Rabbitary Wipe Out

NZ:Julia said:

Traumatic thread alert.

I now only have my buck left from my original breeding trio. RHDV2 hit my colony.

I was in a state of total rabbit joy.
I had decided to keep a bonded pair of boys, two lovely girls and of course my original breeding trio. My first rabbit breeding year had been bountiful, I was in the rabbit love zone.

Abundance. I processed 6 and was just at the point of processing 25 more as my annual leave came around.
Before I could harvest RHDV2 hit hard.
At first, I thought I had killed 6 of them by feeding them some crab apples and crab apple branches.
I started to research this and then the whole colony collapsed in every place where I kept them.
(Except for Jeremy who is on his own and who never gets handled - he is happy that way.)

They went from bright and binky to lethargic and off food, then convulsing, screaming haemorrhaging and dead in the space of a day. Total wipe out (except Jeremy ... at the moment) took 8 days.
I have ended up with everyone going into the incinerator.
I am in a terrible state of anxiety for Jeremy.
It seems that I could kill him just by feeding him just by wearing contaminated clothes.
This virus stays on everything despite heat and cold.
Bleach and lots of it is the only option for the cleanup.
This is a minefield.

Do I clean up, wait and try again? Could I get through another colony collapse?
It has been very traumatic. I invested heavily in this project with a view to self-sufficiency in meat.
I don't want to be vaccinating and then eating vaccinated animals.
I can't get the vaccine independent of vets. This is a cost I didn't anticipate.
Do I routeenly vaccinate a breeding trio and start again with my fingers crossed.

I am so angry about RHDV2 - I think it is a bio-weapon. Even worse a WMD for the rabbit population.
They don't die quick and easy - they go in horrible pain. I dispatched where I could. Honestly, this has been awful.
And, there is nowhere to report this in the UK and there seems to be no tracking info.
Not sure what to do now. I am sad, angry and traumatised.

Any advice? Have you had any similar experiences? What did you decide to do?

Click to expand...

NZ:Julia said:

Traumatic thread alert.

I now only have my buck left from my original breeding trio. RHDV2 hit my colony.

I was in a state of total rabbit joy.
I had decided to keep a bonded pair of boys, two lovely girls and of course my original breeding trio. My first rabbit breeding year had been bountiful, I was in the rabbit love zone.

Abundance. I processed 6 and was just at the point of processing 25 more as my annual leave came around.
Before I could harvest RHDV2 hit hard.
At first, I thought I had killed 6 of them by feeding them some crab apples and crab apple branches.
I started to research this and then the whole colony collapsed in every place where I kept them.
(Except for Jeremy who is on his own and who never gets handled - he is happy that way.)

They went from bright and binky to lethargic and off food, then convulsing, screaming haemorrhaging and dead in the space of a day. Total wipe out (except Jeremy ... at the moment) took 8 days.
I have ended up with everyone going into the incinerator.
I am in a terrible state of anxiety for Jeremy.
It seems that I could kill him just by feeding him just by wearing contaminated clothes.
This virus stays on everything despite heat and cold.
Bleach and lots of it is the only option for the cleanup.
This is a minefield.

Do I clean up, wait and try again? Could I get through another colony collapse?
It has been very traumatic. I invested heavily in this project with a view to self-sufficiency in meat.
I don't want to be vaccinating and then eating vaccinated animals.
I can't get the vaccine independent of vets. This is a cost I didn't anticipate.
Do I routeenly vaccinate a breeding trio and start again with my fingers crossed.

I am so angry about RHDV2 - I think it is a bio-weapon. Even worse a WMD for the rabbit population.
They don't die quick and easy - they go in horrible pain. I dispatched where I could. Honestly, this has been awful.
And, there is nowhere to report this in the UK and there seems to be no tracking info.
Not sure what to do now. I am sad, angry and traumatised.

Any advice? Have you had any similar experiences? What did you decide to do?

Click to expand...

NZ:Julia said:

Traumatic thread alert.

I now only have my buck left from my original breeding trio. RHDV2 hit my colony.

I was in a state of total rabbit joy.
I had decided to keep a bonded pair of boys, two lovely girls and of course my original breeding trio. My first rabbit breeding year had been bountiful, I was in the rabbit love zone.

Abundance. I processed 6 and was just at the point of processing 25 more as my annual leave came around.
Before I could harvest RHDV2 hit hard.
At first, I thought I had killed 6 of them by feeding them some crab apples and crab apple branches.
I started to research this and then the whole colony collapsed in every place where I kept them.
(Except for Jeremy who is on his own and who never gets handled - he is happy that way.)

