seem like something is going around, although it's a fairly minor bug/virus/irritation that is quickly overcome by healthy rabbits. Who knows where it came from originally. These things are in the environment and we pick them up and carry them with us from all sorts of places including the park, the mall, etc.

I'm just glad it seems to be a non-lethal issue for the most part.

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Wasn't there something like this going around after one of the rabbit shows a couple of years ago? I think it was the Rockton show, when I sent one of my rabbits with you, because I was at the Royal. I had no problems with that doe but other people had rabbits that just stopped eating. Some survived it, some didn't.

Sorry you lost your doe.

Half Caper Farm":2e1yppsb said:

Wasn't there something like this going around after one of the rabbit shows a couple of years ago? I think it was the Rockton show, when I sent one of my rabbits with you, because I was at the Royal. I had no problems with that doe but other people had rabbits that just stopped eating. Some survived it, some didn't.

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Yeah, but that was definitely Mucoid Enteropathy that time. The rabbits had jelly poops, sloshing sounds, swollen, impacted colon, etc. We do seem to get waves of ME that occur all up and down eastern Canada and the US. Spring 2009 was bad and I think the fall of 2007.

This had none of those symptoms and my does were alert, bright-eyed and still active. No hunched in the corner, grinding teeth. They still came to the cage door to see what I wanted. Just no eating, no pooping for DAYS :shock: