I only have human fenbendazole in powder form. I dont feel confident to dose that correctly. I have no idea how they contracted this as this is very discouraging keeping everything clean. No signs/symptoms in any of herd and this is this does 10th successful litter. Only thing that's measurable that her litters have gotten smaller. I have 2 does, 2 bucks only for meat consumption.
Should I cull and just start over?
I was hoping to save the best doe but doesnt look like I can now.
I agree with
@ladysown that it sounds like it could be
E. cuniculi. In my experience it often also involves the eyes; you'll sometimes see a milky occlusion that comes and goes, and sometimes they'll protrude just a little.
For treating
E. cuniculi I have successfully used Neomycin Oral, which unfortunately became unavailable without a prescription last June.
The good news is that you can still buy it as "Wet-Tail Drops," which is made by Oasis for hamsters, and sold in most pet stores. For a rabbit kit, you can follow the directions on the side of the bottle for guinea pigs (weigh the kit to see if that is a good dosing and adjust from there). The safety range for this old drug is quite wide, so there is very little worry about overdosing.
I only treat the animal suffering from the symptoms, not all the rabbits. I've had 4-5 cases over the last 20 years, but have never seen what looks like contagion in my barn. In my experience, the
E. cuniculi organism seems to be pretty much everywhere, and only certain animals become symptomatic, apparently related to their ability to handle stress. I tend not to use animals that have become symptomatic and then recovered for breeding, although we did have a Mini Rex doe that recovered and later had three successful litters, and never once did any of her offspring, or any of the ensuing three generations, suffer from it.
Here's Moonlight with some of her bunnies; you can see she still has a slight head tilt to the right, and her eye is ever-so-slightly bulging. She was such a character and remains one of everyone's favorites (in memory, now).
