Baby bunny diarrhea

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Mini Lop Fan

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I am in serious need of assistance, my kits are getting diarrhea at about 2-3 weeks old and passing away in a matter of days. All the adults are healthy, and it hasn't affected every litter that I have had, but over the past year months, I've had about four litters pass away from the symptoms. I've tried Benebac, but to no avail. I'm not sure what the cause is, and I could use some advice!
 
I am in serious need of assistance, my kits are getting diarrhea at about 2-3 weeks old and passing away in a matter of days. All the adults are healthy, and it hasn't affected every litter that I have had, but over the past year months, I've had about four litters pass away from the symptoms. I've tried Benebac, but to no avail. I'm not sure what the cause is, and I could use some advice!
It sounds like it may be what a lot of us know as "weaning enteritis" even though it sometimes shows up earlier than actual weaning at 5-8 weeks. The bunnies get diarrhea, their bellies get bloated, they sit grinding their teeth (a sign of pain) and looking miserable for some amount of time (sometimes hours, sometimes days), then they die.

Basically what is happening is that as the bunnies start eating new foods, the bacterial fauna in the bunny's gut (especially the cecum) gets out of balance and "bad" bacteria overwhelm the "good" ones. This can happen in adults, too, when their feed is changed suddenly or they're under stress, but as bunnies begin to transition from milk to solid food, it very often becomes an issue. It is a pretty hard situation to fight, but here are some things you can do.

First, *before* you see problems, make sure there's a ton of *clean* hay in the cage and nest box for the bunnies. I can't overemphasize the *clean* part - change it out daily if necessary.

Once you find you do have a problem, if the bunnies are already separated from the mother, take away the pellets and everything but hay for a while, as they need lots of roughage to keep their systems moving and to feed the good bacteria. If they're still in with the mother, you can still take away the pellets for a day or two, or take the mother out for some pellets if you're concerned about her condition. If a bunny is ailing, you can take it away from the mother at 2-3 weeks but be prepared to syringe-feed both Esbilac goat puppy milk replacer, plus Oxbow Critical Care for a while.

If they're bloated, give them Simethicone infant drops to reduce the pain they're feeling from the gas buildup in their gut. If they're not in constant pain they're more likely to eat and drink, which is very important.

Next, knock out the bad bacteria with Neomycin sulfate. In most forms you now need a prescription to buy this :( but you can still find it in pet stores, usually in the section for hamsters, under the name "Dri-Tail." It's a very diluted form of neomycin, but since most 3-4 week-old bunnies, especially if they're off their feed, aren't that much bigger than a large hamster, you can use the recommended dosage on the bottle. If they're very large, you can figure the appropriate dosage based on weight. (Neomycin sulfate is an old and very safe medicine with a large margin of error.) While I'm giving neomycin, I always like to add Benebac as well, to give the "good guys" bacteria a head start.

The other thing is that once you get the gut stabilized, the bunny will probably be pretty malnourished and weak. I usually try a mixture of Oxbow Critical Care and Nutridrops for rabbits. Critical Care is high in roughage and has a taste most rabbits seem to like. I mix it thinly with warm water and Nutridrops, and give it by syringe, as much as the bunny will take several times a day. This seems to help them over the hump while they're not feeling much like eating or drinking.

Finally, it might sound sappy but we have found that bunnies very definitely respond to love! The bunnies we bring into the living room to nurse back to health, which get a lot of attention and cuddling, have the highest probability of making it. One little mini rex kit, who had one of the worst cases of mucoid enteritis I've ever seen , would only eat and drink while one of us held and petted him. Not only did he make it, but he grew up to be my first Grand Champion opal (a color I had been working on for several years). :)
 
people have a variety of responses to dealing with weaning enteritis.

My approach. Health is of prime importance. Bottom line. Breed for health. Understand that this supercedes ALL other considerations if you have a health issue in your herd.

