Newbie Terrified of Rabbit Enteritis, Advice on Prevention?

[Ashirah]

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for your help. My situation is that last fall we got our first rabbit, a 2 month old minilop, and enjoyed her for 6 weeks, at which point she got really bad mucous diarrhea and died in about 24 hours. The breeder thought it was coccidiosis. On her advice we tried giving the rabbit Kaopectate and Critical Care. (I admit that I didn't go to a vet, as the nearest was a 4-hour round trip drive and the rabbit was only $25 to start with.) I gutted the rabbit afterward to see if anything looked unusual, and there were no white spots on the liver, though the intestine was distended like gas. (It looked a lot like the photos in http://rabbittalk.com/coccidia-graphic-organ-photos-t24370.html, though I didn't notice a sloshy belly.)

I was never sure what killed the rabbit, but this spring we decided to try again with Silver Fox, with the thought of raising meat rabbits for ourselves. The breeder said we'd probably never have the problem again, that it was just a fluke, so I hadn't given it much thought until now. Yesterday, though, we brought home a buck and I find that I am unexpectedly paralyzed by fear that the same thing will happen to him, mostly because we never figured out what it was. We've given him a new cage, and had the thought of not letting him run on the porch that the other rabbit touched.

I hoped that by putting out our experience we'd get some ideas about what might have caused the illness and how to avoid it in the future. I didn't think I'd done anything new and stressful with the minilop, nor had we done anything different with her food, and her cage was kept clean and dry, though the hay was not in a feeder, just put in with her. It was right after things started to freeze hard at night, and we'd have to keep giving her new water during the day. A mink had visited our duck house a night or two before (when it rains it pours, huh?) and there was a bit of drama around that. The duck house is probably 35 feet from our house, and the breeder said if the rabbit got a whiff of mink that might have been enough to terrify her. On the duck subject, the breeder also said maybe she picked something up from them, as the ducks free range and we'd take the rabbit outside on a harness for running around time: she could have come in contact with duck poop, or gotten it off our shoes because we'd let her run on our porch, as well. The last idea I have is that, ten or twelve days before the sickness- I don't exactly remember- the rabbit managed to get a hold of (and eat!) a 1" cube of raw pig fat which had fallen out of a pot. Looking up coccidiosis it seemed that this was the right incubation period and a possible infection vector...But you can tell that I'm really grasping at straws with this whole thing.

Any ideas about what happened and what to do now would be much appreciated. I've read some of the rabbit first aid posts, and plan to put together a kit, though I'm still learning where to get things, and which items need to be vet-prescribed.
I am so worried about having another go at this because I want so much to do right by the animals, and it's always a question about where to draw the line monetarily, too. I have found a closer vet, an hour away, and thought I'd set up a visit there to get established and ask their opinion. Honestly, though, if we can't make this work without a lot of vet bills, we're not going to do it.
Okay, thanks a lot for reading this long post and for your thoughts.

 

[Zass]

First, I want to say:
:welcome: to RT!!!!

 

[Dood]

Young rabbits are very delicate and sometimes they just cannot handle the stress of a new home.

Did the breeder give you a supply of the food she was feeding the bunny so you could slowly switch it to your brand?

There are many other things than can stress the rabbit out as well.

 

[akane]

It's hard to say what started the problem. Lots of things can start digestive upset. Some things are out of your control. There have been several times people on here end up blaming the feed even though it initially looked fine because many sources of toxins are invisible. Kaopectate was a bad idea though. Rabbit digestive tracts need to be kept moving. If they are having diarrhea they probably have bacterial imbalances which can lead to gas and bloat if you don't make sure they eat and get lots of fiber to keep things moving. Kaopectate and many human diarrhea treatments work by slowing the intestines so more water gets absorbed between bowel movements. Our intestines do not work quite the same as full herbivores like rabbits. You can give many human digestive tract medication to carnivores like dogs. Their digestive tracts are short and do fine starting and stopping with breaks between large meals. But not rabbits. I know even some vets suggest such things but if you go look on the internet more people following that advice have dead rabbits than those who try other methods. You want something to keep coming out no matter what it is and something to keep going in while giving supportive care like extra fluids until you can reduce what's upsetting the stomach. Usually a diet of oatmeal and grass hay is recommended until things sort themselves back out.

 

[Sagebrush]

Welcome to RT!

Ok it does sound like you ML had enteritis. This occurs when there is not enough movement through the digestive system. It is quick, it is painful, and almost always fatal. To prevent something like that from happening you have fresh hay always available to the rabbit. In a hay rack to prevent it from being soiled then eaten by the rabbit. Always have fresh water available to the rabbit as well, even if this means that you have to go out 3-4 times a day during the colder parts of the year.