They went from bright and binky to lethargic and off food, then convulsing, screaming haemorrhaging and dead in the space of a day. Total wipe out (except Jeremy ... at the moment) took 8 days.
I have ended up with everyone going into the incinerator.
I am in a terrible state of anxiety for Jeremy.
It seems that I could kill him just by feeding him just by wearing contaminated clothes.
This virus stays on everything despite heat and cold.
Bleach and lots of it is the only option for the cleanup.
This is a minefield.

Do I clean up, wait and try again? Could I get through another colony collapse?
It has been very traumatic. I invested heavily in this project with a view to self-sufficiency in meat.
I don't want to be vaccinating and then eating vaccinated animals.
I can't get the vaccine independent of vets. This is a cost I didn't anticipate.
Do I routeenly vaccinate a breeding trio and start again with my fingers crossed.

I am so angry about RHDV2 - I think it is a bio-weapon. Even worse a WMD for the rabbit population.
They don't die quick and easy - they go in horrible pain. I dispatched where I could. Honestly, this has been awful.
And, there is nowhere to report this in the UK and there seems to be no tracking info.
Not sure what to do now. I am sad, angry and traumatised.

Any advice? Have you had any similar experiences? What did you decide to do?

Click to expand...

Bekah-n-Tennessee said:

I am so deeply sorry for your loss, that is devastating .

Although I'm still too new to be able to give you any decent advice, I just want to say I completely agree with Alaska Satin on absolutely every they said, 100%. Humans will never seem to learn to not play God...

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Alaska Satin said:

First, my heart goes out to you. I've had some pretty bad times over the years, but to get hit this hard, this soon, is tragic.

I agree, it is probably a bioweapon - it certainly was intended as such for rabbits, at the very least. The virus was purposely weaponized in Australia and New Zealand in the 1990's to control wild rabbit populations. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5749467/ Big surprise, it got out of hand. IMO, its creation was a monstrous undertaking, as were, and are, numerous others of its ilk. And unfortunately I don't think we can prevent further episodes of this kind; it's part of a bigger plan.

However... the good news: there is no virus, or any other disease that I am aware of, that is 100% fatal. There are tremendously virulent strains - like many of the ones humans develop on purpose - but there are always individuals that survive outbreaks, and eventually there are entire populations of resistant individuals. RHDV2 may take every rabbit in a single rabbitry, but it will not kill every rabbit everywhere (are there still wild rabbits in Australia and New Zealand?). IMO, as was the case for every contagious disease before we were taught that vaccinations and drugs would save us all from everything, we should be minimizing exposure of our rabbits to the disease, while at the same time, working toward producing domestic populations of rabbits that are resistant to this and other diseases. And that means NOT euthanizing every single animal, sick or not, in a facility that is suspected to harbor RHDV2 (or avian flu, swine flu, mad cow disease, or any other of a number of diseases we're supposed to be terrified of), because in so doing, you are very likely killing off the hope of raising that resistant population. IMO, it also means NOT giving into the urging from above to forever give our food animals shots for these diseases, first because those shots are expensive but never completely effective; but also because in so doing, again, you are reducing the possibility of raising a naturally resistant population.

Twenty years ago we were told snuffles aka pasteurellosis was an instant death sentence for a rabbitry, but you can talk to many, many old timers to find out that it's just not a big deal anymore. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, or doesn't still make some rabbits sick, but there are hundreds of us out here who have just sucked it up and bred resistant animals (with loss and heartache along the way).

I am not at all making light of your loss, nor of the losses of people who've suffered from the swine, avian and bovine versions of these infuriating - in fact I'd call them outright evil - manipulations. Developing resistant populations comes at a cost of time, money, heartache and sometimes tears. But the alternative of letting the authorities swoop in and save us is unrealistic at best, and not trying to be food-independent is a non-starter. I've got a friend who lost 100% of his entire year of poultry production because the authorities decided he had avian flu on his property. Six birds died suddenly, and he called the state vet as he'd been taught he should do. Every single living bird on his farm was gassed and burned in a span of 12 hours, and he spent several weeks doing the authorities' bidding in terms of "sterilizing" his farm (as if such a thing could actually be accomplished). By the time that was done, there was no way to start again that year; it was a total loss for him.

There are groups in the world that would very much like us to be incapable of raising our own food, at least not without complete dependence on vaccines and other drugs. I still think it's worth trying. I hope you can mourn, let things settle, and try again. Maybe you'll have to do things a little differently, using cages, barns, or something other than colonies to reduce exposure, but I hope you won't give up. And I'll say a prayer that Jeremy is one of those special survivors that may be the foundation of a new and improved population!