ERGO... ALL animals that produce kits that get weaning enteritis are REMOVED from your breeding program. You do not sell them as breeding animals. Hard culling I believe is the best response.

Any kits that DO NOT get weaning enteritis become your next breeders (even if it's only one in the whole litter). They have an innate something that helped them fight off this condition. if they produce kits with issues... remove them from your herd. You keep repeating this cycle. Keeping animals for breeding that never get sick. This is how you remove this illness from your herd! (at least it worked amazingly well for me)

In the meantime, how do you help your kits?
1. starting at day 7 start offering them feed. I rarely feed hay, so I drop a few pellets in the nestbox. Others like to feed hay so make a point of offering hay to your wee babies. Also offer them hay and anything else that you normally feed your animals. I tend to wait to feed forages until they are out of the nestbox.
2. feed the kits exactly the same way you feed mom.
3. do not introduce food that mom has not been exposed to during her pregnancy and rearing of kits.
4. Sick kits need gas drops and liquid. Some breeders will administer a tsp of pepto. They MUST be kept clean and dry.
 
I agree that weaning enteritis is definitely a breeding/herd management concern and responds to culling/selective breeding. For meat rabbits, especially, it makes sense to insist on low-maintenance healthy stock. My Satins rarely have any health issues (other than bringing home fur or ear mites from the Fair, ugh), probably because I do cull pretty vigorously for health problems, however with some caveats.

Once in a while over the years I've had "something" go through the barn (and often that "something" also affected multiple other breeders as well), and proven does who had had numerous healthy litters had kits that got enteritis. It happened to several of us this summer, as a matter of fact. I cannot see culling those does. Sometimes we figure out what happened, sometimes not. In these cases, it was the sick kits I culled (or at least did not use or sell as breeding stock), not the parents.

If a particular doe (or a buck) produced more than one litter that succumbed to enteritis, that's when I'd think about retiring her or him. Fortunately, I've not had that happen with the Satins (though Mini Rex were a different story).

At this point I make a plug for keeping good records! :) Keeping accurate notes on which animals were bred and the fate of each kit in each litter, as well as your feeding and management practices and changes in those, can be invaluable in figuring out these mysteries, and in making decisions to keep or cull/retire particular animals and/or genetic lines.

In Mini Lop Fan's case, it might not be feasible or necessary to eliminate all of the adults and start over. From the original post I gather that the rabbits have had healthy litters in the past and it has been during a discrete time period, over a few months, that they've lost litters to enteritis. That sounds like it might be an environmental, food, water, or stress issue. Perhaps there are rabbits that could withstand whatever triggered the enteritis problems, but maybe not; you might end up going through several rounds of culling possibly valuable breeding animals only to find that mice had been contaminating the feed with traces of poison, not enough to harm the adults but a killer for little ones, for instance. While you might plan to eventually replace the adults with their healthy progeny next year when they reach breeding age, I'd ask a lot more questions (and look over my records carefully!) before culling all the adults right away. I'd also try to talk with the original breeder of the adults, if possible, to see if the herd of origin had issues with enteritis.
 
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oh my. a bunny probiotic? does that exist? I have been told that the mother will poo a little in the nesting box and this will give the kits a natural immunity to certain bacteria. however this sounds like a feed problem or genetics. once again I'm amazed at how trying raising rabbits can be. my only suggestion is to be sure there are no possums or coons pooing on your hay bales, other than that I'd pull the pellets.
 
Depending on where you are in the world, there are several. Choose one containing Saccharomyces cerevisiae as that has been shown to have an effect in rabbits.
https://www.vettimes.co.uk/app/uplo...ache/1/beneficial-bacteria-in-pet-rabbits.pdf
Good article, thanks for linking. Interesting that bakers yeast is a strain of S.Cerevisiae. I have noticed that some pellets contain S.Cerevisiae. I was interested in this yeast before and if it would help with rabbit diarrhea since it helps with human diarrhea. Apparently it does, and helps with kit mortality as well. My question though was if it would survive after being processed. After reading this article, I think it probably does The same way bread yeast stays viable until it is mixed with water and is then activated, it will be activated once it hits the rabbits gut. Evidently there are several strains of S.Cerevisiae and not all have been tested on rabbits so I am looking for a product made for rabbits. So far, no luck.
 
