Digestive issues...probably dying...help!

[bikegurl]

My two-week old litter is having issues. :evil:
To be more precise, one of the kits is definitely having issues, and the others may or may not be.
About 4 days ago I found said kit with its butt sealed shut. I removed the caked-on poo, and he pooped some yellowish poo, and seemed ok. I put him back in the box with the others, but later, when I checked on him, his underside was quite wet, and he was sealed shut again. This time, after cleaning him up, I kept him in the house for a bit. He dried out, and was perky, but definitely had yellow poop. He stayed in the nestbox overnight, and then I brought him in the house again for most of the day. His vent was rather red and inflamed, but I assume that was from removal of caked-on discharge.
He seemed to be improving as the days went by....at least he was spunky, (the only kit to climb in and out of the nestbox) so I left him in with his siblings.
Today he is worse. Wet bottom, mucous instead of poo, listless. Some of the other kits have a little bit of slightly sticky yellow poo that sticks to their hair, but is easily removed.
They are all out of the nestbox now, sampling mom's food (pellets, hay, oats(with hulls on)).
I was trying to figure out what could possibly be causing this, and realized the water bottle had some stuff growing inside. I changed it for a new, clean bottle promptly.

It seems to early for weaning enteritis (according to what I have read).
Could the water have been causing the problem, since there was ick growth inside? (I do add ACV to it)
Is there a way to treat the sick one? Is there something I should do for the others? Is sticky-ish yellow poo bad?

 

[MaggieJ]

Is the poop formed into "bunny berries" or is it more liquid or paste-like? If the latter it is definitely a cause for concern.

The leaves of raspberry, blackberry and strawberry as well as those from the lawn weeds plantain and shepherd's purse should help remedy the situation. These plants will not harm the rabbits and often will firm up the poops.

Any of the plantain species will help, but the most widespread seems to be Plantago major:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantago_major

Shepherd's purse:
http://www.weedinfo.ca/en/weed-index/view/id/CAPBP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsella_bursa-pastoris

 

[bikegurl]

Thanks! The poops are formed.
I fed plantain, raspberry, and strawberry. The kits ate a little (the very sick one did not).
The sick one's poops are like clear gel drops.

 

[Zass]

The clear poo really sounds like mucoid enteritis to me. Unfortunately, it has a low recovery rate , but Maggie J gave great advice. Definitely try the plantains and strawberry, blackberry raspberry or rose leaves.
You could also try switching them to just hay, oats, and pedialyte for re-hydration (or a homemade electrolyte solution.) and probiotics may help increase their chances of recovery.

You are not required to do any of those things though.

If I saw any kind of serious GI issues in weanlings now, I'd probably euthanize. (I had an occasional problem with bad batches of manna pro feed, but those vanished when I switched to purina last spring.)


Which brings me back to:
While you are looking for possible causes check to make sure the pellets and hay are not being stored in a humid place, as even invisible mold can be deadly.
Another possible trigger seems to be when stress leads to a bacterial overgrowth in their GI tract.
(Every now and then, I suspect small children with unwashed hands. )

 

[bikegurl]

Another possible trigger seems to be when stress leads to a bacterial overgrowth in their GI tract.
(Every now and then, I suspect small children with unwashed hands. )

Hmmm, the other day I let some small children hold one of the kits...I don't know exactly which one it was, but it was one of the 4 colored like the sick one...
Maybe I won't let children hold them when they're little...

 

[katiebear]

I have a strict rule with my grandkids. .no touching the bunnies without washing up first, I smell their hands..if you don't smell like soap...you don't touch the little ones. ..

 

[Miss M]

I never had a problem with baby bunnies when my kids would hold them. We did start when Bunny-Wan Kenobi was 8, but still. It might be a good idea to keep them from holding the kits until they are well, at least.

If you can put the pellets in a dish that you can attach to the cage high enough to discourage the kits, you could have only hay and oats and the good leaves available to the kits.

You could also bring the nestbox in (making it so they can't escape into the house), and take it to her a couple of times a day for nursing. Put some oats and plantain etc. in with the kits, and stay while the doe nurses so they don't have the opportunity to go eat much in the way of pellets.

May help, may not. :clover:

 

[Zass]

I've never had a problem with my kids, and I think most bunny + child situations are completely safe.

