For the body of domestic rabbits, even the smallest disease can become fatal, especially if it is of viral origin. As a result, the animals, which still felt in perfect order the night before, die in the morning, one after the other, and the owner has no idea why the rabbits are dying.
Why do rabbits die and die?
To prevent such problems when breeding pussies, one should constantly monitor the pets, and at the slightest suspicion of malaise, relieve the sick pet from relatives and immediately begin treatment.
The main causes of death
The most common cause of death is the improper maintenance of rabbits, produced in violation of almost all sanitary standards. If you do not have enough time to clean up the cages in a timely manner and replace the dirty water in the drinking bowl with clean water, be prepared that the health of the pets will deteriorate. The consequences can be very dire for the entire livestock. An important factor contributing to the loss of vitality of individuals is irregular and unbalanced nutrition.
But often rabbits begin to die in attentive owners, despite regular proper feeding, timely cleaning and disinfection of cells. The reason for this is viruses and infections that are in the air in large numbers in the summer. The peddler of such diseases can be not only another animal suffering from it, but also an insect.
Most often, both adult rabbits and young animals get sick:
- VGBK fever,
- Myxomatosis,
- Pasteurellosis,
- Coccidiosis
- Flatulence.
Let's take a closer look at each of them in order to make the correct diagnosis and understand why your rabbit died.
VGBK
HBVC, that is, rabbit viral hemorrhagic disease, is susceptible to individuals over two months of age. The disease proceeds in the form of a severe infectious type of fever, transmitted through wool, meat, feces and through the air. In most cases, even vaccination does not help save the animal from death, but the worst thing is that the disease is asymptomatic in the initial stages.
And when rabbits begin to refuse to eat, become excessively nervous, quickly lose strength and become inactive, jerking their paws convulsively and throwing their heads back, it is already too late, the disease takes on an acute form and takes some kind of saving action.
In animals suffering from fever, the whole body aches from pain, and the nose bleeds, which is why they so often throw their heads back. Between the time of infection and the onset of death usually takes from 24 to 72 hours. First, the liver is affected and the liver is destroyed, then the lungs swell, oxygen stops flowing into the body and the rabbit dies.
With the timely introduction of a special vaccine to pets at the age of one and a half months, fever can be prevented. In principle, so that the rabbits do not die, you can enter the medicine later, the main thing before the infection has already occurred. The vaccine is valid for exactly one year, then re-vaccination is required.
At the moment, they did not come up with drugs for HBVC, although there are known cases in practice when individual individuals recover without drugs for unknown reasons.
Myxomatosis
The carriers of myxomantosis or distemper, as this disease is commonly called among rabbit breeders, are insects. Even one mosquito bite can provoke profuse mucous discharge from the nose and eyes.
It is important to determine the infection in time in order to prevent infection of healthy individuals living with the infected animal. Plague is especially dangerous for young rabbits, who die from it quickly and suddenly.
In addition to the main symptom - mucus, one can notice swelling and nodular swelling in the patient rabbit in the nose, ears and eyes. The duration of the incubation period in different specific cases can be from two to twenty days, only then the manifestation of visible signs of myxomatosis occurs. From this moment, the development of the disease proceeds very rapidly and a maximum of two weeks later death occurs (in young animals twice as fast).
Plague spreads at a frantic rate, and if you notice one infected rabbit among the livestock, then most likely the infection has already been transmitted to others, only in the incubation stage, so that the brood does not die, urgent measures are needed.
Effective methods of treatment do not exist, but so that pets do not die, you can always prevent the disease with timely vaccination at home. There are special associated drugs that can protect immediately from HBV and plague, which eliminates the need for double vaccination.
Rabbit breeding: why rabbits die, we eliminate the causes of death.
Why do rabbits die ???
Diseases of rabbits. Coccidiosis - why do rabbits die?
Pasteurellosis
Another very dangerous disease of an infectious origin, causing massive death of livestock within 48 hours. Among the visible symptoms are noted, especially runny nose, sneezing, loss of appetite, and sometimes a complete refusal of food.
If the diseases discussed above have become known relatively recently, then scientists have been struggling with pasteurellosis for a long time. It should be noted that the mortality rate in the latter is less than in the previous ones. Namely, from 20 to 70 percent. The result largely depends on a balanced diet and compliance with sanitary conditions.
The disease has acute and chronic forms:
In the first case, the animal begins a fever, provoking shortness of breath, runny nose and sneezing. After a certain time (from one hour to several days), the rabbits die.
