Not eating....need opinions..... Randy?

[tonyshuman]

I would do a "preventative" worming of Chester--just one dose, to be safe. I'm not sure how to control the spread of disease within your herd--it's a lot easier to handle just a few bunnies which is what I do.

 

[murph72]

I'm pretty small-time. My herd is about 20+ spoiled bunnies. I obviously can't treat the prego does or the AFL I have that is nursing right now, but hopefully it would be safe on the others. Do you know how young is safe to treat? I have a 7 week old that's about the youngest I'd even think about treating. The other babies are only two weeks old.

 

[Maureen Las]

Murph....

it sounds like you are doing a good job disinfecting..however to be on the safe sideI would place another post in the Rabbitry section to see if you get more ideas on contolling outbreaks with multiple rabbits

 

[Sweetie]

I am so sorry for your loss. Binky Free Bentley

You and Bentley have put up a good fight. Watch all of your rabbits closely for any of the signs that Bentley had.

Question: has Bentley been getting skinnier from not eating very much? If so, there could have been a fur blockage. My rabbit, Casper, got skinny from this before he passed away and would not eat.

The only way to prevent fur blockage is to brush your rabbits regularly. I say this because you have mentioned that Bentley groomed himself excessively.

I hope you find comfort in knowing that Bentley is with you in spirit and is watching over you.

 

[murph72]

No, Bentley didn't lose weight until he started having his issues. He only was worried about super cleaning because he was being force-fed and that can get a bunny pretty messy. He was just trying to clean up the area on his face where stuff dribbled out. I've never had a bun that was force-fed that didn't get messy....just part of the equation.

I very much doubt Bentley had a hairball. The problem was not blockage as he continued to go to the bathroom and in the end had diarrhea. A blockage would have presented with a slow down of output.

I'm anxious to hear his test results. Another breeder is also anxiously awaiting them because she has similar results. There has been some speculation that Manna Pro used moldy hay in its production due to our area here in the East being so wet. The hay may have been harvested when it was wet, got moldy, and was still used. Just speculation at this point, but it has me thinking of switching feeds.

 

[tonyshuman]

That's possible, however I also heard (from Pamnock) that there was a rotavirus going around at the shows on the east coast that caused some GI upsets. If a virus gets in there, it could cause the whole mini-ecosystem that is a rabbit's GI tract to get out of whack.

 

[murph72]

I'd be more willing to think that if this bunny was exposed to any of the ones that I took to a show, but he's not. In fact, he's quite a distance away from the ones that I took to the shows. It does baffle me. I hope there's an easy answer as I know others are also looking to nip this in the bud. I guess I'm lucky that I haven't lost as many bunnies as some other people, but it's hard to think of it as lucky even after losing only a couple.

 

[Sweetie]

Are you feeding this hay to all your rabbits? If so, I would change the hay. Get timothy and alfalfa, since you do have rabbits that you are breeding.

Yeah I would switch feeds if I were you, just for the health of your bunnies. I rather your bunnies be in excellent health and not get sick like Bentley did. Not your fault at all. You are a very good bun mom! I wish that I could be as good as you.

 

[murph72]

I do feed my bunnies Timothy. I'm lucky enough to have neighbor that farms it and even delivers it to my barn for me. I know how fresh it is, which is great.

The hay is a component of any feed....so if the feed companies use moldy hay you wouldn't necessarily know it unless you had problems with it. In the east it was very wet this year and even the farmer that I use told me it was hard to find a day that was dry enough to harvest the hay so that it wouldn't mold. If the feed companies bought hay from someone that wasn't as careful as my neighbor, they're likely to have at least some mold in it.

 

[murph72]

Well, the fecal test came back today. I didn't talk directly to the vet yet as she left a message on my answering machine but they were closed until I got home. She said PSU found an excessive amount of e coli in Bentley's fecal sample. She said it was a very resistant strain to antibiotics. I'm interested to talk to her more to see if there are any antibiotics that would have worked for this strain. I'm also concerned as to what leads one bunny to get this and not another. From what I've read so far it appears in young bunnies...but I don't know why some and not others.

 

[tonyshuman]

E coli is always present in a rabbit's GI tract. Something (perhaps cocci, a virus, plain old stress, a food issue) could have caused his immune system to not be able to keep the population of E coli low, and its overgrowth led to the disease. It's too bad that it was highly resistant to antibiotics--that means there was little you could have done for him, and little you can do to prevent it in the rest of your bunnies (if it were penicillin sensitive, you could preventatively treat them with penicillin,etc).