Unexpected Problem

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ladysown

ladysown

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Okay about a year ago I purchased a new buck.

His daughters are now bearing offspring.

I lost a doe yesterday, and I've almost lost a couple others of his.

They kindle. They are doing fine. At day eight they stop eating. They act like they have gut issues. Their milk disappears literally overnight. Makes me glad I breed two-three does at a time.

I fight to get them going again. Probiotics, tempting feeds, the gambit.

This one didn't. She faded VERY fast...went from eating about 1 cup of feed daily, good handful of hay, grain mix...to nothing.

I've done some research on young mother death... and it all points to having mastitis issues and what not. These does don't have mastitis. They simply STOP. They feel soft throughout the mammary region. The gut swells like it's a gut issue.

It means that I'm going to cull out the lines and look for a new buck as obviously something is weird in those lines... Does the same age out of a different buck..NO ISSUES!

BUT WHAT IS IT? This mind of mine needs to know what is going on with these rabbits. They are fed the same, watered the same, nothing changes. I don't stress them, They seem like perfectly healthy, ordinary good rabbits. But then they stop.

Does someone, anyone have ANY ideas?
 
I wish I had some idea... all I can think with it happening consistently a week after kindling, is some strange hormonal issue, possibly affecting the gut or the flora in the gut.

I can't think of any other way to handle it, though. You've got it isolated to that line from that buck.

Have you tried a necropsy, to see what was going on in the gut?
 
I wonder if rabbits can have genetic based food intollerances or allergies. I might experiment with diet (pellet only, grain only, hay and loose supplements only) to see what happens. Sometimes those things don't kick in until adulthood and there's a trigger. My akita was fine with lamb despite her whole line being allergic until she reached maturity (I let her fully mature with hormones and size before spaying) and then got a hold of a larger amount of lamb than usual. Suddenly she can't even eat the stuff with a bit of lamb broth that she used to occasionally live off of for months at a time. Same with myself. I ate mass quantities of some things growing up even as a teenager and early 20s that I can't touch now at 27 without having to load my GI tract with probiotics and medication. It started small when I reached adulthood that wouldn't be noticeable in animals who can't complain and then other health issues set it all off in a cascade that resulted in cutting out 75% of my diet within months. Reaching maturity, getting bred, and suddenly feeding more of a grain might be equivalent to incidences like that which set off food intollerances that have no warning.

There are also a few cases based on genetics traced back to one starting animal that made some or all decendents sensitive to certain levels of minerals or vitamins. They have to have a restricted diet on those things especially when the diet is increased or things are added to provide more nutrients for pregnancy and lactation. Like potassium and hypp syndrome.
 
Ladysown ,
have you tried treating for Coccidiosis?
Try giving them some live culture Yogurt.
Sorry I can't be more helpful.
Dennis, C.V.R.
 
It sounds like it could be an infection related to kindling. Maybe the line is susceptible to uterine infections. Have you opened up any of the does?
 
I don't have any bright ideas for you, Ladysown, but I would cull that whole line too. I would suggest you open up one of the does just to see if you can tell where the problem lies. It could be that they are susceptible to gut issues and that the stress of kindling and nursing a litter brings the problem to the surface.
 
i haven't opened the one up as when she died the temperatures were REALLY low, my fingers were already frozen and I wasn't keen on struggling with a dead rabbit. And doing such in the house is strongly frowned upon. Should I lose another one then I will open them up.

I haven't treated for coccidia as I have seen no signs of it in the rabbitry.

no grinding teeth.
no nothing.

Just does that stop eating. The other two I got going again, but this one I couldn't (but she comes from a stubborn line of does). The gut gets a bit bloated but that's all I see.
 
It sounds like you got a bacteria in your herd. It probably came from someone that came to visit that has rabbits or you brought it in from the feed store ect. If you catch them early enough, you can save them. When they bloat up that is when they stop eating. I give some gas x and put some oatmeal on there food. The bacteria has to run it course there your barn.But you picked it up somewhere. Did you go to someone else that has rabbits. ?
 
Is the gut 'bloated' or is it backed/blocked up? If when doing a necropsy , if needed, on the 'next one '( I hope not needed) look also for intusseption-- a folding of the intestinal wall over itself, When that happens in dogs, they just 'stop' as well and some of it s related to structure,(long distance between ribs and hips) while sometimes it can be linked to hormonal status. rememebr, too, that GI Stasis is also a 'sudden' and 'fast' issue.
 
the thing that gets me is how fast this last one went. Usually with gut issues you have about three days or so to get them going...but once you have them going again they do okay.

I am well acquainted with dealing with entropathic type issues and GI Stasis.. I started with pet stock from all sorts of sources and had all sorts of issues until I started to focus on breeding strictly for health. I occasionally have issues but most are easily resolved and restarted and the offending rabbit is culled to dog food.

The suddenness of this last doe made me go through records and say ooh... it's the buck! Everyone else is fine... except for the maturing/breeding daughters of this one buck. He's improved the quality of my loppies by 70%, but I can't have that improvement over a genetic weakness in health in my herd.

