3 week old kits randomly dying

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rockyhillrabbits

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I have two litters that are the same age. One is a purebred New Zealand litter and the other is a New Zealand crossed with a Flemish Giant litter. In the mixed litter, I lost 2 when they were 2 weeks old. I lost another a few days ago and then another yesterday. 1 was found dead with hay in it's mouth and a little bit of green discharge, but it could have been green from the hay. The last 2 were fine when I fed and watered but dying the next day. The one that died most recently had a hard belly. No diarrhea, no mucous in the droppings. The only thing that was changed before this last death, was I had gotten a couple bags of rabbit feed sold at Wal-Mart included with the rabbits and cages I had picked up from a friend. He also gave me a bag of timothy hay. I had also been feeding a compressed Standlee bale of Alfalfa/Timothy but when I ran out I had to get just Alfalfa.
I had mixed the Wal-Mart feed in with the feed I use, thinking it wouldn't affect them because it was still mostly my feed. But when I had a death, I stopped giving them the alfalfa hay. I have fed babies alfalfa hay before without any issue and other than being a little dustier than usual, this hay looks like what I always get. I don't have access to any other hay so I have been using compressed bales for many months.
The purebred litter is doing fine on the same feed. It just has me stumped.
 
I have two litters that are the same age. One is a purebred New Zealand litter and the other is a New Zealand crossed with a Flemish Giant litter. In the mixed litter, I lost 2 when they were 2 weeks old. I lost another a few days ago and then another yesterday. 1 was found dead with hay in it's mouth and a little bit of green discharge, but it could have been green from the hay. The last 2 were fine when I fed and watered but dying the next day. The one that died most recently had a hard belly. No diarrhea, no mucous in the droppings. The only thing that was changed before this last death, was I had gotten a couple bags of rabbit feed sold at Wal-Mart included with the rabbits and cages I had picked up from a friend. He also gave me a bag of timothy hay. I had also been feeding a compressed Standlee bale of Alfalfa/Timothy but when I ran out I had to get just Alfalfa.
I had mixed the Wal-Mart feed in with the feed I use, thinking it wouldn't affect them because it was still mostly my feed. But when I had a death, I stopped giving them the alfalfa hay. I have fed babies alfalfa hay before without any issue and other than being a little dustier than usual, this hay looks like what I always get. I don't have access to any other hay so I have been using compressed bales for many months.
The purebred litter is doing fine on the same feed. It just has me stumped.
It sounds suspiciously like what's known as weaning enteritis, which sometimes includes diarrhea and/or mucous but sometimes doesn't have any obvious symptoms except sudden death. I think there are probably a few different causes lumped into one "diagnosis." My first thought is that it was not the hay or the feed itself, but possibly the fact that there was a change in feed at a critical time.

Kits in that 3-6-week-old age range seem especially sensitive. Their guts are supposed to get populated by beneficial flora/fauna from their mother's colostrum, milk, and poops, but I'm not sure they all get that equally. When they start eating solid foods, if they don't have the gut critters to help process it, they end up sick, often really quickly. Even if the mother is eating the new stuff too, she wouldn't have the microbes to match for some time. She is bigger and more developed so might not show any distress, but the kits are more vulnerable.

The other issue is that some rabbits and/or genetic lines do seem to have more of a problem with weaning enteritis than others. Since there are so many factors involved, I don't immediately cull a doe or buck who produce kits that get enteritis, but I watch them carefully, and if it happens continually, I pull them from the breeding program. (The only grow-outs I might keep from them for breeding are the ones that did not ever get enteritis.)
 
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