Click to expand...

NZ:Julia said:

Thank you so much for your wonderful replies. I am one of life's percolators so it will take me a while to pull myself together and decide what I am going to do. I am very much in alignment with @Alaska Satin re not vaccinating and the development of rabbit strains that have some immunity. It sounds from the collective wisdom that this is something I am going to have to suck up if I want to continue the journey.

At the moment I am angry and not thinking straight. My gut is saying that the best thing I can do is to start to build connections with UK breeders who have unvaccinated survivors, pool resources and try to beat this situation by working collectively.

I am also thinking I should reach out to research centres to find out if anyone is already breeding resistant strains. We have so few wild rabbits now, this must be on the minds of people interested in ecology.

There are agricultural colleges that have small animal care departments that I could contact.

So, I am in 'rabbit lockdown' and I am also percolating on the interesting post of @MsTemeraire with super helpful UK-based info for me to think about.

I will need to do some thinking and researching on what is happening across the UK. I am just so very angry about this. Angry about the devastation being caused to Indigenous populations and the collapse of our native rabbit species. I am angry about potentially being handcuffed to big pharma, angry about the loss of my food security plan. Angry with the hubris that enabled this Djinn to get out of the bottle, angry with the bio-weapon creators.

The bottom line is that I am a prepper, an angry truther and I thought I had a handle on things until this happened. Now like so much of modern life, the problem is very complex and it is going to take some dexterity to move forward.

I want everyone to be able to achieve food security should they wish. In the UK in wartime, it was very common for families to keep rabbits for food. It was essential to our survival. As a nation, we have been led by the nose into blind obedience, and compliance and given away our power.

I am not just cross about rabbits, I am cross about everyone reaching a point where owning nothing and being happy is the only option. And the nasty, nasty long game that has been played to get us to this point.

Click to expand...

NZ:Julia said:

Thank you so much for your wonderful replies. I am one of life's percolators so it will take me a while to pull myself together and decide what I am going to do. I am very much in alignment with @Alaska Satin re not vaccinating and the development of rabbit strains that have some immunity. It sounds from the collective wisdom that this is something I am going to have to suck up if I want to continue the journey.

At the moment I am angry and not thinking straight. My gut is saying that the best thing I can do is to start to build connections with UK breeders who have unvaccinated survivors, pool resources and try to beat this situation by working collectively.

I am also thinking I should reach out to research centres to find out if anyone is already breeding resistant strains. We have so few wild rabbits now, this must be on the minds of people interested in ecology.

There are agricultural colleges that have small animal care departments that I could contact.

So, I am in 'rabbit lockdown' and I am also percolating on the interesting post of @MsTemeraire with super helpful UK-based info for me to think about.

I will need to do some thinking and researching on what is happening across the UK. I am just so very angry about this. Angry about the devastation being caused to Indigenous populations and the collapse of our native rabbit species. I am angry about potentially being handcuffed to big pharma, angry about the loss of my food security plan. Angry with the hubris that enabled this Djinn to get out of the bottle, angry with the bio-weapon creators.

The bottom line is that I am a prepper, an angry truther and I thought I had a handle on things until this happened. Now like so much of modern life, the problem is very complex and it is going to take some dexterity to move forward.

I want everyone to be able to achieve food security should they wish. In the UK in wartime, it was very common for families to keep rabbits for food. It was essential to our survival. As a nation, we have been led by the nose into blind obedience, and compliance and given away our power.

I am not just cross about rabbits, I am cross about everyone reaching a point where owning nothing and being happy is the only option. And the nasty, nasty long game that has been played to get us to this point.

Click to expand...

NZ:Julia said:

Thank you so much for your wonderful replies. I am one of life's percolators so it will take me a while to pull myself together and decide what I am going to do. I am very much in alignment with @Alaska Satin re not vaccinating and the development of rabbit strains that have some immunity. It sounds from the collective wisdom that this is something I am going to have to suck up if I want to continue the journey.

At the moment I am angry and not thinking straight. My gut is saying that the best thing I can do is to start to build connections with UK breeders who have unvaccinated survivors, pool resources and try to beat this situation by working collectively.

I am also thinking I should reach out to research centres to find out if anyone is already breeding resistant strains. We have so few wild rabbits now, this must be on the minds of people interested in ecology.

There are agricultural colleges that have small animal care departments that I could contact.

