Post by Joelle on Jun 1, 2011 12:14:57 GMT -5
OK, I've had several rabbits keel over in the past few weeks, and I'm starting to worry it might be something contagious.
First off, my doe Ophelia had a really odd litter: 5 of them were overly large, and 3 were overly small. I don't know how, but I must have accidentally bred her twice?? I'm usually super-careful about not doing that, but it's the only explanation I can find to explain why it looked like she had two separate litters. Anyway, the runts all died, but not all at once - one strayed out of the nest, a week later another one just kind of grew listless and died despite me trying to revive him/her, and the third was was looking great and catching up to the bigger babies when I found him dead in the nest box (this was about another 2 weeks after the second one died).
Then, Ophelia died. Went off her feed for a day or so beforehand, and we found her dead in the morning. I don't have any idea how old she was, we got her from a friend and never knew her age, so I assumed she died of old age and a difficult pregnancy (sorry, Ophelia!!).
THEN our buck died. He was most likely the same age as Ophelia (we got him with Ophelia from the same friend), so again I chalked it up to old age. He did the same thing that Ophelia did, off his feed for about 24 hours then gone.
I thought we were safe, and then this last weekend I found ANOTHER kit, one of the big ones, stretched out cold. Absolutely no sign that anything was wrong, he ate his feed with vigor that morning and was dead by evening chores. It has suddenly gotten very hot here, so it's possible it was heat fatigue, but all the other kits are still fine and I'm beginning to think this is more than a series of coincidences.
The only culprit I can think of other than heat is feed: all my buns get handfuls of greenery I pick from our yard every day. Plantain, dandelions, some clover, and grass. It's entirely likely that there's some other plants in there too that I'm not realizing is bad for them.
Anybody have an suggestions? Insights? Could it be disease? Poisonous plants? Heat intolerance? Or just a run of bad luck??
First off, my doe Ophelia had a really odd litter: 5 of them were overly large, and 3 were overly small. I don't know how, but I must have accidentally bred her twice?? I'm usually super-careful about not doing that, but it's the only explanation I can find to explain why it looked like she had two separate litters. Anyway, the runts all died, but not all at once - one strayed out of the nest, a week later another one just kind of grew listless and died despite me trying to revive him/her, and the third was was looking great and catching up to the bigger babies when I found him dead in the nest box (this was about another 2 weeks after the second one died).
Then, Ophelia died. Went off her feed for a day or so beforehand, and we found her dead in the morning. I don't have any idea how old she was, we got her from a friend and never knew her age, so I assumed she died of old age and a difficult pregnancy (sorry, Ophelia!!).
THEN our buck died. He was most likely the same age as Ophelia (we got him with Ophelia from the same friend), so again I chalked it up to old age. He did the same thing that Ophelia did, off his feed for about 24 hours then gone.
I thought we were safe, and then this last weekend I found ANOTHER kit, one of the big ones, stretched out cold. Absolutely no sign that anything was wrong, he ate his feed with vigor that morning and was dead by evening chores. It has suddenly gotten very hot here, so it's possible it was heat fatigue, but all the other kits are still fine and I'm beginning to think this is more than a series of coincidences.
The only culprit I can think of other than heat is feed: all my buns get handfuls of greenery I pick from our yard every day. Plantain, dandelions, some clover, and grass. It's entirely likely that there's some other plants in there too that I'm not realizing is bad for them.
Anybody have an suggestions? Insights? Could it be disease? Poisonous plants? Heat intolerance? Or just a run of bad luck??