I agree that weaning enteritis is definitely a breeding/herd management concern and responds to culling/selective breeding......

Once in a while over the years I've had "something" go through the barn (and often that "something" also affected multiple other breeders as well), and proven does who had had numerous healthy litters had kits that got enteritis. It happened to several of us this summer, as a matter of fact. I cannot see culling those does. Sometimes we figure out what happened, sometimes not. In these cases, it was the sick kits I culled (or at least did not use or sell as breeding stock), not the parents.

If a particular doe (or a buck) produced more than one litter that succumbed to enteritis, that's when I'd think about retiring her or him. Fortunately, I've not had that happen with the Satins (though Mini Rex were a different story).
Alaska Satin--I've had some litters succumb to enteritis, leaving one or two survivors. Would you consider those survivors to be good breeding stock? Or, do you strictly interpret the loss to the genes of the parents?

I've got a doe now that has produced some nice rabbits but some of her bunnies always get enteritis at some point. I haven't gotten far enough into a breeding program to find out if the offspring that survived will also produce litters susceptible to enteritis.

I don't suppose there is a way to know, scientifically, without a barn full of rabbits and some dedicated scribe to take notes.
 
Alaska Satin--I've had some litters succumb to enteritis, leaving one or two survivors. Would you consider those survivors to be good breeding stock? Or, do you strictly interpret the loss to the genes of the parents?

I've got a doe now that has produced some nice rabbits but some of her bunnies always get enteritis at some point. I haven't gotten far enough into a breeding program to find out if the offspring that survived will also produce litters susceptible to enteritis.

I don't suppose there is a way to know, scientifically, without a barn full of rabbits and some dedicated scribe to take notes.
The book, "Beyond the Pellet" by Boyd Craven makes an excellent case for the cause to be GMO alfalfa and soy in rabbit pellets.
 
Good article, thanks for linking. Interesting that bakers yeast is a strain of S.Cerevisiae. I have noticed that some pellets contain S.Cerevisiae. .....My question though was if it would survive after being processed. After reading this article, I think it probably does
I don't know if it does, or not - I was looking at some Nutritional Yeast in the supermarket today, which is also S. cerevisiae, but labelled as 'inactive.' That kind of implies there's an 'active' form as well.
Protexin make a range of very good rabbit probiotic products but looking at their website they have no distributors in the USA.
 
I don't know if it does, or not - I was looking at some Nutritional Yeast in the supermarket today, which is also S. cerevisiae, but labelled as 'inactive.' That kind of implies there's an 'active' form as well.
Protexin make a range of very good rabbit probiotic products but looking at their website they have no distributors in the USA.
Yes, I immediately pulled out my Nutritional Yeast package today and saw that it was S.Cerevisiae, but inactive. Tastes good but won't do the trick.
 
Alaska Satin--I've had some litters succumb to enteritis, leaving one or two survivors. Would you consider those survivors to be good breeding stock? Or, do you strictly interpret the loss to the genes of the parents?

I've got a doe now that has produced some nice rabbits but some of her bunnies always get enteritis at some point. I haven't gotten far enough into a breeding program to find out if the offspring that survived will also produce litters susceptible to enteritis.

I don't suppose there is a way to know, scientifically, without a barn full of rabbits and some dedicated scribe to take notes.
I'm not really a "strictly" kind of breeder - I tend to take a big picture, long-game, calculated-risk approach. Rabbit breeding seems to involve a constant compromise between the ideal and the real. :)

I would not interpret the loss as entirely due to the parents' genes, since health issues are usually a combination of genetics and environment. (For instance, your doe might have healthy litters on some other kind of feeding regime.) I'd also note whether there was a difference in her litters' health depending on the buck used to sire them... some genetic combinations just don't jive. Here, another plug for good record-keeping! Rabbits have such a short generation time relative to most other livestock that you can collect quite a bit of data in a relatively short period.

