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Some interesting news regarding myxi in wild rabbits.

Jenova

Wise Old Thumper
I don't know if anyone saw my thread about the wild rabbit I saw at my university with myxi.

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=248889

Well I emailed a lovely professor and wild rabbit expert.

My email:

> Hi,
>
> I'm not really sure if you're the right person to contact but I have a bit
> of a weird question. I contacted you as I searched on Google
> and you were the first link that came up.
>
> I noticed I had seen hardly any rabbits on campus this semester, so I went
> to have a look at the warrens I know of. The first rabbit I spotted was
> near the music department and I'm fairly certain he had Myxomatosis. His
> eyes were swollen shut and pussy and although he was eating well he was
> snuffling and sneezing. I carried on with my search and I saw two rabbits
> by the lake who looked fine and then about thirty near Colman House who
> all looked fine too.
>
> I was just really curious to find out more about the rabbit population at
> the UEA. Obviously if you're not the right person to ask, would you know
> who is? I was wondering if anything can be done for the rabbits suffering
> with Myxomatosis. Can they be humanely put to sleep? I hate to think of
> the one I saw suffering. But I'd also be really interested in finding out
> how it affects the wild population at the UEA and I can't believe how many
> less there are since the spring.
>
> I have my own two rabbits at home and they're one of my favourite
> animals.
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> Me

And I got a reply really quickly, I though you might be interested to read it. :)

Dear Jennie
You came to the right person as we have a long term study population on the campus and have studied myxomatosis over long time periods.
I never kill a rabbit with myxy even in the stages you describe because they can recover and indeed every adult on the campus had the disease as a youngster and survived to be immune for the rest of their lives which can be 9 years.
Does that answer your question
All best

All my knowledge is based on pet rabbits, but to find out that every adult rabbit on campus has had the disease is quite incredible. It just goes to show that they are building up an immunity. And my bunny friend might very well survive. :)
 
Im sorry but I dont believe this,I have a farm and have watched myxi buns for a long time and yes some of them survive,not in the late stages.the one thing I have noticed are some fields have healthy buns and some have myxi buns,the ones with myxi buns breed in spring and all the babies come out to play and they gradually die one by one:cry::cry::cry::cry:until there are none left.The healthy buns breed and are all seen getting bigger,obviously there are preditor problems,I think that as rabbits have territories they dont mix with each other thats why some are alright and the others die
 
Well it's natural selection. Something pet rabbits cannot have. :( The ones that do survive go on to breed. Obviously some die and it is really sad, but slowly I guess they build up more and more of an immunity.

I suppose it's not really natural selection due to the nature of myxi. :(

But as myxi is spread by flies, how would some rabbit get it and others not?

It's your opinion obviously, but I trust this woman as she's been researching the rabbits for over 20 years. She has published a lot of stuff too.
 
My brother goes there- random fact for you.

Some rabbits have a natural immunity. I wonder if those rabbits come from the same source and inherit the natural immunity fro their ancestors so survive when other bunnies may not.

I wonder what happens whe the disease mutates.

I also wonder how they track those rabbits and work out who is who.
 
I have read a popular article (ie not the full academic papers)on this before - it seems so against what we see from casual observation in the countryside etc that I wonder if there is something 'different' about the UEA buns? I would like to read the full research reports.
 
every adult on the campus had the disease as a youngster and survived to be immune for the rest of their lives which can be 9 years. QUOTE
If you can show me proof of this I would love to see it.Like I said all the babies i have seen borne to mxyi parents have died and so have their parents.im not an expert but I have had rabbits since I have been five years old and my father was a very goog vet.If what this woman is saying is true surely Mxyi would be obsolite by now as all rabbits get immune to it.Im not trying to cause you upset but just putting my own point across
 
I have read a popular article (ie not the full academic papers)on this before - it seems so against what we see from casual observation in the countryside etc that I wonder if there is something 'different' about the UEA buns? I would like to read the full research reports.

