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Rabbits would be an excellent investment and a very profitable business, if not for the fact that the mortality rate of these animals often reaches 100%, bringing nothing but losses to the owner. Before getting rabbits, it is better for a beginner to figure out in theory what rabbits need to be fed so that they do not have bloating, and what types of diseases rabbits have and their treatment.
Like any other animal species, rabbit diseases can be divided into infectious, invasive and non-infectious.
The main economic damage to owners of rabbit farms is caused by infectious diseases, especially the scourge of all rabbit breeders: viral hemorrhagic disease of rabbits and myxomatosis. Also, animals often die from bloating, which is actually not a disease, but a symptom of a number of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
VGBK and myxomatosis
Both of these diseases are extremely contagious with a high mortality rate. With VGBH, mortality most often reaches 100%.
All so-called traditional methods of curing these diseases are symptomatic relief of the sick rabbit’s well-being. As a rule, they “work” with myxomatosis, where the mortality rate is lower than with VGBK.
In fact, treatment for viral diseases has not even been developed for humans. There are only immunostimulating drugs that help the body cope with the virus using its own immunity. The virus does not die, but remains to exist in living cells of the body, which is why surviving rabbits are a source of infection for healthy animals for a long time.
Viral hemorrhagic disease
Caused by a virus that infects only the European rabbit, from which the domestic rabbit is descended. Accordingly, domesticated rabbits are also susceptible to this disease.
The incubation period of the virus is no more than 48 hours. The course of the disease can be hyperacute, acute and subacute.
In subacute cases, you may notice symptoms of the disease:
- lethargy;
- lack of appetite;
- heat;
- spasms;
- death.
In the subacute course of the disease, you can try to stretch the rabbit by injecting it with an immunostimulating serum, but this can only be done if the rabbit lives alone as a pet. If there are several heads, such an action does not make the slightest sense. Even if the rabbit survives, it will be a carrier of infection, capable of infecting not only rabbits in neighboring cages, but even on neighboring farms.
In hyperacute and acute cases of the disease, there are no symptoms. The rabbit just suddenly falls and after several agonizing movements freezes.
Sometimes dead rabbits may bleed from the nose, mouth, or anus.
The mortality rate of rabbits with VGBV ranges from 50 to 100%. Moreover, according to the observations of practicing veterinarians, the last figure is much closer to the truth.
In case of any sudden death of a rabbit, it is necessary to do an analysis for the presence of VGBV, since the virus is extremely resistant to unfavorable environmental conditions and can survive for up to six months at room temperature and more than 9 months at temperatures close to 0.
The virus is transmitted by almost any means:
- through inanimate objects: car wheels, equipment, staff clothing, shoes;
- by contact with an infected rabbit or contaminated feces;
- through farm products: meat, skins, wool;
- through people who have been in contact with infected animals;
- through rodents, blood-sucking insects and birds.
There is no cure for this disease. The only way to protect yourself from VGB is to prevent the disease.
First of all, you need to follow the vaccination schedule. Rabbits do not develop immunity to VGBV, so vaccinations must be repeated every six months. The first three times the VGBV vaccine is injected according to a special scheme:
- 45 days from birth;
- 115 days from birth;
- Six months after the second vaccination.
Further, the vaccine is always administered every 6 months.
Prevention measures for VGBK:
- quarantine of a newly acquired rabbit for 5 days;
- disinfestation of the premises where rabbits are kept;
- keeping rabbits indoors, since outdoors they are more likely to encounter a carrier of the virus;
- purchase of feed from areas free from VGBK;
- special clothing and shoes for working with rabbits;
- systematic treatment of cells and cellular equipment with disinfectants.
When a disease appears on a farm, all animals must be slaughtered.
Myxomatosis
The homeland of the virus is South America, from where it was specially brought to Europe to combat overgrown wild rabbits that had no immunity to the disease. As always, they didn’t think about the consequences.
The virus is transmitted through direct contact with a sick animal or through blood-sucking insects, which do not care who they bite: a wild rabbit or a domestic one. As a result of the rapid spread myxomatosis and the high virulence of the virus in Europe, it came to panzootics.
The myxomatosis virus is quite stable in the external environment. It can survive in an animal corpse for a week, at a temperature of about 20°C in a dried rabbit skin for up to 10 months, in the external environment at a temperature of 9°C for 3 months. When heated to 55°C, the myxomatosis virus is inactivated within 25 minutes. The virus does not withstand treatment with disinfectant solutions.
