Mucoid Enteropathy in Rabbits
Mucoid Enteropathy, formerly known as Mucoid Enteritis, is a dreaded condition that causes death for many of the rabbits it affects. Young rabbits have the largest share of the Mucoid Enteropathy market, although it can been seen in older rabbits too.
Classic symptoms include:
|
-Reduced feed/refusal to eat -Jelly-like stool, may be tinged with blood -Unsatisfied thirst-often the rabbit sits up on the edge of water bowl for long periods -Dehydrated despite drinking water -Sloshy-sounding belly -Subnormal temperature -Initially can hear loud or rumbling noises from gut -Often in pain-grinding teeth -Sometimes straining as if trying to defecate -Loss of bladder control |
There has been no exact cause found as of yet so this is difficult to
prevent. Many different pathogens,
one
being e.coli, have been thought to create or
enhance this condition but so far, none can claim to be the definitive
cause. It has been suggested that a high fiber diet can help
prevent Mucoid Enteropathy, but our rabbits get hay every night and still we
had this one case.
We have only had ONE rabbit with this condition, so I cannot claim any level of experience, other than reporting what we did to treat this rabbit, in case any of it helps others who have affected rabbits.
Our affected rabbit was a sweet, young adult (1.5 yrs) French Lop buck who previously enjoyed excellent health and condition. He is and was fed approximately 1 cup of pellets per day, hay at night, and drank water from a bowl. He was housed in a 24 x 36 cage with other rabbits around him - he was in the line of direct air flow in our rabbitry. Below I'll chronicle what happened:
| SYMPTOMS NOTICED: The first symptom we noticed was that he did not eat his previous meal, which was unusual for this rabbit. Within that same day we noticed he was drinking a lot of water but refused the extra hay we gave him to encourage eating. Probably the single most important indicator this was going to strike was that my daughter noticed he had a couple small globs of mucus-jelly type stuff in his pan the day before this started. At first we didn't know what this was but as the other symptoms appeared, it confirmed our fears. |
| RAPID PROGRESSION: Other symptoms appeared rapidly within the first and second day - soon, he was spending most of his time in the back of his cage, and within a few hours he was grinding his teeth. We could audibly hear his gut making rumbling noises, without even taking him out of his cage. He ceased producing fecal pellets. Later in that same day we found him sitting up on his water bowl and he seemed to continuously or frequently drink water. He developed a 'hunched' posture and appeared to be straining quite often. When we took him out of the cage to examine him, he was clearly in pain and felt very very cold despite it being early fall with mild temperatures. We thought he was dying. |
| MUCUS: This rabbit started producing the classic mucus stool from day 1 - we started noticing a fair amount of this jelly-like stool in his pan, and it later appeared to be blood-tinged. |
| TREATMENT: The first things we did were to give him probiotics and a dose of Colace since no hard stool was coming out at all. We made an appointment with the vet since he was deteriorating fast - it seemed within a few hours time he felt like skin and bones despite all the water he drank. Our vet appointment was later in the day so until then, I held the rabbit on a heating pad on my lap to warm him up and he either enjoyed this or he was too sick to fight it. It was difficult to get him to relax at first - he was clearly guarding his abdomen and tried to remain hunched up. I slowly got him to stretch out on the heating pad across my legs and then he seemed to just let go and lay there. The gut sounds stopped and were replaced entirely by the classic water-bottle sloshing noises. |
| VET CALL: We arrived at the vet and he took a history, we
decided to X-ray his abdomen. The film showed an extremely
packed cecum, and I think I remember my vet saying the rest of his
intestine was filled with liquid. We took his temperature and it was subnormal but the rabbit felt warmer than he had before I had him sitting on the heating pad and my vet said to try to keep him warm. We gave him a large dose of sub-q fluids. Since I had already given him Colace, my vet did not want to give anything else and said that was a good course to begin with. We set up a time to bring him back in tomorrow for another dose of fluids and check on progress. |
| AFTER FLUIDS: Throughout the night, the rabbit absorbed the large mass of fluid the vet injected. Although I didn't take his temperature, he felt more of a normal temperature to us. He lost all control of his bladder and urinated sporadically and frequently. He was still producing the jelly stool, although not as much. He still seemed very sick and we thought he was not going to make it. He still had the hunched posture and made teeth grinding noises throughout the next day. Later in the day he produced a very few fecal pellets. We quit the heating pad treatment since he did not feel cold any longer- in fact, by the next vet visit, he was beginning to feel warmer than he should be. |
| VET CALL: Sure enough, he was developing a fever now. The vet thought that indicated an infection of some sort and prescribed an oral sulfa for him and gave another huge dose of sub-q fluids. I felt certain he was suffering and dying and mentioned putting him down to the vet, who told me not to give up yet -so we took him back home. |
| The day after the second dose of fluids, he started nibbling on his hay again which was encouraging. We continued with the Sulfa, probiotics and also gave him another dose of Colace. |
| We took him in for another dose of the sub-q fluids. The next day and after that we began to notice actual improvement - he started pooping again, not much, but any was encouraging. His appetite improved from day to day and we encouraged it with plenty of hay. The jelly stool stopped and so did his teeth grinding. He was far from recovered but all the signs pointed to recovery so we were thrilled. |
| RECOVERY: Actual recovery was a slow process - it took him
a long time (months) to regain his former condition. We
continued with the probiotics while he was on the Sulfa and he
finished his antibiotic regime without incidence. I don't remember
when he regained bladder control but it was early on, while still on
the antibiotics. He slowly went back to his normal eating
habits and we never had another incident with him - he remains
healthy and well today, 6 years later! We've never had any
other mucoid enteropathy cases in our rabbitry, luckily. |
| AFTERTHOUGHTS: When I look back, I tend to believe that
the sub-q fluids probably saved his life, possibly us warming him
when his temperature was dropping may have helped also. When
he developed the fever - our vet must of been correct in his thought
of infection, because the Sulfa drug seemed to put an end to that.
I remember him saying he cannot be sure where the infection was, but
it seemed reasonable that is was in his gut. the rabbit had no
other signs of infection anywhere else on his body. This rabbit was housed right next to several other rabbits, and none of them ever got sick or showed the slightest symptoms of disease. We kept him in his cage for treatment-we felt it too great a stress to move him during treatment. We are not sure how he got Mucoid Enteropathy - he was always healthy before. One possibility, if there is a pathogen that can be 'caught' that causes this, is that we had him at a local show less than a month before this happened. I remember the weather being very hot during that time and it was difficult to keep rabbits cool both at the show and at home. Perhaps the heat stress contributed to this disease?. |
Cathy LaReau, April 5, 2009