But when I have any outside-the-immediate-family children here wanting to hold weanlings, I do have some "just in case" conditions, because I never really know what they may have been exposed to.

Mainly:
Scrub hands
Be quiet
and Hold Still (I prefer small children to sit down)


I make a point of washing up before handling baby rabbits if I've been handling fowl too, due to bacterial concerns.

 

[grumpy]

Doesn't sound good...sorry. Once this malady hits a litter, it has the tendency
to take every one of them out. ""What??"" starts it, is anyone's guess, but I
believe any form of stress is a major contributor, quite possibly the cause.

Oatmeal, hay, "dried-bread" might help. Some of the larger growers, which
I'm not, consider a 10-15% loss of kits from birth to weaning acceptable.
I don't, and do all that I can to limit my losses to ZERO. I've yet to achieve
this goal, but that's what I work towards. "Knock-on-Wood" I've lost two
kits out of 200+ in the past few weeks. AND both of those were in the same
litter.

I've got litters on either side and none have thus far shown any symptoms.
Keeping my fingers crossed.......and.......the stress level as low as I can in
the rabbitry. I've even started moving the "mama" to a new pen and leaving
the youngsters in place until they're old enough to market. We'll see.

grumpy.

 

[bikegurl]

Thanks! Good info...

I put the sick one down....he was quite miserable
The others occasionally have slightly sticky droppings sticking in their fur. (By slightly sticky I mean it is firm and formed with just enough tacky moisture on it to cause it to clump together and stick lightly to the fur) They seem fine otherwise, and I seem to recall other kits in previous litters sometimes having slightly sticky poo, and being fine. I'm watching them closely, anyway.
I have crimped oats that I'm feeding...but they still have the hulls on...is that ok for the little ones?

Is mucoid enteritis contagious?

 

[Miss M]

The crimped oats are fine for all.

Weaning-related mucoid enteritis/enteropathy should not be contagious... but if there is some other cause, it could be.

I'm sorry you had to put the kit down, but it sounds like it was the best thing to do.

 

[grumpy]

The crimped oats are fine for all.

Weaning-related mucoid enteritis/enteropathy should not be contagious... but if there is some other cause, it could be.

I'm sorry you had to put the kit down, but it sounds like it was the best thing to do.

I'm wondering Miss M. if this malady is something entirely different than mucoid/enteritis?
It seems many commercial growers deal with this continually, regardless of the safeguards
they have in place. It's sporadic in nature, popping up when least expected, but it's deadly.
Usually within 18-24 hours the youngster is gone. There's not much of a window allowing
intervention....just some theories of mine.

It seems no one, as of yet, has gotten a solid fix on this thing. I know I don't .....LOL.
I just try to 'eliminate' the possibilities of things that MIGHT cause it.

Here's a post about the problem in another thread of mine. Again, I'm swingin' in the dark
here, trying to figure the problem out.

""

I'd been toying with the idea of "trying" to get probiotics past the stomach's
acidic environment, thinking it may help with the odd-case of bubble-guts I was
still dealing with. I was also thinking that the 18% protein level Country Acres
had, may be a bit high for the youngsters.

I discovered the 16% Nutrena brand of pellet had Probiotics blended into it
during the manufacturing process. Two birds with one stone.
Thus far, it's worked really well. I've only had one 4-week old come down with it.
That's out of a couple hundred youngsters.

Grumpy

 

[Susie570]

Here's a question... what can we do to safely add probiotics to the rabbit diets as a regular supplement? Can the powder be added to the drinking water? I was adding the probiotic powder to the pellets for my last litter and one kit nearly aspirated to death (choked on the powder, even though it was well mixed in). I have no desire to repeat that experience.

If it can be added to water, how much per gallon? Will it even help, since it may not make it past the stomach? Is there a natural FOOD source that can be given as part of their daily ration, containing probiotics? My choices for buying pellets are severely limited here and (at least for the time being), I'm sticking with the lower quality, but generally fresher, Producers Pride pellets. :/

 

[grumpy]

I don't believe any probiotic in a free state, such as mixed with water,
would survive the acidic environment of the stomach. Just my opinion.

 

[Zass]

Mucoid enteritis is a symptom rather than a disease in and of itself... It describes inflammation that causes mucous. So far, only the one kit that passed (with mucous) could be described as having that.

