Sudden death?

[Rilly10]

I am so upset! I brought home a pair of 7month old dwarf hotots on Saturday. They are my only two bunnies and have been housed in my basement. They were each in their own cage and were getting a mix of their old food purina pro complete, oats, and barley to manna pro and oats. I have been slowly switching them over and giving them 1/3 cup per day each as they were used to. They have also been getting a handful of hay shoved in a half a paper towel roll for fun. They have fresh h2o in bottles and were on wire bottom cages with pine shavings in the tray and a grass hay mat in the cage to rest on.

This am I gave fresh water and foes as I have been and the bunnies were fine. They both got head scratches and seemed 100% normal. This was at 8. My husband got home before me at 5:30 and called me to say the female was dead. I am shocked and soooo upset. I asked him to not bury her and leave her just as she was for me. Well she must have just dies no rigor, not really cold even. She ate her food and some of her hay, no injuries...nothing.

What could have caused this? Now I am very worried about the male. He seems fine but so did she this am. I am so scarred he will die too. I also had them in brand new cages with new everything. Should I disinfect it all? I was hoping to get a new bunny this weekend but now am terrified. Please help!

 

[ksalvagno]

Can you take the bunny into the vet and have a necropsy done? That might give you an answer as to why she died.

 

[therealsilkiechick]

keep it in the fridge in a bag. testing on them less than 72 hours is best and don't freeze it. get ahold of the state vet in ur region or the closest poultry tech(through the dept of ag) to u and have them take it to a lab or ship it there to do a necropsy. they will do the paperwork for u and just ask u the questions they need answered to help w/ testing. they should do it free or cheap for disease purposes, a regular vet would cost more. however usually we don't take them for testing unless it is a few of them at once or in a short time period several in a herd is lost for no reason but check cause someone close to u may ya never know. so sorry to hear about ur bun i hope the other is fine and makes it.

 

[Rilly10]

Thanks everyone. I will call pennstate in the morning and see what they can do about a necropsy. I checked the feed and it is very fresh no mold or wet spots. Smells great and it's not dusty. She was a nervous bunny so maybe she did get spooked? I have two dogs who have been locked out of the basement but may have barked upstairs and spooked her when I was not home. Of course I'm very sad to have lost her but I am glad to hearthat it seems like a freak thing and the male should be ok.

I disinfected her cage and all of her stuff but just to be safe I am going to use it for the chickens now and no more bunnies. I am having a six hole (24x24 each) stacking cage built by pointer hill which should be done soon so I will only use that plus the cage the buck is in. He seems fine so I am keeping my fingers crossed for him.

All of my pet bunnies died of old age so this was really a shock. She was only 7months old. Not the best start to a breeding program

 

[Rilly10]

I forgot to address the water...we have well water which was just tested in Sept but maybe I will take a sample to be sure. If it was the food or water wouldn't the buck be affected?

One other thing I thought of which may not be related at all but I figured I would mention. The breeder did worm her Saturday with ivormectin before I brought her home. It was deff not anaphylaxis as that would have happened the same day.

When I cleaned her cage out I noticed nothing out of the ordinary no blood, loose stools or anything. She even ate most of her grain and hay, drank a lot too.it must have happened right before we got home from work.

 

[ksalvagno]

That just seems really weird. I hope you can find out what happened. I'm sorry for your loss. I know it hurts no matter how long you have had them.

 

[tortoise]

I posted over on RH.

One thing to remember is you *just* got the rabbit so you don't know what was normal.

I bought a rabbit that was wool blocked. the breeder didn't know and I didn't know what was normal for the rabbit. Thankfully I caught it in time. I was surprised how much his behavior changed when he was well. I thought I bought a sedate, calm rabbit, but he's a feisty little man!

Also - IF it was a "scared to death" be glad it happened before you bred and had a whole bunch of baby-going-to-scare-to-death. Temperament is important!

 

[CrimsonRose]

if she was a nervous rabbit I would say she just got spooked... I've lost a favorite buck a few months back because an opossum tried to get at him... he was safe in his cage but the scare from the attack gave him a heart attack he died later that night! When we first moved in here we had a really nervous girl who got a fright and died from the hawks flying over... temperament is very important now... my buns hardly ever jump or get scared anymore because I've only kept the most calm ones and it really helps...