However, if I had a doe that consistently produced enteritis-prone kits while my other does did not, I'd be hesitant to keep (or sell) her offspring as breeding stock unless they were extremely valuable to my breeding program for some other reason(s). There's no guarantee if any of the surviving kits carry the "problem" gene(s) or not. But at some point you may have to deal with that health issue head-on, so it becomes sort of a kick-the-can-down-the-road situation, which in some cases can be worth doing, but might involve some additional heartbreak.

If it was me, if the doe had characteristics that were important to my program, I would keep only bunnies of hers that never showed any sign of enteritis at any point. If you keep those as breeding stock, you may be able to eliminate the tendency to enteritis without eliminating other desirable characteristics she offers. I'd be hyper-alert to the tendency to enteritis in their litters, though; if the tendency persists, I'd be inclined to get rid of that line.

I'd actually love to hear more details about your situation - what breed is the doe, how, how many litters has she had, how many sires have been involved? Are you raising rabbits for meat, show, pets?
 
There are plants that can be fed fresh or dried to combat diarrhea. The leaves of raspberry, blackberry, and strawberry all work well, and also the the lawn weeds plantain and shepherd's purse. At this time of year it might be impossible to get them, depending on location, but it's useful information for next spring. I remember one member who dug down through the snow to get plantain to save her bunny.
 
I'd actually love to hear more details about your situation - what breed is the doe, how, how many litters has she had, how many sires have been involved? Are you raising rabbits for meat, show, pets?
I have Silver Marten rabbits. I like the size and the coloration, and they are generally easy to work with. I don't show rabbits but I do try to breed toward the standard for Silver Martens.

This particular doe has had 3 litters, and enteritis has been a problem with all three. My other does have had litters with some problems but not as many lost as this doe. I do have 2 survivors from her litters but they haven't had litters of their own. Investigating results from several generations of rabbits takes a lot of room, more than I can provide.

I don't have enough information to know if a particular buck could be the source of the genetic problem, but I do have a suspicion that one buck could be contributing to the issues.

I feed pellets and straw. I can't get square bale hay--most farmers in my area produce round bales OR produce square bales for the horse industry. (I'm in Kentucky USA). For farmers, round bales are quick and easy to produce compared to small square bales, but I don't have space or equipment to deal with a round bale.

So--I feed straw + pellets rather than hay + pellets. Farmers produce straw for the landscape industry, so it is readily available.

The pellets I can get do not have as high a fiber content as I'd like to see. But they are the ones I can get and afford. I'm currently paying $16 per 50 lbs, up from $14 recently. The high fiber 'quality' pellets are above $25 per 50 lbs. They eat the straw and I keep plenty of it in front of them.

The does have large litters with no fertility issues, so the diet must be close to good.

My long term goal is to breed rabbits that do well on the diet that I can provide them. I'll eventually know if working on the genetic factor of enteritis is a good plan or not.
 
knowing that you have one doe that has most of the issues... I'd eat her (or feed her to other animals). I'd hold back those two survivors and see how their kits do.

Nothing wrong with feeding straw. It gives them good long-stem fibre and keeps them busy. :)
 
There are plants that can be fed fresh or dried to combat diarrhea. The leaves of raspberry, blackberry, and strawberry all work well, and also the the lawn weeds plantain and shepherd's purse. At this time of year it might be impossible to get them, depending on location, but it's useful information for next spring. I remember one member who dug down through the snow to get plantain to save her bunny.
White Oak bark is excellent for quickly stopping diarrhea while you are working on the cause of the diarrhea.
 
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