Any advice please, before i go insane !!

Hi all, i am new to this forum so here goes........i have mini rexes and to cut a long story short i bought 4 babies, 2 have died and 2 are still going ! They started sitting around with squinty eyes and went off there food slowly, at first i thought it was bloat ?!?! They had a distented stomach which upon feeling it you could feel hard lumps in it and produced loads of clear mucos, eventually the rabbits started to loose a lot of weight and died ( not through lack of drugs and tlc) 2 died the 3rd i managed to nurse and she is still here the 4th never showed any symptoms. I got 2 more recently from the same place and 1 has just died and i am nursing the other sibling at the moment. I have 2 does that i bought in kit there babies are now 5 weeks old, 1 doe had 3 babies which the last kit died tonight ( they looked off colour sitting around and had died in 24 hours) The other doe had 5, 1 just dropped down dead in fromt of me, 2 are showing symptoms of squinty eyes, bloated belly, runny bum and not eating also clear mucos and getting thin, 2 i am waiting to get ill !! I am doing wot the vet said antibiotics probiotics etc ect but i am at my wits end please someone help ! :-(

how old were the babies when you got them? they could have been weaned too early.

Is breeding something you are wanting to continue or will you be getting the rabbits neutered?

They were 10 weeks old and the others were born here. I was planing on breeding to show certain colours but on a small scale as i dont want to part with them lol

Okay. Well this is a pro-rescue forum, and personally I wouldnt recommend breeding. Its so so risky, as you've already seen, and there are 33,000 rabbits in rescue .

But, from the symptoms you've described, I would say you need an emergency trip to the vets. Bloated belly, runny bum and not eating are all signs of an emergency in a rabbit. Is your vet rabbit savvy?

He is a good vet, they are on pain med antibiotics, alot of my bunnies were rescues as i have a huge place to keep them as i live on a farm. I also rescue and rear wild rabbits local vets get me to take them in. I dont like seeing them so poorly and feeling so helpless, the vet said next route is postmotems and poo samples and bloods i am feeling a expensive vet bill comin on lol

Just letting you know as a lot of people are very opposed to breeding on here. poor little sweeties, are the adults vaccinated? if they have been close to wildies they might have been exposed to myxi or VHD? not sure if you have the wildies close by them x

No they are separate and away from them, i dont think they have been vaccinated, my vet was not convinced it was VHD, i was just reading articles on the net it said that mucoid enteritis is really common in rabbits around weaning age. I give them probiotics now as well, oh i forgot to say...i also have house rabbits LOL

I would strongly advise getting them vaccinated asap especially if you are coming into contact with wildies even if they dont have myxi or VHD now they could end up with it.

I've never raised babies before but there are people on here who have/are in the process. as I say though, if they are not eating/pooping I would be very worried

I'm sorry to hear about your poorly babies, and the ones you have lost already. Mucoid enteritis or coccidiosis are the first things that spring to mind xx

Sounds like severe Intestinal coccidiosis or enteritis.

Tuckerbunnies said:

Sounds like severe Intestinal coccidiosis or enteritis.

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Ditto

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Protozoal_diseases/coccidiosis_general.PDF

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/171332.htm

did you say they all were purchased from the same place? That sounds a bit fishy to me. If you have had them all from one place and they are all suffering similar symptoms then there may be something being passed down from mum to babies, and if all rabbits were kept close together before you got them then their parents could be related, not to mention close-contact transfer of illnesses.

At my rabbit rescue we recently took on three male/female pairs and one litter of 9 week old babies. The babies all had EC and before we could get the adults done two litters were born. Most of these now have bad chest infections, we have already lost one as it was using soo much energy just to breath it couldnt eat at all.

breeding rabbits is most definatly not as easy as people seem to think. Oh yes, getting the babies is very simple, just a case of boy meets girl. Its the controlling of the process and the rearing of the young that is the tricky part. for instance many vets dont want to put a rabbit under untill its 6 months, well by that time you could have a great many rabbitys on your hands. or at least a lot of pregnant babies.

I'd seriously reccomend getting them neutered as soon as possible, especialy if this ilness is being passed from mum to babies. If you look hard enough i'm sure you will be able to find the breed/colour you want in a rescue.

If there is one thing the world dosent need right now, its more baby rabbits.

Well.......after constant nursing and vet bill so far of £150 its coccidiosis. I have not lost any more and the ones that were poorly made a full recovery THANK GOD !!! So major clean and medicine routine finally over please keep you fingers crossed for me....i do love my little fluff balls LOL

Fingers crossed, it sounds like they are through the worst.