So, I am in 'rabbit lockdown' and I am also percolating on the interesting post of @MsTemeraire with super helpful UK-based info for me to think about.

I will need to do some thinking and researching on what is happening across the UK. I am just so very angry about this. Angry about the devastation being caused to Indigenous populations and the collapse of our native rabbit species. I am angry about potentially being handcuffed to big pharma, angry about the loss of my food security plan. Angry with the hubris that enabled this Djinn to get out of the bottle, angry with the bio-weapon creators.

The bottom line is that I am a prepper, an angry truther and I thought I had a handle on things until this happened. Now like so much of modern life, the problem is very complex and it is going to take some dexterity to move forward.

I want everyone to be able to achieve food security should they wish. In the UK in wartime, it was very common for families to keep rabbits for food. It was essential to our survival. As a nation, we have been led by the nose into blind obedience, and compliance and given away our power.

I am not just cross about rabbits, I am cross about everyone reaching a point where owning nothing and being happy is the only option. And the nasty, nasty long game that has been played to get us to this point.

Click to expand...

dlynn said:

We are at a scary place! The big pharma that makes our "medicines" also make the poisons that sicken us, manipulate disease, genetically modify our foods into something that can't live without their crap. (Remember Monsanto's campaign to eliminate seed saving and heritage seeds) Municipality's outlawing livestock. It mand now AI. I remember junk waffle cartoons of the 1970s. Humans reduced to

Click to expand...

NZ:Julia said:

Thank you so much for your wonderful replies. I am one of life's percolators so it will take me a while to pull myself together and decide what I am going to do. I am very much in alignment with @Alaska Satin re not vaccinating and the development of rabbit strains that have some immunity. It sounds from the collective wisdom that this is something I am going to have to suck up if I want to continue the journey.

At the moment I am angry and not thinking straight. My gut is saying that the best thing I can do is to start to build connections with UK breeders who have unvaccinated survivors, pool resources and try to beat this situation by working collectively.

I am also thinking I should reach out to research centres to find out if anyone is already breeding resistant strains. We have so few wild rabbits now, this must be on the minds of people interested in ecology.

There are agricultural colleges that have small animal care departments that I could contact.

So, I am in 'rabbit lockdown' and I am also percolating on the interesting post of @MsTemeraire with super helpful UK-based info for me to think about.

I will need to do some thinking and researching on what is happening across the UK. I am just so very angry about this. Angry about the devastation being caused to Indigenous populations and the collapse of our native rabbit species. I am angry about potentially being handcuffed to big pharma, angry about the loss of my food security plan. Angry with the hubris that enabled this Djinn to get out of the bottle, angry with the bio-weapon creators.

The bottom line is that I am a prepper, an angry truther and I thought I had a handle on things until this happened. Now like so much of modern life, the problem is very complex and it is going to take some dexterity to move forward.

I want everyone to be able to achieve food security should they wish. In the UK in wartime, it was very common for families to keep rabbits for food. It was essential to our survival. As a nation, we have been led by the nose into blind obedience, and compliance and given away our power.

I am not just cross about rabbits, I am cross about everyone reaching a point where owning nothing and being happy is the only option. And the nasty, nasty long game that has been played to get us to this point.

Click to expand...

dlynn said:

Sorry this got garbled and cut. Junk waffle was an underground comic in the 70s, about humans living underground like rats, while a devasted world was ruled over by self replicating machines

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Skai said:

During war time, people in the U.S. were encouraged to have a Victory Garden and many kept rabbits and chickens, and that habit hung around for many years after WWII. I remember chasing a chicken for my Grandmother, after she beheaded it, so she could cook it for dinner. Now, I have my own Victory Garden. What I hope will be victory against Socialism. However, everything I do has to be covert. I have three acres, half of which is behind a 6 foot wood fence but I'm not supposed to have livestock in my subdivision. How ridiculous is that with the situation in the world today!

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Scooter1A said:

WWG1WGA
Pray, feed Jeremy and have a big glass of wine.

Click to expand...

Skai said:

During war time, people in the U.S. were encouraged to have a Victory Garden and many kept rabbits and chickens, and that habit hung around for many years after WWII. I remember chasing a chicken for my Grandmother, after she beheaded it, so she could cook it for dinner. Now, I have my own Victory Garden. What I hope will be victory against Socialism. However, everything I do has to be covert. I have three acres, half of which is behind a 6 foot wood fence but I'm not supposed to have livestock in my subdivision. How ridiculous is that with the situation in the world today!

Click to expand...