At home necropsy (pics) - LONG please help!

[Caprice_Acres]

The 16% pellet is the most expensive one where I get feed,probably because they order it in the least bulk and thus can't give as good of a price as the 15% and the 18%. I'm not switching to a 16% if I don't have to. I might be able to mix up a 16% by mixing the 15% and the 18% together, but if I do that I'd want to feed it to everybody. I really like the growout rate on the 18% though, and until something contagious hit I had zero problems with enteritis of any sort for YEARS. The only other option is a 15%, I'd prefer to not do that.

As for probiotics, probably not an option either. The weaned kits are hard to catch even in the 10'x2.5' growout pen which is located under my back porch, and is rather low for my dad to work in and hard to access kits in for anyone larger than me (I'm a 22 year old short female, lol). Dosing individual growout kits is not something I'd ask my dad to do while I"m away at school. He takes care of them when I'm an hr away attending MSU during the school week or during break like now when I still work 3 days a week at DCPAH. I live in an apartment in Lansing during the week or when I work so that I don't have to drive an hour home every day, and come home on the weekends, during which time I do all the more technical livestock work like weaning, tattooing, evaluating, trimming goat hooves, vaccinations etc. Unless it's a feed through or a water application, it's not feasible for us.

We have tried a throrough cage sanitation, our cages ARE wood frame. We torched very thoroughly, then scrubbed with water/wire brushes to remove debris then sprayed with a >10% ammonia solution (cocci oocyts supposedly very suceptible to ammonia), rinsed, and then sprayed again with a strong Roccal (vet disinfectant) solution. I would not call the cages filthy but I understand that wood is difficult/impossible to sanitize. The disinfectants SHOULD have lowered the number of contagion in the environment to some degree, however.

At this point we are currently planning a new rabbitry with all wire hanging cages which are easier to sanitize. Also more cages, which is always nice.

We are keeping in mind that the course of action may be to just eliminate all the stock we currently have and get new stuff when we have new cages built. It's difficult to treat the adults with some sort of antibiotic because many antibiotics are thecause of enteritis problems.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

As for probiotics, probably not an option either.

You can get probiotics in powder form also. When I brought home my Beveren doe she had a bit of loose stool, and I simply sprinkled it on top of her grain mix, and she ate it. I used a product that I have on hand for my horses.

 

[OneAcreFarm]

As for probiotics, probably not an option either.

You can get probiotics in powder form also. When I brought home my Beveren doe she had a bit of loose stool, and I simply sprinkled it on top of her grain mix, and she ate it. I used a product that I have on hand for my horses.

:yeahthat:

 

[Caprice_Acres]

Powder form probiotics (I have seen those in Jeffers catalog) won't stick to pellets though and will go right out of the mesh bottom feeders, can you dose it in water?

Parasitology came back with 'many' cocci oocysts. Now I'm wondering about my original diagnosis of Cocci problems, but with E. coli and Clostridium taking advantage of a compromised rabbit. After all, I HAVE saved some affected rabbits treating individually with Baycox. The rabbits I sold but infected another herd were treated with baycox then sold a few weeks later after they were 'healthy'. But, problem is, there's no way I could afford using baycox to treat the entire group thorugh the water, as each 200ml bottle would be 10 gallons worth of water, and at that rate would last me like 2-3 days, lol. At 50.00 for 200ml of baycox, its not worth it. I could do individual treatments on the adults/breeding stock. I have done some of the adults now with baycox, if their litters were affected. I have recently sanitized the cages but it didn't seem to make any difference. Though, they are wood frame cages.

The dosage of Corid I'm using as a preventative is 1/3t per gallon of water as per Corid's website. The treatment dose (That I haven't done) is 3/4t per gallon water. Is this the reccomended dose for rabbits?

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Powder form probiotics (I have seen those in Jeffers catalog) won't stick to pellets though and will go right out of the mesh bottom feeders, can you dose it in water?

When you mentioned the growout pen under the porch, my brain translated that to "colony" and I figured they were being fed in a bowl. :thinking: You could temporarily switch to a bowl...

When we make up the "nummy buckets" for the horses, I always soak it, so I guess you could add the powder to the water. If you feed greens you could also sprinkle the probio powder on them when they are slightly damp.