It almost warrants investigation to see if there is anything in these bunnies that could help others.
 
I see it as a complex issue.
I gather that the rapid transmission within a warren is by rabbit fleas.

Baby rabbits can get much of the mother's immunity to disease from antibodies in her milk, but this is not long lasting. It becomes life time immunity only if the baby is infected while partially protected by the antibodies in the milk.

Most bacterial & viral illnesses depend on the actual numbers of bacteria or virus, getting into the host as well as the host's immunity.

I have heard that 1:10 wild rabbits will survive myxi.

I do not know whether the myxi virus mutates. It belongs to the pox virus family. Human small pox remained stable without mutating from Jenners discovery that the milder disease cowpox conferred immunity to small pox until small pox was eradicated.
ETA Families of bacteria/virus usually behave in similar ways.

Rabbit immune systems fluctuate a lot with any stress even moulting!

What would I do personally with a wildie with myxi? It's a totally personal reply. If the rabbit obviously couldn't eat, or escape predators (me) in a meaningful way - I would relieve it's suffering permanently.

I don't know if that helps us to get anywhere.
 
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every adult on the campus had the disease as a youngster and survived to be immune for the rest of their lives which can be 9 years. QUOTE
If you can show me proof of this I would love to see it.Like I said all the babies i have seen borne to mxyi parents have died and so have their parents.im not an expert but I have had rabbits since I have been five years old and my father was a very goog vet.If what this woman is saying is true surely Mxyi would be obsolite by now as all rabbits get immune to it.Im not trying to cause you upset but just putting my own point across

I don't know whether it helps what you have seen. Seems to me that the baby rabbits have to be fed by a doe who has been infected & survived, & then has to be infected by a flea before they emerge from the stop. The immunity cannot be directly transmitted from generation to generation as far as I know.

Domestic rabbits don't have this early experience.
 
every adult on the campus had the disease as a youngster and survived to be immune for the rest of their lives which can be 9 years. QUOTE
If you can show me proof of this I would love to see it.Like I said all the babies i have seen borne to mxyi parents have died and so have their parents.im not an expert but I have had rabbits since I have been five years old and my father was a very goog vet.If what this woman is saying is true surely Mxyi would be obsolite by now as all rabbits get immune to it.Im not trying to cause you upset but just putting my own point across

Don't worry, debate is good. :)

I was surprised at first. But then I thought, all rabbits I have contact with are pets. Practically no unvaccinated pet rabbit will survive the illness, but they can if they have an immunity through vaccination. Surely wild rabbits have an immunity that they can pass on like Thumps said.

There are a lot less rabbits now than there were in the spring. This makes me think that a lot did die. But she is saying that all the adults are myxi survivors. I have no reason to doubt her. She researches these rabbits for a living. Obviously you have seen different things yourself. But if every rabbit that catches myxi dies then how is the population you watch breed and die each spring still around? Perhaps a few babies do catch myxi but survive to breed? I think I need to do more research.
 
I don't know whether it helps what you have seen. Seems to me that the baby rabbits have to be fed by a doe who has been infected & survived, & then has to be infected by a flea before they emerge from the stop. The immunity cannot be directly transmitted from generation to generation as far as I know.

Domestic rabbits don't have this early experience.

I would assume that a few rabbits have some sort of natural immunity. That would be passed on. And if you believe in natural selection (which I do) then those rabbits are more likely to (a) survive and (b) breed. And their offspring will have this small natural immunity allowing them to survive.
 
I may be rambling here because I've had a few glasses of wine to relax after a stressful week, but I'm guessing if myxi is a recessive gene then a large proportion of young still will be born without immunity, but if a population is isolated it may well build up a natural immunity for pretty much the whole group. It may well be that many wild rabbits do not survive myxi because they are picked off by predators before they can recover, so again, in an environment with no predators they may well recover.
So i guess i'm wondering that if these rabbits are in an isolated group without many pedator then they may well recover but it is not a normal example?
Still if I found a myxi rabbit in a poor state I would take it to be PTS rather than leave it to suffer.
 
