Rescues approach to ec and rehoming

A question for people doing rehoming. Do you automatically test rabbits for ec either incoming or before you rehome even if they have no obvious signs of it? If your rabbits test positive for ec at any point in their lives does this mean that you won't rehome them ever? Thank you.

I don't think many rescues couldn't afford to test. We just give out advice about it to make everyone aware.

FHB touched on this at her day about ec. From memory she pretty much said that it is so prevalent that there's not really any point in routine testing - around 50% of the population would show positive results to the blood test, and there doesn't seem to be much/any link between test results and disease, disease seems to be much more linked to organ/tissue damage caused by the parasite and can appear a long time after the parasite has gone. She seemed to be much more in favour of doing a one-off course of panacur at the time of bonding to destroy any parasite that might rear up during that sort of time of stress. She even showed us a case study of a bunny that was ec -ve who developed kidney stones after a period of stasis/dehydration, but that this bunny had been ec +ve years before - so thought that the kidney stones were then able to form due to earlier ec damage, even though test results showed no sign at that point.

Personally I have tested for ec once for rehoming purposes, but that was because a potential owner particularly wanting an ec -ve bunny due to previous problems they had had. The test is around £60 so it wouldn't really be feasible to test every bunny that comes in - especially as it would only mean anything if you tested the bunny due to be bonded with that one too.

It's impossible isn't it. I know of an adopter trying to find an ec negative bunny in the rescue I help out with and so far she has found 2 pairs of ec positive ones they didn't know about. Was discussing this with our favourite vet a few days ago and he is beginning to wonder if it is exists at all or at least if that parasite/fungus really is responsible for the damage in various buns. Very muddy waters. Do you routinely panacur your bunnies?

I don't know of any rescue that routinely tests for EC unless symptoms are present or a potential adopter requests it as around 50% of rabbits would have positive test results.