The incubation period of the disease can last 20 days and largely depends on the rabbit’s immunity.
Treatment with folk remedies for such a dangerous disease as myxomatosis is essentially profanation. Those animals that survive are the ones that could cope with the virus themselves. But the “healers” endanger not only their own rabbits, but also their neighbors’ animals.
Actually, all treatment of the disease simply comes down to alleviating the condition of the rabbit during the illness, pain relief and waiting for the animal to survive or not.
The requirements of veterinary services when myxomatosis appears on a farm is to slaughter the livestock.
Forms of myxomatosis
Myxomatosis can be edematous or nodular. The first begins with conjunctivitis and swelling of the head.
The head takes on a characteristic shape, nicknamed the "lion's head". In this case, hard formations appear in the area of the head and anus.
With the nodular form of the disease, hard, reddened bumps appear on the rabbit's body. Owners usually notice these formations on the ears, since there is no thick hair on the ears and the nodular formations are clearly visible.
Both forms are characterized by a sudden increase in the body temperature of rabbits to 40-41°.
In addition to the two “classical” forms, as a result of a mutation of the myxomatosis virus, a third one has appeared: an atypical form of the disease, characterized by the fact that it affects the respiratory organs. As a result, this form of the disease can easily be confused with bronchitis, pneumonia or pneumonia. However, over a long period of time, it is this form of the disease that causes pneumonia.
According to the speed of progression, myxomatosis is also divided into forms.
Treatment of myxomatosis
As already mentioned, myxomatosis has no cure, and experienced rabbit breeders advise immediately slaughtering animals, but if the rabbit lives alone in an apartment and is a pet, you can try to help it cope with the disease. If the rabbit remains to live alone, then the fact of the disease will not play any role.
To alleviate the animal’s condition, broad-spectrum antibiotics are used to destroy the secondary infection, which usually “sits” on open purulent wounds. Injections of immunostimulating drugs are required. To ease breathing, use drops for a runny nose. The eyes are washed with saline solution and antibiotic eye drops are instilled.
Moreover, unlike VGBK, myxomatosis can be dealt with with little blood. Rabbits that have recovered from the disease acquire lifelong immunity to myxomatosis, although remaining carriers of the virus.
To get rid of this disease, it is enough to vaccinate 30-day-old rabbits once with the Rabbivac-B vaccine, made on the basis of a live attenuated myxomatosis virus.
In the case of using a bivalent vaccine against myxomatosis and VGBV, the vaccine is pierced according to the VGBV vaccination schedule.
We must also remember that vaccination does not provide a 100% guarantee. Sometimes there is a “breakdown” of the vaccine and the rabbit gets myxomatosis, although in a milder form.
Rabbit breeders often ask whether it is possible to eat the meat of rabbits with myxomatosis. There are no restrictions. This disease is not dangerous for humans. Therefore you can eat it. But it's disgusting.
Other infectious diseases
In addition to myxomatosis and VGBV, rabbits also suffer from rabies, which is caused by a virus. Since the rabies virus is transmitted only through the saliva of a sick animal, it is enough to exclude mice and rats from accessing cages with rabbits in order to be practically calm about rabies. To guarantee, you can vaccinate the entire livestock once a year.
Bacterial diseases
Bacterial diseases in rabbits and their symptoms are often confused with non-contagious diseases. This is where the particular danger of pasteurellosis or salmonellosis lies.
Purulent conjunctivitis with pasteurellosis can be confused with advanced dacryocystitis, nasal discharge can be attributed to a draft, and diarrhea can be attributed to eating unusual food.
The edematous form of pasteurellosis is, in general, very similar to rabies.
Symptoms of pasteurellosis in four different forms of the disease
In this case, subacute and chronic forms of the disease are divided into types according to the location of pasteurella:
- in the intestinal form of the disease, symptoms include dark diarrhea mixed with blood, lack of appetite, thirst;
- in the chest form of pasteurellosis, purulent discharge from the nose, a dry cough, which later turns into a wet one and difficulty breathing, are observed;
- in the edematous form of the disease, the rabbit develops saliva from the mouth due to difficulty swallowing and heart failure. But this is already a consequence of swelling of the limbs, abdomen, tongue, larynx, eyes, neck and other parts and organs of the body.
