Hi,
First and foremost....don't ever under any circumstances use gut motility drugs....on any rabbit for any reason. They are nothing but bad news. The idea of using gutmotility drugs are an outdated and incorrect treatment from the times when a rabbit was thought to be identical to a cat. A gut motility issue is not your problem....it's a bacterial issue. And if you use motility drugs, it usually results in very bad things. When you combine gut motility drugs with this condition, there is usually only one result.
Since you said these are kits....I suspect you are most likely losing them around weaning. The condition is generally known as enterotoxemia. I think Pam mentioned that it is usually an overgrowth of the pathogen Clostridium. Again as Pam mentioned, there are numerous possible causes. The most likely in weaning kits is caused by the quick pH conversion of the GI tract. This conversion from a baby gut to an adult gut causes severe stress in theGI which results in an out of balance bacterial count. There is a drug, metronidazole (flagyl), that is very good at targeting these toxic bacteria. However, by the time you realize there is a problem the damage is done. The best treatment for this condition is prevention. Stress free environment with proper food. I have been doing some test runs with weaning cottontails. Their guts are identical to domestics but they do wean earlier. Many cottontails are lost about 21 days old (and the reason very few rehabbers will treat cottontails). I start manually converting the pH in the gut starting about day 10 of their life. I control the acid content of the conversion and this allows ample time for the beneficial bacteria to adapt and survive the conversion process. This is very critical in dealing with "pinkies" in which they have received very little or no cecals from their mother....or in domestics if their mother is unhealthy. I think I have what I call the "21 Day Terror Protocols" on a disk somewhere around here....if I can find it. It is a detailed explanation and test protocols I used in the initialgrouping of the pH manipulation runs in weaning cottontails. It was written in technical terms for use by wildlife vets. I'll see if I can find them and edit them for domestics and for language we can all understand and relate too...might take a while to do that. Once this bacteria takes hold, the prognosis is grave. We have had some very hardy cottontails...and a few domestics....survive by being given massive doses of lactated ringers along with heavy doses of flagyl...but even with heroic measures, in reality very few have survived.
As far as your asst. manager's holding food for 24 hrs....rabbits should never be fasted for any reason. As Pam mentioned, they might not eat a lot from stress...but offer it anyway and lots of water with electrolytes as mentioned also. I might suggest to your asst. manager some additional training.
Randy
