Sick doe tonight

[Ivory]

I went to feed my rabbits just now and my big Flemish doe, the only really good quality rabbit I've ever had is sick.

She was laying on her side, I picked her up and brought her in the house. She has no ambition to do anything, and she's gone all floppy - like a ragdoll.

Anyone any ideas what might cause such symptoms?

She has four week old kits that appear to be fine.

 

[Cottie]

Any chance of mastitis?

I hope she improves soon and is just milking some lazy time from her kits wearing her down.

 

[Ivory]

No sign of mastitis, in fact, no sign of anything. No sneezing, no mucus, no runny eyes, no diarrhea, she's just laying on her side looking decidedly as though she's going to die.

 

[Miss M]

Wool block?

Maybe syringe some pineapple juice in, or at least electrolytes?

 

[Ivory]

I tried her with various things. The only thing I could get her to eat was ice cream, she had maybe a desert spoonful, but she doesn't look any different.

In about an hour I'll try her with some peach juice.

 

[WildWolf]

What does ice cream do? I've never heard of rabbits eating ice cream before.

 

[Ivory]

What does ice cream do? I've never heard of rabbits eating ice cream before.

Neither have I.

I'd offered her several things, starting with water, dandelion leaves, calf manna etc. and she had no interest whatsoever, then I just offered her some ice cream/evaporated milk/peach juice mixture on the end of a spoon and she licked it up.

Anyway, she made it through the night, and died around 7am. I am clueless as to what the problem was though.

It pisses me off that I have crossbred rabbits that go on for ever, but every time I buy a purebred pedigreed rabbit it dies. I obviously destined not to have purebreds.

 

[MaggieJ]

Sorry you lost her, Ivory.

Did you open her up and take a look to see if you could spot anything amiss?

 

[Miss M]

I'm so sorry she didn't make it.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Aww.

I'm sorry she didn't make it.

((Hugs))

 

[Kyle@theWintertime]

Sorry she didn't pull through. I'm with MaggieJ, is there something amiss inside? I lost a fantastic buck not too long ago, when I looked inside he had a twisted gut. Maybe she had something wrong in there?

 

[Ivory]

Sorry you lost her, Ivory.

Did you open her up and take a look to see if you could spot anything amiss?

Sorry she didn't pull through. I'm with MaggieJ, is there something amiss inside? I lost a fantastic buck not too long ago, when I looked inside he had a twisted gut. Maybe she had something wrong in there?

Thank you for your kind thoughts everyone.

She's such a beautiful rabbit I really don't want to cut her up. In the past I've taken sudden deaths to the vet to be autopsied but I can no longer afford such luxury - it never really helped anyway.

I keep wondering what I might have done to cause this. Did I breed her too young (8 months, 14lbs)? did I accidentally poison her with something mixed in with her dandelions? was she too hot? did the dogs scare her? did I forget to feed her yesterday?

None of them things that should have killed her.

I just have to take extra special care with her kits now. So far they're all doing well. I weighed a couple of them the other day. 1 1/2 lbs at just over three weeks.

I know I wanted to downsize, but I didn't want to do it this way!

 

[LauraNJ]

I'm sorry you lost her.

 

[Cottie]

Do you know any hunters? We had to cull my favorite buck for biting - I called a hunter friend, he did the deed for me. He was able to tell me that everything looked good.

I'm sorry you lost her. I'm sure the kits will stay strong so she can live on a little bit.

 

[Ivory]

I cremated her.