General warning:worms

Hi,

I didn't find any specific topic on worms, so decided to start one myself.

We have noticed that suddenly more rabbits than ever have been affected by worms. In Belgium and the Netherlands is is not standard procedure to use f.e. panacur preventively on rabbits. Don't know how it is in England.

Anyway we were warned by different breeders that they suddenly had lots of rabbits with worms, this hadn't happened previously.

I discovered , thanks to a topic with pictures on our dutch forum one tiny worm on Clicquot, pure coincidence... after 5 min it had died and was dried, nog reconassable anymore as a worm. I gave pancur and took the death worms to the vet. They were send to a labo and it were stomacworms. Not so innocent ,since they can cause ulster and perforations... The strange thing is that normaly, they should not come out like that. The worm egs are suposed to grow into worms in the droppings, not in the intestins. This in itself is rather strange, as was the number of people dicovering death worms after panacur.

We suspect that this evolution might have to do with the warmer climate, but this is only speculation. Wanted to share this information, possibly you are used to worms with rabbits in the Uk? They might be more common there... anyway... if you didn't know this already, might be handy to ask your vet for some panacur and test it for yourself. My rabbits live in an appartment, so don't think house rabbits are not affected.

That's interesting, thanks - I didn't know indoor rabbits could catch worms, I wonder if it's from hay? There's been quite a few threads on worms here recently - this one mentions E-c - or e. cunniculi too - and Jane gives the correct dosage I think
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=97905&highlight=worming

I think that baby bunnies can get it from their mums too, although I assumed hay/other bedding would be the only other way they could get it from the outside. Would it be the kind of thing that could come in via shoes? Although I'm guessing the rabbit would have to ingest it :?

Apparently the egs of these worms are found in hay, but also on fresh vegetables or gras. Slugs could be carier of egs as well.

I would like to stress the fact , that you probably DON'T see them, even if they are there. I had been controling their litterbox for 2 weeks, never noticed anything... Coincidence that my dear bunny felt abliged to drop something on my the couch while sitting next to me and I scooped it up immediatly with some yellow paper. That's when I saw the worm. Kept the paper and 5 minutes later the worm was shrunken ,dried and unreconaisable as a worm...

a picture of the worms, taken by the Dutch breeder who raised the "alarm" on our forum:

That's a great photo. Perhaps somebody could put it on the FAQ section?

It looks like what is known as 'Pinworm' in the UK.

They caused stomach pain and runny poos in one of my rabbits. We found out that my other 2 had worms, but didn't have any symptoms.

Some people say that pinworms are harmless, which they might be in a fit and healthy young adult rabbit, but IMO they cause illness in weak rabbits.

As you say, I've read about cases where the worm burden has been so heavy that the gut has blocked and perforated.

Amy