Help analyzing liver of recently butchered doe

Wineberry Hill · Oct 12, 2024

Recently butchered a doe that refused to lift for buck. Otherwise she appeared to be healthy, not overweight. Behaved normally, not lethargic...etc.

Healthy looking pellets.

I noticed her liver is unhealthy, possibly Coccidiosis?

Thoughts?

TKT · Oct 12, 2024

Did you open up one of those big capsules? Those look more like flukes to my novice eye, but wait for the experts. I'm just following..

Alaska Satin · Oct 12, 2024

Wineberry Hill said:
Recently butchered a doe that refused to lift for buck. Otherwise she appeared to be healthy, not overweight. Behaved normally, not lethargic...etc.

Healthy looking pellets.

I noticed her liver is unhealthy, possibly Coccidiosis?

Thoughts?
View attachment 43320

That looks like coccidiosis to me, too, but I've never actually seen liver flukes in a rabbit.

Here's an image from the article "MANAGEMENT OF SEVERE HEPATIC COCCIDIOSIS IN DOMESTIC RABBITS"

https://www.semanticscholar.org/pap...echa/bfbdf55e0dfcf362621e38fbbfcd28856b1e76ef

And here's an image of liver fluke damage from https://www.researchgate.net/figure...ge-shows-the-tunnels-and-caves_fig11_38114306

Liver flukes (F hepatica). Axial contrast-enhanced CT image shows the tunnels and caves sign (arrows), a finding typical of F hepatica. This sign consists of serpentine tubular and nodular hypoattenuating areas from the peripheral to the central liver. It represents sterile necrosis of hepatic tissue digested by the parasite.

If you have the stomach for it, there is a video of someone pulling flukes from a deer liver here:

The point of posting this is to note that the surface of the liver doesn't seem have nodules/pustules indicating the fluke infestation.

maisaksson · Oct 13, 2024

Wineberry Hill said:
I noticed her liver is unhealthy, possibly Coccidiosis?

I don't know but I'd like to get back into microscopy. Does anybody here do their own microscopy for blood analysis and/or pathogen ID for their rabbits?

ladysown · Oct 13, 2024

doesn't look right to be cocci.... (though I wouldn't be surprised that cocci is part of her problem as she does have some individual nodules). There's a group on facebook called rabbits inside out.... hugely knowledgeable people on there who might be able to help more. (just ignore the also rans)