lost kit- what happened?

[akane]

Zami, my dog, suddenly demanded something was very wrong with her bunnies in the other room. She got the other dog going and they were running back and forth from me to the bunnies with very excited behavior. I thought someone escaped or something. I checked the room to find no loose bunnies so I opened the bottom cage to do a head count. Amako, her son from a previous litter, and several kits in the nestbox were sitting there just fine. Then I heard odd sounds. Behind the nestbox I found a 2 week old kit making grunting noises with an eye gunked shut. I thought maybe he poked it on hay and took him to the bathroom. I immediately found it was much worse than that. Both eyes were gunked shut, his nose was covered, his breathing was odd, and when picked up he would tighten in to an odd shape. I took pics (came out too blurry) and vid real quick which are uploading, created a makeshift steam tent cause I saw no way I was going to get all the gunk out by hand, and then pulled out every other rabbit. Everyone was fine. The kit in my little steam tent had it's eyes open and was moving around but his breathing was so bad I could hear it from across the condo in a different room. Then while I was moving those pics it suddenly stopped. I found him dead.

What happened so suddenly to one rabbit? There have been no new rabbits in 2 months and no illness except some mild diarrhea in otherwise healthy acting rabbits probably from over eating pumpkin and cranberries after halloween. A few days of only grains and hay and everyone seemed back to normal.

The nestbox has 3 ages of kits. Poor Amako is being used to raise everyone else's kits again. There were 4, 2week olds of Amakos with one of the castors being the one lost, then 2, 3week olds who's nest got destroyed in a territory dispute while 3 does were trying to nest in the same area, and 2, 1week olds from a litter of 10 out of a half mini rex who could not care for that many. One of the youngest is rather skinny and not feeding as well as I'd like but other than that the rest all looked healthy and tried to take off across the room while I was counting them. One castor kit did get grabbed by a cat. A cage design flaw and the cats being released from the bathroom after weeks of not being around the rabbit cages led to one being pulled out of the nest and then immediately rescued. I saw no marks on it but who knows. That was about 6 days ago though.

Warning loud volume due to the bathroom exhaust fan being run 24/7 for the cats currently confined in there
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v244/ ... CN0854.mp4

That's the noise it made every breath until it died. A few days ago all kits were fine. Zami normally will not allow sleep until every rabbit has been checked but my insomnia meds haven't been working so I've been tired and only pulling out about half the kits the past 2 days.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Poor little thing- it sounds like a little goose. Your steam tent was a great idea.

Maybe you brought home the cold or flu and the little guy got it. That's the only thing I can think of.

What kind of dogs do you have? They certainly have a strong nursing instinct- what good helpers!

I've heard that placing a raw onion, halved, in a sick room attracts bacteria/viruses. I tend to believe it, because there is an old wive's tale saying it is bad luck not to use the entire onion when cooking, which probably came about because people in the household would become ill after doing so. It's worth a try anyway.

 

[MaggieJ]

Not really sure what it may have been, but if a simple bacterial infection (like nest-box eye) galloped out of control, I suppose it is possible that it would affect the kit's whole system and kill it. I've never personally seen anything like that, but I do hope that you get to the bottom of it and that no other rabbits come down with it. Is it possible something was transmitted to the rabbit by a mouse or rat?

 

[akane]

The helpful dog is an akita. Anything I say belongs here is hers to protect and I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't respect that. Although her protection of chickens was a bit lacking. Akitas don't stay home very well when no one is around to interact with and check on so she preferred to go hunting in the fields when outside alone. When she does see a potential predator she is very good at testing it, determining the threat level, and deciding the proper way to handle it. She also comes to get me if something is not where it normally is (annoying when kits first start leaving the nest box) or making noises it normally doesn't. Everything must be in it's proper place and doing it's normal behavior or the world is not right. New animals are obsessed over until their typical behavior is learned. The other is a shiba inu who just cluelessly follows the akita and debates what is edible or not. Then gets flattened by the akita who is 4 times bigger for trying to eat her charges.

This cage is in the house and we are the 3rd floor condo now so no rats or mice here. We do transfer feed buckets, hay, carriers, and bags of bedding back and forth from the stable with the rest of the rabbits and plenty of mice and rats there if I don't stay on top of them. It's only 1 single rabbit who became extremely ill within days though. The respiratory problems and sudden distress then failure seems like severe pneumonia. Or anaphylaxis but I wouldn't know to what. With parrots in the house we are rather careful about things they could react to and to keep everything clean. The air is heavily vented too. There are box fans in the windows that I use to exchange all the air in the condo at least once a day.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Akitas are very intelligent dogs, but definitely not for everyone. Have you noticed that most of them have aggression toward dogs of the same sex? It's been many years since I worked in the dog field, but that was my experience with them. I also thought they were kind of spooky in that they give no verbal warning before they attack... at least the one that I knew quite personally was when killing possums, skunks, and the occasional unlucky cat.

I have heard Shibas can be a bit dense, as well as very stubborn and hard to house break- the only one I knew personally was very submissive. They are certainly very pretty dogs though.

 

[akane]

Oh this will probably become a novel... you should not ask about akitas unless you really want to hear about them.

