Genetic Anomaly

[ladysown]

So Had someone give me two rabbits this past week. Mom/daughter pairing from what they told me.

I took them in with the intention of rehoming them fairly quickly but over the week they seemed "off" .. wasn't sure what as they ate and drank well and seemed to eliminate well but something about them niggled at me. I simply don't rehome rabbits that have something niggling at me.

Since I needed to process three growers anyways I said I'll just do up these two and see what's up.

They were both HUGELY fat inside with ONE small kidney and no urine in their bladder. It was so odd.. I rarely process rabbits without having some urine in the bladder but not these two. Mom doe was a heavy almost seven lb lop/lop mix. But wow the fat was amazing even from the apparently six month old. Both were missing the left kidney... just odd...

Another anomaly was the junior doe had huge ovaries... I generally only see that in does who have had a litter... but in a small junior....never.

So I was right in the "something is off" with these two but I still don't know how I picked up on it... ah well...at least I haven't passed along a genetic issue for folks.

 

[Dood]

Hummm

One kidney I've not seen that before ! Although I don't know how detrimental it would be to the health of the rabbit as people who've had a kidney removed do fine with just the one, my mums lived 46 years with only one

I've necropsied LOTS of fatty pet rabbits when a vet tech, some who looked emaciated on the outside but internally had organs covered in the stuff :shrug: something killed them (or required them to be euthanized) so your gut was probably right and better not to pass on a problem to new owner.

 

[ladysown]

it was just odd...at first I thought they were missing both kidneys (which would be impossible) until I searched hard and finally found one buried in fat. It was 1/2 the size I would have expected for both of them...smaller even than the average polish size...and these rabbits were more than double the size of my polish. Normal colour and all that though so it's going to be part of lunch or supper.

I am glad I called it correctly though. I don't like culling the pet rescues.. I want to see them go into homes. But if something is wrong with them I can't justify passing them along.