Most often, the thoracic form of pasteurellosis is observed in rabbits. Since this bacterium is always present in a living organism, but is not able to develop with normal immunity, pasteurellosis can be considered a sign of a failure of the immune system. Immunity usually decreases due to stress and unsanitary conditions of cells.
Pasteurella can also affect the inner ear, causing what is called a twisted neck.
Pasteurellosis is transmitted through contact of a healthy rabbit with a sick animal. To prevent pasteurellosis, it is necessary to systematically treat cells with disinfectant solutions. It’s better to use several methods at once. You can treat the cells first with a blowtorch, burning out crawling insects, then with disinfectant solutions, destroying especially persistent viruses and bacteria.In addition, it is good to disinfest the premises from flying insects.
To prevent pasteurellosis, rabbits can be vaccinated with one of the vaccines: Pasorin - OL or CUNIVAK PAST. Vaccination is carried out according to schemes separate for each vaccine.
If rabbits do become ill with pasteurellosis, they will have to be treated with antibiotics for a course of 14–30 days. After treatment, due to dysbiosis, the rabbit may experience diarrhea or bloating.
The treatment regimen for pasteurellosis is prescribed by the doctor. It is not recommended to treat the disease with traditional methods. Pasteurella also parasitizes humans.
Since pasteurellosis can be transmitted to people, the meat of sick rabbits should not be eaten. Animal corpses are burned. In the locality where pasteurellosis is detected, a quarantine is declared.
Invasive diseases of rabbits with photos, symptoms of diseases and their treatment
Some invasive diseases are diseases of rabbits that are dangerous to humans. In particular, this is cysticercosis - one of the types of helminthiases and dermatomycosis, popularly united under the general name “lichen”.
Regarding dermatomycosis, people are partly right, since all types of these fungi are treated the same.
Symptoms of various types of dermatomycosis
Fungi are bad because no matter how you poison them, they easily return, since they are transmitted not only from animal to animal, but also from object to animal. Or per person.
When choosing what to treat a surface infected with a fungus, you have to take into account that it is necessary to treat not only the room, but also the animal. Accordingly, the drug must be such as to destroy the fungus without harming mammals.
A possible room treatment option is presented in the video.
In the video, a barn is being treated, but in the case of ringworm, the type of animal does not matter.
Helminthiasis
General signs of the presence of worms are the exhaustion of the animal with increased appetite. But worms are not only intestinal. With the pulmonary form of helminthiasis, the rabbit may look fine and only cough. And if there are parasites in the liver, the animal will show signs of hepatitis, but not exhaustion.
Of all helminthiases, cysticercosis is the most dangerous for humans. The description of this disease is similar to the symptoms of peritonitis and hepatitis. Cysticercosis is caused by the larvae of carnivorous tapeworms, which parasitize everywhere in the rabbit’s body, including the brain.
Cysticercosis is dangerous for humans because one of the types of these larvae is the larvae of pork tapeworm, the final host of which is humans. Infection occurs by eating poorly processed meat.
The second route of infection: airborne eggs of mature larvae, which the rabbit excretes along with feces. In this case, a person becomes an intermediate host for the pork tapeworm, and the Finnish stage of the pork tapeworm passes through the human body, leading to severe illness or death.
Bloating in rabbits
It is not a separate disease.This is a symptom of a number of other diseases: sometimes infectious, sometimes non-infectious. Mostly non-contagious.
Among the infectious diseases, bloating is caused by coccidiosis and enteritis.
Coccidiosis is a common invasive disease of several species of mammals and poultry. As a rule, signs of coccidiosis appear in rabbits after weaning them from their mother. Therefore, immediately after weaning, rabbits should be given coccidiostatic drugs according to the instructions attached to each type of drug.
For non-infectious tympany caused by a recent course of antibiotics, rabbits are given pre- and probiotics. In case of mild colic, the animal can be driven a little so that gases come out of the intestines.
But in any case, it is necessary that the cause of tympany be determined by a veterinarian as soon as possible. In some cases, the clock may count. If there are problems in the gastrointestinal tract, part of the intestine may even begin to die.
Therefore, rabbit owners often simply slaughter sick animals.
Conclusion
Rabbits are very delicate animals, susceptible to many diseases, and often die simply from inappropriate food. But if you are not afraid of vaccinations and medications, preaching environmental friendliness and naturalness, then losses among the rabbit population can be reduced to a minimum.