 

[Caprice_Acres]

Oops, I'll clarify. The growout pen under the porch is a wood frame, 10'x2.5' cage with no dividers in it, that I raise kits out in, from weaning at 6 weeks till butcher about 10 weeks old, or until sold or retained in it's own cage here. Built exactly the same as my doe cages, except the doe cages have 3 dividers to make 4 cages that are 30"x30". Has 1"x2" wire sides, 1/2"x1" floor wire, 3 11" pellet feeders on the side, and a kitty litter square bucket hung outside, with 2 nipples in the side of it that stick into the cage (with a deicer inside) that dispenses water. The floor is stapled onto a frame and there's also 3 floor supports, spaced every 30", that the wire is also stapled onto. This is where I can see the sanitation being a problem. The cages stay pretty clean for the most part but obviously get calcium buildup and a little poo buildup in the corners, easy to keep up with on removal though. Still impossible to 'sanitize' however.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

It wont completely solve the sanitation issue, but if you covered the support slats with strips of rigid plastic (the plastic board used in restaurant bathrooms would work well and is about $24 for a 4' x 8' sheet here at Home Depot), and installed urine guards along the edges of the frame (metal flashing also from the hardware store), it might at least minimize the contamination of the wood and would be easier to clean.

 

[Caprice_Acres]

Update:

Talked to pathologist today. He's pretty sure cocci is the source of my problems, and the E. coli and Clostridium are commensals that take over in MOST rabbit enteritis deaths/illnesses.

But, he had no answers as to why that man who purchased rabbits from me had the same issue spread like wildfire through his rabbitry. He questioned the buyers honesty, but I'd hate to think that of the buyer - he seemed so nice, so worried about his rabbits and the issues he described were spot-on to what mine were having. Really inclined to believe him.

The only difference was, In that buyer's case, he was seeing the issues pop up in rabbits not exposed to the ones from me or to contaminated cages - instead it occurred sporadically around his rabbitry BUT has an auto waterer and I don't.. As stated, he brought my rabbits home and put them in his occupied growout pen which is also on his auto waterer, and called me about 2 (?)weeks later with losses.

In my rabbitry, it DOES act like an environmental cocci problem - contaminated cages = sick bunnies. Cages with no sick bunnies stays healthy. I does not transmit around the barn without obvious exposures.

I also have a consultation appointment with a veterinarian who is supposedly experienced with rabbits on Monday. Hopefully will have reports finalized from the Necropsy (or more of them than are finalized now) by then, so I can bring them along or just have DCPAH send them along. I'm being chared 2x her exotic animal exam fee for a 1 hr block, which I think is pretty fair considering an hr block of time is probably 2-3 exams she would otherwise be doing. It comes to 116.00.

Still waiting on Histology and more info on the E. coli. It's not pivotal information at this point as we know it's an opportunistic commensal and likely not the cause of my problem, but it will be interesting to see if it is toxigenic or a pillus or what have you.<br /><br />__________ Fri Dec 28, 2012 7:06 pm __________<br /><br />

It wont completely solve the sanitation issue, but if you covered the support slats with strips of rigid plastic (the plastic board used in restaurant bathrooms would work well and is about $24 for a 4' x 8' sheet here at Home Depot), and installed urine guards along the edges of the frame (metal flashing also from the hardware store), it might at least minimize the contamination of the wood and would be easier to clean.

This is an interesting idea! I'm imagining all wood blocked off from the rabbits with strips or sheet metal edging. the floor sits on and is stapled to the skinny side of a 2"x4", and it wouldn't be that hard to have a piece of metal attached with ringers, bent at 45" angle so it's goes about 1" up the cage wall and 2.5" into the cage , covering the exposed wood. And strips about 2.5" wide covering the wood supports as well. Hmmm...

What kind of flashing would you use? I once built rodent cages out of aluminum flashing - turns out ammonia in urine corrodes that like CRAZY, lol. Is there another option? I'm wondering if a metal gutter cut in half lengthwise down the trough would work Ok...

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I once built rodent cages out of aluminum flashing - turns out ammonia in urine corrodes that like CRAZY

I was thinking of the aluminum myself. If you painted it with Rustoleum, maybe it would last longer.

You might be able to use the same plastic board I mentioned for the urine guards, but cutting the angle for those inside corners is beyond my mathematical capabilities!

 

[TerriG]

I have wood and used flashing. Here's a couple of pics.

This is one of our new doe cages we built. You can see the flashing.

This is her den area.

We have found that the urine and feces still collect, so we are going to retofit those with this kind of flashing in addition.

Here you can see all of our cages and urine guard (flashing) and trays.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Lovely setup TerriG!

 

[Caprice_Acres]

The aluminium flashing took a couple years for the rat urine to corrode it... but corrode it did. But I did have a lot of rats - not too many for the cage but they vastly preferred the TOP shelf of the cage, and it showed, lol. They would make the cutest pile of rats in their favorite top shelf corner, and after a few years they had a window to the outside through which they would peek at who was coming down the hallway.

How long have you been using those cages, out of curiosity?

 

[DumansArk]

CapriceAcres!! :clap: I am so happy to see you on here! ...But yet so sad for you that you are having this problem

I am looking forward to hearing what the Rabbit Vet can tell you. I hope you don't have to scratch your stock and start over.

Terri you can BUILD! These are Lovely cages!