I have a japanese line akita which is quite different. The akitas brought back to the US were after they had been crossed with other breeds and used for dog fighting as well as in the military. They especially have a lot of german shepherd in them because of the military killing all dogs not deemed useful so the akita was crossed with the german shepherds to make more military dogs. Then later more aggression and a bolder nature was bred in to the males for dog fighting. After the end of the war Japan declared them a national monument and followed a very strict breeding protocol to get them back to what they were before all the crossing and using them for other purposes besides hunting and protection began. The akita wasn't exported much in between these times so what developped in the US and what was recreated in Japan are quite different animals. Many countries have actually given the breed 2 separate registries depending if it's a Japanese or American akita. The US is the only place being stubborn. At minimum physically the Japanese version is a bit narrower and longer with more agility while the American dogs were bred to be huge and thick with lots of power. Japanese akitas look more wolf like and less rottweiler type build. Some of mine's brothers have been mistaken for full timberwolf. It rather annoys me when American breeders get on their soap box and say akitas are getting too light and narrow lately when they know nothing of the Japanese lines.

Mentally I find the Japanese akitas have a stronger instinct to be defensive and to protect and guard while the American akitas have a tendency to be more outgoing and offensive. The Japanese akitas do not usually greet people eagerly and many prefer to avoid all strangers. That is actually the biggest thing that got my interest because I hate dogs in my face. They are mostly only aggressive between females in claimed territory. We have minimal issues with the dog park even when an aggressive or dog with poor body language skills is there because it is not claimed territory nor a threat toward me. Our biggest problem is actually with small dogs running like prey and being running over when she follows them despite not aiming to harm them. The males are non aggressive if their humans are not threatened, they may growl and snap at a strange dog charging in near their human while ignoring everything else, and a bit more obedient which also equals more predictable than the females.

For example the males can be sent outside alone to go pee and return from an unfenced area immediately while the females have to be hand walked or fenced if you want them back in a specific time frame. They'll return but it might be 10mins or 2hrs. Also depends who is around as to how much they want to return. One evening when I was gone my mom let them out in -20F during a snowstorm and it was 4hrs before Zami reappeared. She took my mom's elkhound with and he barely made the trip while she was limping from ice in her feet but energetically wiggling about. With me around she usually checks in every 30mins. I leave a 300' rock climbing rope to tie her on when I am not there.

They do give plenty of warning before doing anything unless a snap decision needs made or the threat is deemed so dangerous it must be hunted silently. There are times a dangerous animal gets taken out before it knows what hit it, Zami has listed raccoons as kill immediately, and my akita's breeder had an incident with her brother that was aimed at taking a human out that way. They came in a door they never use and were covered in smells from the place they'd been. Her brother launched himself silently off the top of the stairs at them but realized midway who it was and with a yip threw himself sideways to land on the floor. Otherwise my akita ranges from a yip which is her mildest warning usually given to puppies or annoying children mostly to scare them off with the loud noise to growling and finally to her most serious bark that I have no idea how anyone in their right mind could decide to ignore.

So far we have not actually had a mistake where she purposely harmed someone unnecessarily or for the wrong reasons and very few in play. She bruised the vet once but had plenty of good reason with a wound being poked, prodded, and needles wiggled around in her leg to find a vein. The vet actually commented on her good bite inhibition instead of being upset. She'll play with everything from kittens to a friend's wolfhounds without issue. Well there are the few times she decides kittens need carried and you look at her to see only a tail or foot sticking out but the kitten is always spat out unharmed and only a bit slobbery. I make sure to tell her "no touch" with rabbit kits or chicks and "take" with actual food items so she doesn't walk off with any live rabbits or chickens. We have minor gerbil issues since they are so close to the mice she's always been told to kill and eat but she seems to have decided all gerbils I put in cages are not to be touched. Gerbils are not observed and protected though. They are merely left to live in their cages.

Shibas are just shibas. If you know a shiba not a lot has to be said about them. They are simple critters with kill being their main purpose in life. Some are more aggressive toward dogs than others. Ours just wants to play with everyone and eat anything smaller than herself. She can probably kill a chicken faster and more humanely than a person. If you know someone having problems with a shiba we found a head halter and in particular the snoot loop works wonders. The sudden loss of control in direction and ability to pull has such a psychological impact that even when a leash isn't attached ours will behave 10times better and gives up killing what she shouldn't. No amount of punishment or reward gets us anywhere close to the results of putting on a snoot loop.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Wow, I had no idea of the divergence of Asian and American lines of Akitas. Fascinating! I used to work exclusively in the pet field, but have been out of the loop for almost 15 years now, since the birth of our first child. So my focus has changed somewhat over the years.

When I was a teen, I had an American Eskimo that had the same mental discipline when it came to other animal members of the family- but so did my cat at the time. I had a parakeet that was free to roam my room, as well as a Siamese cat that was confined to the same room. Upon my return home, the keet would be under the cat's belly fold like a penguin chick. I also had mice at the time, and when I took them out to play in the grass, my Eskie would keep them in a small group. Then I bought a baby Burmese Python. I always removed her from her cage to feed her so she wouldn't strike randomly at any warm thing to enter the cage. One night I made the mistake of having my little dog in the room at feeding time, and she of course was keenly observing- a new mouse was joining our pack, after all... when the snake struck the mouse, she leapt back, completely affronted, and looked at me as if to say "OMG! That snake broke the Cardinal Rule!!!" and never trusted that snake after.

Some dogs are so incredible- I used to think it was directly related to the time you spent with them, but, sadly... No. Some are just dumb as rocks.

A truly fine dog is a Blessing without measure, and it sounds as though you are sharing your life with one now.