The contagiousness of it would really be dependent on the cause, which can be tricky to determine...

I tend to suspect feed or, generically, something they ate or drank first.

A healthy rabbit's cecotropes might help the ones that just have sticky backsides, if you can find a way to gather some and make them available to the kits.
It's the most natural way for a rabbit to take a probiotic (so maybe that method has some way to bypass stomach acid?), and they will probably eat it willingly if it's lying around the cage.

How are the rest doing today??

 

[bikegurl]

This morning only one youngster had one turd on its fur. I think they are ok!
They do like their mom's cecotropes...so maybe that is helping.
Thanks so much for everyone's input!

 

[Miss M]

The crimped oats are fine for all.

Weaning-related mucoid enteritis/enteropathy should not be contagious... but if there is some other cause, it could be.

I'm sorry you had to put the kit down, but it sounds like it was the best thing to do.

I'm wondering Miss M. if this malady is something entirely different than mucoid/enteritis?
It seems many commercial growers deal with this continually, regardless of the safeguards
they have in place. It's sporadic in nature, popping up when least expected, but it's deadly.
Usually within 18-24 hours the youngster is gone. There's not much of a window allowing
intervention....just some theories of mine.

It seems no one, as of yet, has gotten a solid fix on this thing. I know I don't .....LOL.
I just try to 'eliminate' the possibilities of things that MIGHT cause it.

Here's a post about the problem in another thread of mine. Again, I'm swingin' in the dark
here, trying to figure the problem out.

""

I'd been toying with the idea of "trying" to get probiotics past the stomach's
acidic environment, thinking it may help with the odd-case of bubble-guts I was
still dealing with. I was also thinking that the 18% protein level Country Acres
had, may be a bit high for the youngsters.

I discovered the 16% Nutrena brand of pellet had Probiotics blended into it
during the manufacturing process. Two birds with one stone.
Thus far, it's worked really well. I've only had one 4-week old come down with it.
That's out of a couple hundred youngsters.

Grumpy

Exactly... that's why I differentiated between "weaning-related" and "some other cause". I agree with you that there is a lot we do not know about it, and I'm not sure how you would go about telling whether the enteropathy was due to weaning or some sort of pathogen.

I guess if you fed cecotropes or probiotics to the kits and they improved, it was likely weaning. If not... then it's basically just guessing at that point. I think coccidiosis can present similarly.

As far as getting probiotics past gastric acid goes, probiotic bacteria are selected for their ability to make it through the stomach and into the intestines with as high a survival rate as possible. The various forms of Lactobacilli (which are not typically in a rabbit's intestines but which some have reported success with anyway... I guess it works well enough while the right bacteria are forming) are particularly good at surviving the trip if taken in with glucose. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1151822/ This may help with giving rabbits probiotics. Perhaps coating some pellets with probiotics mixed with a little corn syrup or something. This would also take care of the dust issue with dry probiotics.

 

[TwoAcreDream]

Mucoid enteritis is a symptom rather than a disease
The contagiousness of it would really be dependent on the cause, which can be tricky to determine...
I tend to suspect feed or, generically, something they ate or drank first.

I recently lost a couple to what I think is mucoid enteritis.
I am suspecting the feed.
I been mixing two different kinds half and half.

So most everyone now has wheat in their j feeders.
A few have pellets but I may empty those today.
Plenty of hay and fresh water.

I been pounding my brain for what they have in common.
Which would be feed, hay, water.
I keep the food dry. Stored in the bags, in containers, in the garage.

I lost a adult lion head doe. Her 3 youngsters are doing fine.
A dwarf 8 week old baby. The rest of that group are fine.
A lion head 6 week old baby in another cage. Rest of the group is okay.
I have a 7 month old satin buck who is sick. So far hanging in there.
None of these cages are near each other. Just random here and there.

I had a few with sticky butts. I quick removed pellets from those cages.
Those are now doing fine.

I really think it's the pellets.
I get fresh every week. Using 4 fifty pound bags per week, so 200 #
From Keystone mills, and from TSC, producers pride brand.
Again mixing half and half.

Is this a weather related thing ? Like happening more in the summer ?
My rabbits are all in buildings, btw.

I don't feed treats everyday. Maybe a few times per week. And when I do, it's small pieces.