A sudden loss

[ida1416]

I lost one of my favorites today. My first homebred lionhead buck. He was six months and going to start his breeding career soon. He was perfect. And I feel responsible. I moved him to a different cage and didnt clean it or disinfect it first and he developed diarrhea after 3 days. The buck that had been in the cage prior to him was healthy but must have left something that was ingested by my young buck and shocked his system. I'm pretty devastated. I had high hopes for this guy. My question is going forward, should I disinfect each cage before swapping a new rabbit to it? Even if the prior inhabitant was healthy? I tend to take a pretty natural approach to my rabbits, i.e. if they arent 100% healthy and robust they wont be in my breeding program, but this buck had been the healthiest, biggest kit in his litter and never had any problems. Didnt even had an ugly stage
RIP Bruno Jr I hope you know how loved you were.

 

[eco2pia]

I am so sorry for your loss.

I would not disinfect cages beyond the basic sort of cleaning off any accumulated crustiness that I would do anyway, unless I had reason to believe there was active communicable disease in a given cage. My philosophy is definitely to only breed hardy animals that don't need unreasonable accommodations--Animals should be able to handle normal levels of dust, noise, etc, or they become unmanageably fragile.

Unfortunately that sometimes means there are losses and it seems it is often a favorite. My favorite doe, Cinnabun, died inexplicably trying to birth her first litter. I have never lost a doe since, and I still do not know what was going on there--she was healthy and beautiful, the deepest red I had ever seen on a NZ red at the time, and I bred her to a smaller buck. Sometimes we will never know what went wrong.

 

[Her Farmstead Rabbitry]

I'm sorry for your loss! I hate it when the favorite ones die. I would disinfect the cages when swapping or even just routinely.

 

[ida1416]

I am so sorry for your loss.

I would not disinfect cages beyond the basic sort of cleaning off any accumulated crustiness that I would do anyway, unless I had reason to believe there was active communicable disease in a given cage. My philosophy is definitely to only breed hardy animals that don't need unreasonable accommodations--Animals should be able to handle normal levels of dust, noise, etc, or they become unmanageably fragile.

Unfortunately that sometimes means there are losses and it seems it is often a favorite. My favorite doe, Cinnabun, died inexplicably trying to birth her first litter. I have never lost a doe since, and I still do not know what was going on there--she was healthy and beautiful, the deepest red I had ever seen on a NZ red at the time, and I bred her to a smaller buck. Sometimes we will never know what went wrong.

Thank you for your advice and sharing your story. It helped me feel less guilty. I'm sorry about Cinnabun. Some does just cant handle breeding for whatever reason. Narrow pelvis etc. And sometimes something just goes wrong. Baby gets stuck, something tears, etc. I'm glad you havent lost any does since her.

 

[ladysown]

if all your rabbits are housed in the same building, with the same air flow and care I would NOT disinfect basically clean cages between residents. They should be able to handle a basic cage change. if they can't, I would wonder what is not quite right with that given rabbit.

MIND this is what I consider basically clean

- no wet spots... this is pivotal! No wet spots not even tiny ones.
- no build up of fur or hay anywhere

I'm okay with
- random bunny berries
- random bits of fur or hay

 

[ida1416]

if all your rabbits are housed in the same building, with the same air flow and care I would NOT disinfect basically clean cages between residents. They should be able to handle a basic cage change. if they can't, I would wonder what is not quite right with that given rabbit.

MIND this is what I consider basically clean

- no wet spots... this is pivotal! No wet spots not even tiny ones.
- no build up of fur or hay anywhere

I'm okay with
- random bunny berries
- random bits of fur or hay

Thank you this is helpful!