Please help-6 week old babies dying!

I will keep this as short as possible for people reading.

I am away taking care of my mother in law at the moment and my brother is taking care of the animals. 7 weeks ago i had two dumped rabbits reported to me and caught them over the course of a weekend. Within a week both had given birth. One entire litter died within 24 hours as mum was in quite a mess at the time but the other mum managed to raise 6/7 of hers. They were 6 weeks old on Wednesday and when i left were perfect, healthy bouncy baby bunnies.

Friday morning i got a phone call to say that two looked very ill. They were lay on their side contorted and were quite rigid but still alive. My brother rang me, then rushed them to the vets but in the course of doing this 2 died . The other 4 appeared perfectly healthy. Post mortems were done on both babies because there were no outward signs of ill health. Both PMs came back with nothing. Intestines were beautiful and contained nice healthy forage matter. No bleeding of any kind and no evidence of trauma etc. They were apparently perfectly healthy babies who just died..

Yesterday and throughout Friday the remaining 4 were perfectly fine. But 20 minutes ago i got a phone call to say it's happening again with 2 more. The emergency vet has been phoned and they are being rushed to the surgery as i type. But i'm just so stumped. Mum and babies were wormed as a precaution but even the vet didn't think it was EC due to the rapid on-set. The only extra information i have this morning is that they are lay on their sides wriggling. I asked if it looked like a fit but apparently not. Afterwards one sat upright again but with it's eyes mostly closed

Please help me. It's a 6 hour drive to get home and i will be leaving as soon as i can sort out things here, but i feel so helpless!

I am very sorry

Coccidiosis is my first thought, even in the absence of any diarrhoea. Would have thought that there would be some evidence of GI tract damage in a PM though :?

Were PM samples sent off for analysis to try to identify a pathogen ?

Thank you for your reply Jane. I too thought of Cocci but i think i dismissed it for the same reason. No samples were sent off at the time as the others were so healthy the vet said if it happened with any others then that would be the time to send them off. I feel like an idiot for not insisting on it at the time now, but i was so confused and upset. It was also on a friday so i guess we wouldn't have had any results back by now anyway?

They should have met the vet 30 minutes ago but i still haven't heard anything. This may sound stupid but is there something to the fact that they seem to be getting ill in pairs or at 48 hour intervals?

How heartbreaking I hope the vet can figure out the problem and the babies can be saved xx

Kitel said:

Thank you for your reply Jane. I too thought of Cocci but i think i dismissed it for the same reason. No samples were sent off at the time as the others were so healthy the vet said if it happened with any others then that would be the time to send them off. I feel like an idiot for not insisting on it at the time now, but i was so confused and upset. It was also on a friday so i guess we wouldn't have had any results back by now anyway?

They should have met the vet 30 minutes ago but i still haven't heard anything. This may sound stupid but is there something to the fact that they seem to be getting ill in pairs or at 48 hour intervals?

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I honestly dont know, but I wonder if it would be a good idea to treat for Cocci even in the absence of definitive proof ?

Also for their accommodation to be completely cleaned out, steam cleaning hutch etc. Then there-after for all fecal matter to be removed twice a day to try to minimise the risk of ingesting cocci spores

I think that's a good plan. I'm going to make sure i get home today. He did completely clean their indoor hutch on friday so i wonder whether it's taken time for cocci to be ingested again? Their litter tray is cleaned out every day but they do have accidents still. I'll get them inside in the plastic/metal cage so it's more easily washed.

I still haven't heard anything..i know i should ring but i also know it will probably be confirmed that the little boy i was going to keep is gone...

I've read the Merck page regarding coccidiosis but i'm still a little confused. Is it likely the mums arrived with this but haven't been showing symptoms all of this time?

The vet seems to think they were cold? :? I don't have complete faith in his knowledge of rabbits and this doesn't really make sense to me. He said their temperatures were slightly low but i don't have an exact figure. They were given some fluids at the vets and this seems to have perked one up. But they were moved out to an insulated shed 2 weeks ago to allow them more space. The nights have been warm and they have plenty of hay, water and everything they need. They aren't in any drafts and the shed isn't damp..

The little boy didn't make it

Kitel said:

The vet seems to think they were cold? :? I don't have complete faith in his knowledge of rabbits and this doesn't really make sense to me. He said their temperatures were slightly low but i don't have an exact figure. They were given some fluids at the vets and this seems to have perked one up. But they were moved out to an insulated shed 2 weeks ago to allow them more space. The nights have been warm and they have plenty of hay, water and everything they need. They aren't in any drafts and the shed isn't damp..

The little boy didn't make it

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But they would be hypothermic if they were ill, so not necessarily ill because they were hypothermic IFSWIM :?

I am so sorry about the little Buck

The only other thing that comes to mind is Mycotoxins in the food :?

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...toOdha&sig=AHIEtbTx9l3lUpvZqyV98ErVtxaKtR26DA

Yes i agree entirely and am not overly impressed with his diagnosis to be honest. My brother is doing an excellent job whilst i try to sort everything out to get back. All babies are in the house with heat pads and plenty of food. The two remain quite happy and bouncy, but the third is still struggling. He's being syringed though and this seems to be keeping his strength up.

I've told them to open a new bag of nuggets, they'd already cleaned the water bottles and they are stopping using their normal baled hay and i'm sending them to town to get a bag of other hay in the short term. I've been using this hay for quite some time and it's always appeared very clean and nice and is used by other rabbit owners and horse owners too. But this is the last of this batch so i'm just trying to stay on the safe side. Some of the symptoms in that paper really do match up though...