I will start opening up ones that are struggling rather than trying to get them going at this point. I have two more to kindle so we'll see how they go. Hopefully their partner does kindle so I can foster over if needed.
 
Is that the only thing they have in common? Are you sure it can't be anything environmental?
All their cages in the same area, or eating something the others don't or...

I am sure you have looked at all this, but sometimes it can be easy to focus on something big and miss something small.

Good luck.
 
what I've considered:
1. we've had a horrid winter thus far with temps bouncing all over the place
2. I've pushed some does to kindle earlier than what I normally would...but I've done that pushing equally across the board.
3. Feed. from what I can tell my pellets are good. My hay is excellent quality. Oats is oats. My boss is getting a tad old but nothing nasty looking about it NOR does it taste rancid.
4. Just the odd bug that sometimes pops up in my herd once in a while. Rabbit stops eating, I get it going again and then cull it to dog food when I know it's healthy again.
5. got hold of random plastic? Checked over the cage...everything is where it's supposed to be.
6. Something random that just coincidentally is striking ONLY my holland lops and ONLY the does from the one buck
7. fear factors... something scared them.. wind, cats, mice (though I don't see evidence of mice due to the fore-a-mentioned cats), stupid humans... Haven't seen evidence but that doesn't always mean a thing. the rabbits have been flighty lately when I come in wearing a different coat which is somewhat unusual. They are normally fairly calm as I'm deliberate about changing things up.
8. random act of God to help me keep my rabbit population down to proper levels.
9. Genetics.

Anything I'm missing??? I've given this a lot of thought, and yes, I don't know everything, and yes I might miss something... but I'm a bit stumped.
 
Very similar to ladysown's doe, our charming GC buck - just acquired in October (along with his litter sister) - started showing symptoms in early November. (Stress of new food, water, location and humans definitely sparked the trouble.) Valiant efforts to get him back on feed were successful, but he continued to dwindle, nevertheless - finally succumbing in early December. (Our vet had offered lab tests, but we had to decline.)

I emailed before-and-after photos taken of him shortly before he died - as well as necropsy photos. Only then did an experienced breeder rightly identify the killer. Once alerted, I drilled into dozens of medical articles and necropsy images and came to the same conclusion - Eimeria stiedai - liver coccidia, which by the way, presents in markedly different ways in adult rabbits than in juniors. This may explain the prevailing confusion.

I was devastated to read advice that the entire herd should be destroyed, or at least, all exhibiting and selling suspended in consideration of other rabbitries. "Eimeria s. once contracted cannot be eradicated - only controlled." :shock:

I dressed out four fryers last week, two of which were out of the stricken buck's sister. They showed similar lesions, but not as severely congested. The other two fryers - unrelated - had clean livers. The path of entry of E. s. into our rabbitry is indisputable, as I've never before seen such lesions in my three years of breeding.

Be that as it may, there is a serious complication to the obvious remedy of destroying the GC doe and all offspring of the two. We regularly exercise our rabbits in mobile runs set up in the yard, so we have unwittingly exposed the entire herd to contaminated ground.

As for treatment protocols, I have combed through earlier posts where Corid is advised, but after checking the manufacturer, two things prevent my using it: 1.) It is not to be used on animals intended for human consumption; 2.) It is not for rabbits older than a certain age. These factors disqualify my entire herd, so some other solution surely must be available?

Please, if you have any proven methods or information, I would be so grateful for your sharing. I'm willing to post the photos if anyone is interested, but I can't figure out the system. (FAQ isn't detailed enough on inserting, so I'm stalled out.) Thanks much!
 
Sulmet can and does successfully treat liver coccidiosis. Have done so in the past. Works well. You can treat the entire herd. I suggest you cull out everything that you can before doing a treatment. Coccidiosis doesn't mean you can't eat what you cull...you just can't eat the liver and you need to cook the rabbit well.

Coccidiosis is treatable.
It is mostly a hygiene issue as rabbits contract it through their fecal droppings.

When I had liver coccidiosis in my herd four years back it took two treatments to clear it out completely. And I have not seen it back since. I keep my rabbits clean. I regularly check livers and I simply don't get it any longer.<br /><br />__________ Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:18 pm __________<br /><br />Bunny STD... also called rabbit syphilus or Vent disease.

Treatable using a penicillin a long lasting bicillin is generally recommended from what I recall.
 
Oh, there is hope - you can't imagine my joy at reading your good news!! What's the dosage and protocol, please? I have a bottle of Sulmet on hand for if my laying flock gets into trouble, but I don't remember any mention of dosing rabbits. How did you determine your herd was free and clear after the second round? My guess: evidenced by clear livers.

I've never visited the rabbitry of the breeder who raised and granded the brother/sister duo, so I don't know what their environment was. I do, however, have an inkling of why their GC dam died so young and unexpectedly.

A million thanks!
 

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