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In an effort to put off doing any actual work... I've done some research.
Don't know how many of you will be able to see this paper (think you might need some sort of log in?) but it is very interesting.

Here

They suggest that when baby rabbits get infected they are still protected by maternal antibodies (the ones in milk last about 1 month) so they still come down with the disease but it's less severe so they are more likely to survive (as some of you have mentioned).
It seems like rabbits that have been infected before are pretty much immune, but the immunity wanes over time so older rabbits can still be infected. The antibodies made last their whole lives though.

They are only likely to acquire the immunity if transmission rate of the virus is high, so that the babies come into contact with it before they lose their mother's immunity.

Earlier epidemics (that occur is spring) tend to have a lower impact on population than those in autumn.

The persistence of the virus also depends a lot on the rabbit population size. In small populations, the virus tends to burn itself out so there may be a few years without it before it's reintroduced, but by then the population will have mostly lost its immunity so will be susceptible again and lots of the rabbits will die. That's probably why populations of rabbits seem to fluctuate so much, so you may see hundreds one year and hardly any the next :(

So yeah... basically what all you guys said. But now you have studies to back it up! :lol:
 
One other issue is that although the survival rate for wild rabbits is higher, whilst they are showing symptoms they are more susceptible to predators or other illnesses so that can decrease the population indirectly as a result.
 
Thank you Loosy for finding up to date research on the matter. I'm really grateful for that.
Also thank you Tamsin for another aspect on why populations with myxi can fluctate to a different extent.
Thank you Jenova for a fascinating thread - doubtless we can carry on with further discussions, on the topic.
 
It just never occured to me too think about it from a wild rabbit's point of view, all I know are pets. And yes, thanks for the research!
 
If it helps I had a domestic rabbit with natural immunity when I was a child. She was agouti in colouring so same as the wild bunnies, but very definitely domestic as was bred by us and was a very large breed. However, whatever genes she was carrying she was a lot longer eared and longer legged than all her siblings and had the full agouti colouring.
All of our rabbits contracted full blown Myxi (days before vaccination available widely or at all) and had to be pts within a week, yet she survived without any medical intervention other than nursing feeding/fluids. She was horrendously poorly and obviously in the wild would have been picked off by predators or died of dehydration but she survived and healed and lived for 5 years afterwards atleast. :D
She must have been carrying we assume a gene, recessive or otherwise, for natural immunity to that strain. :?

ETA I would be interested to know if anyone knows of another domestic rabbit to contract full blown Myxi unvaccinated and survive?

What we did observe was that the albino and chocolate pointed siblings deteriorated quickest and had to be pts first, followed by the black buns :cry: Am certain whatever the gene is it is linked to coat colour based on our experience of 10 rabbits of varied coat colour.
 
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That is very interesting about the colouring relationship to myxi survival, Pretty Lupin.

Yes, the very early work done when myxi was 1st introduced indicated a 1:10 survival rate from myxi in both wild & domestic buns. Which is exactly what you found! I do not know the ages of the survivors.

I am also interested about your observation of the black bun, because black true wildies are the commonest colour variant. They are so easily seen even at dusk, they seemed to be sitting targets for predators. It could be that their colour is a marker for other advantages.
 
That is very interesting about the colouring relationship to myxi survival, Pretty Lupin.

Yes, the very early work done when myxi was 1st introduced indicated a 1:10 survival rate from myxi in both wild & domestic buns. Which is exactly what you found! I do not know the ages of the survivors.

I am also interested about your observation of the black bun, because black true wildies are the commonest colour variant. They are so easily seen even at dusk, they seemed to be sitting targets for predators. It could be that their colour is a marker for other advantages.

Sorry, I didn't make it very clear.. the bun that survived was agouti - wild bunny colouring. The black buns succumbed very quickly sadly too, just not as quickly as the albinos. :wave:
 
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