Dead kit, ideas?

[Lady]

So I lost a kit in a tractor, 4.5wks old. All the others are acting normal, eating pellets, never see them drink milk anymore, still with the doe.
Kit was found on it's side, taking a seemingly forced breath maybe once every 30sec. It could wiggle it's legs, but not much more than that, no swelling or injury to it. But it also had a slightly poopy butt, not runny, just slightly matted on. It was easy to brush off, though, no other clues.
Ideas?
Nothing has changed since they started out the nest.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I'm sorry. It is always so sad to lose a young rabbit.

It could have gotten startled or trampled. I had a rabbit in one of my growout cages that could not move its back legs, and when I did the necropsy, there was bruising of the entire loin near the hips- it had clearly broken its back.

If you can bring yourself to do it, it is always a good idea to do a necropsy so you can evaluate the internal organs and look for any other signs.

 

[AnnClaire]

Lady, so sorry to hear this.

While you don't say where you are located, nor what the temps were ... even at 4.5 weeks, the kits are still sensitive to temperatures and if it got chilled, that can bring on enteritis really quickly ... maybe not from being chilled that day necessarily, but the day before.

Last spring, on a chilly day with a cold wind, the one kit that always wanted to be "out and about" got chilled and I lost it the next morning to enteritis ... it comes on quickly and kills quickly. The rest of the kits had stayed huddled together and none of them sickened and died.

It was a very sad thing as I thought about it and realized that I could have prevented it.

However, the one that ran head-on into the side of the cardboard corral, the only part of ANY side that had a solid wood surface behind it, seemed to stun itself, got up, shook it's head and ran off. The next morning, it was dying from what we realized was probably a broken neck/back from the collision. And yet, the babies can run head-on to each other without any problems?

 

[Secuono]

I had this happen in Spring, I assumed it was because they got cold or wet and that somehow triggered them to fail. No real reason it would be anything else, parents had more than enough room to avoid them, kits no longer searched them out and does didn't use the nest anymore...