Lost my baby mini lop before he ever came home :(

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murph72

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I was supposed to be bringing home a new orange mini lop buck in a few weeks (he was around 6 weeks old). The breeder just contacted me to say that he and all but one of his littermates passed away. This was her explanation:
"They were doing so good, then just stopped eating and got listless. One or two had soft manure, so I took a stool sample to my vet, which was negative. Then I just lost them. Makes me sick. My vet advised I take some bodies to the state vet lab and I did this, so am waiting to hear results.

All my other bunnies seems fine."



Anyone else have any experience with this kind of situation? Hopefully the lab will come up with something, but it is just heartbreaking. I'd attach his picture, but I know that would only make all of you as sad as I am about the loss of this adorable little one.
 
That is very sad but I think it is very common exceptI would guess usually the lab would show a bacteria.
I am really sorry you lost her!!!
I hope that you decide to get another bun

but I would not get another bun from that breeder.
 
I actually will get another bun from that breeder. I have two other minis from her. She's one of the most well-known breeders of show quality mini lops, so I really don't think this was something that was wrong with her rabbitry. The fact that she's sending it to a lab is proof to me that it wasn't just "any other dead bunny" that she would throw away and just rebreed.

I have lost bunnies in the first couple of weeks of life, but I have not lost any at 6 weeks with these signs. I had one die of heat stroke at this age, but that has been my only experience with losing an older kit. I do think that one had a neurological impairment as it really wasn't that hot out and no other buns were affected. I just can't figure out what would have gone wrong with this whole litter...especially when she has other litters in the nestbox that seem perfectly fine.
 
I'm sorry. It sounds like an imbalance in gut bacteria that can happen to babies around this age. However, as angieluv said, there would be bacteria in the cultures. It could also be viral, I suppose. I would not want a rabbit from this particular stock in the future--the breeder may be ok, but the parents might be carrying some unknown genetic defect.
 
Would the necropsy be able to tell if it was due to a genetic defect? I know that the buck that she used was new to her, but she had the doe and used her several times before. The buck is a beauty and has won numerous BOSs, so it would be a shame if he was passing on a genetic issue. Or, could it be that it would have to be present in both parents?
 
It could be recessive in both, and then when they produced a litter it came out. If neither had mated with another carrier of the recessive gene before, it wouldn't have been found. It would be a shame because half of the offspring of either the buck or the doe, with any other mate, would carry on the defect. Therefore it would be best not to breed either the buck or the doe again.

A necropsy would be able to find some genetic defects, particularly if there is a physical deformity in the intestines, something like megacolon going on.
 
Thanks for the article. I love to read stuff like that...very informative.

I have never experienced this in my own rabbitry. I do have experiences, especially with Hollands, of runts that struggle and then fade away, but not with the normal sized babies. I just had one of my Hollands give birth to seven on Easter. Two were runts. The bigger of the two died within two days. The other one held on to sometime last night, but I found him dead this morning. I was actually quite relieved to see he had passed as he just wasn't growing. While the other five are developing nicely, he seemed to be wasting away. He was literally only a quarter of the size of the others when I removed him from the nest box this morning. I was actually amazed he lived this long. He was not a "peanut" but was just a runt. These, however, you expect you'll lose. I'd be devastated if I lost them at 6 weeks as with the litter of mini lops. I can't wait to find out what the problem was and I will be certain to let you all know what the lab finds out. Hopefully they'll hurry with the results, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
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