In the second case, the symptoms are similar to rhinitis or conjunctivitis, which makes timely diagnosis at home difficult. Patients develop loose stools, in some cases purulent abscesses are observed under the skin. After two months, pus breaks out. With the timely start of drug treatment, mortality can be avoided altogether.
Coccidiosis
The disease is caused by the simplest unicellular parasites that affect the liver tissue and gastrointestinal tract. By default, each rabbit is a carrier of coccidosis, but in the clinical form, pathology is extremely rare. But it is very bright, so there are never any problems with diagnostics.
A sick animal has severe abdominal distension, which looks very unnatural against the background of an emaciated body. In addition, there is a decrease in appetite, and the rabbit is losing weight in front of his eyes.
Coccytosis carriers are coccidia oocytes present in contaminated food and water. Healthy animals with a strong immune system usually have enough of their own strength to neutralize the action of parasites without the help of drugs. Therefore, the disease rarely goes into clinical form.
If, after slaughter, you notice that the rabbit's liver and intestines are covered with dotted light nodular growths, it means that during his life he suffered from coccytosis and it is not recommended to eat such meat.
Treatment of the disease is carried out with antibiotics, for example, Baycox. To avoid overdose, read the instructions for use. But above all, care should be taken to improve the conditions for keeping pets. The cells must be sterile and not overpopulated.
Flatulence
From bloating in the intestine, animals die most often. This organ in rabbits is especially sensitive and any malfunctions of it lead to serious problems, which can sometimes be impossible to cope with.
The cause of the disease is a sharp change in the flora of the digestive system. This can happen for several reasons, for example, if the food has high humidity and juiciness, to which the animal was not previously accustomed.
Signs of flatulence, from which rabbits often die: apathy and refusal to eat. Due to the fact that a new portion of fresh food does not enter, the previously eaten is not pushed out, which means that fermentation begins right in the intestine and its walls swell. As a result, the esophagus is filled with bacteria that destroy its walls and lead to the death of the rabbit.
Other causes leading to the death of the livestock
There are less popular, but equally dangerous reasons why rabbits die. For example, a decorative dwarf rabbit can die even from loneliness. Animals at any age can pick up scabies mites that parasitize around the ears. Insects dig into the skin and begin to drink blood, from which the rabbits begin to itch, and the hair from the ears falls out.
From constant torment, the pussies become lethargic, almost stop taking food, lose their vitality and die after a while. To cope with the problem of what rabbits die from, you can use modern drugs.
In females during breastfeeding, infectious mastitis appears in the area of the nipples. The wounds appear from the bites of young rabbits with sharp newly erupted teeth. If the cell is not cleaned timely, the infection gets into the wounds, and then, having spread throughout the body through the infected blood, the females die. That is why cells with newborn rabbits should be kept especially clean.
Why are the rabbits dying?
Recently born small monthly rabbits eating breast milk are protected from diseases, as they have a fairly strong immune system. But even your own mother is not able to protect newborns from all diseases, there are several reasons why rabbits die.
Most often, small rabbits die early from hypothermia, due to the low air temperature in the nests. Cubs literally grit their teeth from the cold and are able to freeze to death even in summer, not to mention how often rabbits die in winter, especially in cold regions.
To protect the young, cover the nests with one of the materials specially designed for this (instead, you can use dry herbs), and on top with mother fluff (required).
Another reason why the bunny died is hunger. Sometimes the rabbit’s first two or three days after the birthing simply does not have milk, which is so necessary for their babies, because of this they become helpless and die quickly. To control milkiness, you need to weigh the rabbits before and after eating. Solution to the problem:
- start feeding the female more abundantly,
- to transfer her cubs to the education of a healthy rabbit for the necessary time to restore the mother's milk functions.
Methods of treatment and disease prevention
- It is impossible to get rid of HBV and myxomatosis, therefore, preventive vaccination of rabbits at an early age is necessary. As a consequence, vaccinations must be done every year. Vaccinated rabbits and rabbits live to a ripe old age, but it is absolutely pointless to treat sick individuals and they live for a maximum of a month after infection.
- You can get rid of pasteurellosis with one of the antibiotics and B vitamins. If the disease is detected in the first month, the chances of recovery are much greater.
- To eliminate coccidosis, they use trichopolum, sulfadimezin, and chemcoccid. At the same time, it is very important to constantly monitor the pet’s well-being and examine their skin every day.
Now you know what to do if the number of rabbits has become drastically different, not native, painful.