I will not say that your rabbit got something from your ducks. I don't know you, your ducks, or your property, and I am no expert either. What I do know is that no amount of vet bills could have done anything for her in the condition you found her in. It would have taken a specialty vet and a lot more time then she had to find out what it was that happened. However... what you did to try and help her was the best that you could do in the situation. No one is going to hold that against you.

I see Dood and Akane got to you before me.

 

[Zass]

2 month old minilop, and enjoyed her for 6 weeks, at which point she got really bad mucous diarrhea and died in about 24 hours. The breeder thought it was coccidiosis.

It doesn't sound like coccidosis to me, more like mucoid enteritis.

Bacterial and Mucoid enteritis

Mucoid diarrhea is sometimes observed in growing rabbits and nursing does. The watery feces are mixed with mucus, a translucent and gelatinous substance. This particular type of enteritis has various causes, including bacterial overgrowth or nutritional deficiencies (lack of water and food low in fiber).

Bacterial enteritis develops very rapidly, within 3 to 4 days and may cause death before the appearance of diarrhea. The bacteria causing intestinal enteritis are known as Clostridia perfrigens and Escherichia coli. In healthy rabbits the number of E. coli bacteria present in the droppings is low (102-103/g drops), but in diarrhea they are systematically present in high number. The bacterium produces toxins, but it has been shown that these alone do not lead to the onset of diarrhea. Escherichia coli is occasionally found together with coccidia. For diarrhea to occur there must be another stress on the rabbit, such as unbalanced feeding or a thermal shock.

 

[Ashirah]

Thanks for the support, everyone. The breeder did not give us a supply of the feed but did tell us the brand and I got some of the same kind. The rabbit did always have hay available, but I know now to keep it in a rack, and now I know about Kaopectate. I read more about Mucoid Enteritis. It sounds like I really won't be able to know why it happened, but that certainly seems like what it was. Maybe bringing her water several times a day still wasn't enough? Or I guess she ate something her body didn't like and it got her out of whack. I did look for an intestinal block and didn't see anything, for what that's worth, but I guess the issue was a microscopic one. So: keep probiotics around and possibly talk to a vet about what else to keep on hand and also have the supplies to give subcutaneous fluids?

 

[katiebear]

I have my bunns on water bottles. During the summer I use both bottles and crocks, because it is so easy for crocks to get dumped..or soiled. If your bun doesn't know how to use it, it's pretty easy to teach them..just squeeze the bottle, they get the idea pretty fast..

 

[Zass]

In the case of your rabbit, I'm not sure that anything you (or a vet) could have done would have helped since death occurred so rapidly after onset. Some rabbits just have sensitive systems.

 

[Ashirah]

Well, thanks. It's good to get the reassurance that the rabbit was really, really sick and probably beyond help anyways. That's what I'd thought at the time. Meanwhile, this new buck we just picked up has a wet nose with a tiny bit of white mucous on and off, so I'm going to go onto the pasteurella threads now...

 

[akane]

Gas itself can basically be an intestinal blockage. That's why it needs to be kept moving. The intestines stretch with gas and then stop moving things. More gas gets formed by food that is not moving and more stretching happens. If the animal stays alive through enough of that you will open them up to find dead sections of bowel around the bloat. We had a guinea pig eat peed on hay that got shoved under the hay rack and within 24hrs was near death. My boyfriend at the time had endless money and couldn't stand the loss of a pet so he actually paid for exploratory surgery. They found necrotic bowel in a still living guinea pig. There was nothing that could be done and the guinea pig never woke up from anesthesia.

Being able to do subQ fluids is good but you can usually get away with giving fluids orally. By the time you get to the point you absolutely need to inject fluids the chance of a good outcome is pretty low. Just wetting the oatmeal or pellets (change frequently because wet grains mold fast) often works. A pureed banana mixed in with soft foods can improve appetite but you have to watch the amount of fresh food and especially sugar and weigh the risks because a rabbit not used to fresh food or with a system already having problems can develop further bacteria growth on the excess sugar. Sometimes it's more important to keep them eating and drinking whatever they will. Tougher, higher fiber forages instead of store bought fruit and veggies can be a compromise. You avoid some of the sugar and other risks of such foods but the fresh food is still more appealing than pellets and you can wet leaves with regular water.

 

[Ashirah]

In the morning I was giving her syringes of water but by afternoon she just let everything dribble out again. I have picked up some gas drops after reading about rabbit first aid kits and feel better having them for the future. I regret that I didn't know about this forum then, but at least I do now.

 

[Susie570]

this new buck we just picked up has a wet nose with a tiny bit of white mucous on and off, so I'm going to go onto the pasteurella threads now...

:x :x oh no!!!!

Do you have him isolated?