Best Cost-effective preventative for e.cuniculi

[lpmorgens]

I'm getting ready to do some preventatives for my herd. I have used Safeguard paste in the past. I am wondering if there is a cheaper, but just as effective, preventative for e.cuniculi. I don't have any with it where I need to treat, but as I am going to be introducing some new rabbits (in quarantine right now), I'd like to treat all with a preventative.

I'm not worried about Safeguard being used for worms... I'm already treating with Revolution. Thanks.

 

[michaels4gardens]

I would like to see "someone" respond to your question..
--- I have not found an "effective EC preventative". It seems to me, .. that "healthy Rabbits", either rarely get it, or don't show symptoms...-- but, later in life , or with does , sometimes manifest in their young..[ "EC eye", or rear end paralysis] The "Symptoms" show up...

 

[imajpm]

There is a liquid version of safeguard for goats that is very easy to use with a syringe. I have not tried the preventative treatment on mine. I know EC came with my originals as I've had one case show up in a heat sensitive rabbit and heard all sorts of horror stories about EC in that line. So I've just been culling all rabbits who have become ill for no obvious reason, and/or sensitive to stress, and that seems to work. But that liquid safeguard for goats works well, is easily measured and one bottle is about $20 and lasts forever. I don't think there is anything else proven effective on EC, or cheaper, other than a couple less effective benzimidazoles like Albendazole, and that I could only find in $70 jugs, but that also can have some fairly bad side effects like sudden death or bone marrow failure so I just got the Safeguard lol.

 

[michaels4gardens]

JMHO, ..In my experience with EC ,
EC is not detectable in "healthy breedstock" without a very expensive blood test , and that test is not reliable, as it just shows exposure [titer count] .
Working at a "shelter" I had extensive experience treating the EC symptoms - and several drugs were effective to varying degrees .. however , ... no drug "cured" EC effectively .. Rabbits would always need to be treated again sometime at a later date... [arguably,.. the rabbits at the shelter could have been reinfected by other rabbits showing no symptoms]
The drugs used, seemed to me, to be effective for controlling symptoms, and stopping the further spread of the disease .... [if caught early, some mobility could be restored]
I have had limited experience with EC in my rabbits, with only one rescued doe with EC . She showed no symptoms, but some of her kits would be born with either "EC eye" or "early onset" rear end paralysis. Garlic chives, were at least as effective as "the drugs".
But,... just like when I tried EC drugs, a few months after I stopped feeding garlic chives, the symptoms in the young kits reappeared. The doe at my farm was in a "quarantine" section, so she would not have been reinfected after treatment. The Doe referred to, never showed any symptoms at all, throughout her entire life...

 

[ladysown]

best preventative... cull anything that gets sick EVER. Don't breed anything that throws sick either, unless you are eating all the offspring. Don't sell them either, that just encourages other to breed 'em.