Sudden Rabbit Death *content warning*

[goodrainfarm]

Hello,

I raise meat rabbits.

I had three rabbits die suddenly over night. 2 does (10 weeks), 1 buck (15 weeks), different litters, different ages, different cages. I have them in rabbit tractors out on the pasture. The buck's cage mate is alive and well. The Does cage mates, mother and three sisters are alive and well.

I opened up the three rabbits, they each had signs of slight heat distress around their mouths but nothing very sever. I keep fresh water available always, and provide ice bottles for cuddling and cooling. None of the cages ran out of water, no ice bottles had been severely chewed or punctured.

All three had very mottled lungs, liver and hearts. They all had enlarged intestines, and all three had a build up of exposed poop between the spine and liver/stomach organs towards the head before the kidneys (kidneys looked totally fine). Heart was very melted and squishy.

This looks like a variety of diseases and illnesses. I am not entirely sure what is happening. When opening them up there was a very rank smell. From the outside their mouths, ears, eyes and noses looked fine. Except 1 buck who had some blood in the mouth.

Any ideas of what could be happening?
Thanks.

 

[SableSteel]

Where are you located?

 

[goodrainfarm]

Where are you located?[/quo Southwest Washington, City of Camas, Clark county

Kept a close eye on the rest of the herd. No one is bloating. No one experienced any severe heat stress, everyone's well drinking water eating food and nibbling on grass.

 

[Preitler]

It does sound somewhat like RHD to me, are the other rabbits still ok? Not sure though what heat related deaths would look like.
Wasn't that in Portland?

Do you have a wild rabbit population there?

 

[Ice]

Hmm I agree with Preitler. I think this would be RHD. Since it just happened overnight that would be a indicator since RHD is very fast with killing the rabbits and since one had some blood out of the mouth that would be suspicious. You should send the bodies to a vet and the vet should see if it is (I don't think they would charge a fee for this but I dunno). According to the USDA:

'When found, this disease must be reported to the World Organization for Animal Health.
Veterinarians should immediately contact the USDA APHIS Area Veterinarian in Charge
of your state and/or the state veterinarian if a case is suspected.'

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications ... -rhdv2.pdf

 

[goodrainfarm]

I figured if it was RHD the remaining rabbits would have died by now. All other rabbits are totally healthy.

There seemed to be a lot of damage to the organs but all three also had fecal matter freely in the cavity. GI tract appeared backed up. I wonder if they weren't dealing with a minor Coccidia outbreak and with the heat wave stopped eating hay/grass/pellets which lead to a back up in the system and allowed the Coccidia to flourish causing more discomfort and back GI that was then very much exacerbated in the heat? Livers were large but there wasn't much sign of Coccidia in the liver, but the heart, lungs, etc were very much inflamed. The rabbit remains were disposed of before I saw/thought to take to the vet, most our local vets are pet vets and charge way too much to bother with for just about anything. I'll continue to monitor and quarantine.