Sick Rabbits, help!

[Withherwings]

Hey everyone, I am very new to raising rabbits and have some questions. I started by buying 3 rabbits. One Bauscat doe, one baladi male and one baladi female. The female came with her 4 kits that were only a few days old. Since then I purchased a number of other rabbits from a guy closing down his rabbitry. Most of these new ones are not old enough to breed yet. All of them are in separate cages except the new ones since they were raised in colony style anyway.

Each cage is a meter square and is a wood frame with metal mesh cage. Since the mesh is a weak grade a do not have them suspended. I keep them on a dirt area in my yard. About once week a move the cage, rake the poop from under it and set the cage back.

Again since I am new to raising rabbits, i started hearing two of my rabbits sneeze quite a bit. I first thought nothing of it but recently one of the small babies died and he was lethargic and looked to have runny poop matted under him. I then researched the sneezing and found all sorts of scary stuff like snuffles and such. The mom and the male are sneezing, the male seems to be worse then the female with snot coming out some. Neither one of them have any other noticiable symtoms. No weeping eye and no loose stool. Just today I heard one of the 3 surviving baby rabbits sneeze. I think the sneezing has been going on for a couple of weeks but snotting nose is fairly new i think. Any thoughts?

Also each cage is setting on the ground and has a little over a foot between cages. Is this enough of a quarantine or should I separate more? There are no vets in my city so any help would be appreciated. Also if you have any natural ways of treating whatever this is, that would be helpful as veterinarian medicine is not available (most other meds are available without prescription).

 

[jollysrabbits]

keep the colony away,it sound like they are fine, your first 3 rabbits sound like they are infected, no a foot is not enough space, snuffles is an airborne disease, any rabbit that shows signs gets culled in my rabbitry, there is no cure. So a vet is useless, they can try to treat it but it will never be cured and will just pass onto other rabbits.

 

[Withherwings]

I get the idea of culling any infected rabbit but since it has affected my breeding stock I want to be sure that it is snuffles and not something that can go away or be treated easily. Any thoughts based on the limited symtoms?

 

[jollysrabbits]

if the snot is white its not good, if its clear, it could be allergies or dust from something around them. But since you are having losses and more than one is doing it, your situation does not look good, I know it is hard to cull stock that is important to you. ( I had to cull my rare American blue doe) but unless you wanna risk passing it onto other stock it is one of your few choices. You can separate them FAR from your other stock and and see if it gets better.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

This is probably "too little, too late", but before introducing new stock to an existing herd, it is wise to quarantine them well away from your own rabbits for 4-6 weeks. Different herds carry different pathogens, so while they may appear outwardly healthy they may carry things your rabbits have no immunity to. Stress brings latent illness to the fore, so you should see symptoms within that quarantine period.

White snot often indicates Pasteurella. My rabbitry was "snot-free" for about a year until I took some rabbits to a show where another exhibitor of the breed had snotty nosed rabbits. Since then I have had to cull quite a few rabbits, including some of my breeding does. It was not an easy thing to have to do, but for the health of the herd I had to do it.

The link below chronicles the Pasteurella journey of OneAcreFarm when she was fairly new to rabbits:

my-pasteurella-journey-t12109.html

 

[Dood]

You cannot differentiate pasturella from pneumonia or bordatella by symptoms, a vet must take a swab, grow it and then look at it under a microscope.

Even if they have a treatable disease, there is likely permanent damage by this time and the rabbits will always be more prone to sickness.

For me it is not worth the risk of infecting my other rabbits and I cull. The fact they came down with something can indicate a weaker immune system and that is not something I would want to continue breeding in my rabbits. I am a strong believer in survival of the fittest for my livestock.

 

[Whipple]

I agree with everyone above. You can separate and see if it gets better, but don't get your hopes up. Also, next time you bring in new buns, keep them far away.

 

[phillinley]

Not to say we can't help you with your problem,but you have rabbits of Middle Eastern origin. What you are dealing with might be something that is common in your area, but looks like another disease we commonly have that you don't. I know you don't have much veterinarian options over there, but if possible, you should talk to breeders in your area. If you bought them, they had to come from some one. Can you speak Arabic? If not that could be a large barrier to getting info from locals, but if you can, any info locally could make a world of difference.

 

[Withherwings]

Yes I speak Arabic but I have yet to find a breeder that looks anything like is normally described in the states. Have bought all of my rabbits from people that have colonies on their roofs. It does not seem to me like they are experts and could very well be that they are ok with having sick rabbits. The problem is that Jordan does not have a rabbit industry, a few people raise them for food but nothing like what is seen in neighboring countries. we do have a large Egyptian population in my city and I have thought about asking around. The problem is that in Egypt, I have been told, that raising rabbit is women's work and that they guys do not know as much bout it.

I think I will still try that and see if I can find an expert. I kinda expected to not start out with the best of stock due to the conditions of the colonies where I bought my first rabbits but I hope I can cull the bad ones and breed the good qualities into the herd. Thanks for the feedback.