Weird Illness Ended in Death

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CloverRabbits

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I posted to the rainbow bridge announcements already :in tears: but I'm really perplexed and upset and trying to understand what happened. Sorry for the very long post.

Annie passed away yesterday. She started the day absolutely normal. She lives in a giant hitch that I made, and she and her sister lived on one side, their mom on the other (mom gets territorial and can't be "with" them, but enjoys laying next to the divider with the other girls). Annie was a food hound, and was looking for her cilantro and carrot greens in the morning. They always have fresh water, pellets, and high quality horse (2nd cut mixed grass) hay. Nothing was new. They are out by my barn, so in the late afternoon I was doing some work out there. Before I was going to head inside, I checked on the buns. Annie was laying and looked really funny.... She was always very bouncy and active and a big piggy, so she'd always run to the door for greens. Then I noticed her legs were tucked under her the wrong way - like her front legs were backwards underneath her. I quickly grabbed her out of the hitch and put her in a small cage in the barn, lined with rolled towels to keep her in a neutral position. She was breathing shallowly, but pretty much totally unresponsive. When I moved her to the barn, she was limp and felt gaunt, like there was absolutely no tension in her body at all. All of a sudden, she had what looked like a seizure in the little cage, and her eyes bugged out, she got really tense, and flipped over on her side (a big flip). I repositioned the poor thing, and she actually started "perking up" even though I thought it was more of an involuntary response. Her ears moved upright rather than flat, and she was twitching. Then she let out a couple of horrible squeaking noises as she took her last few breaths.

She was only three years old. I have had rabbits my whole life, and have only lost two who I found after they had passed at an old age. I have a ten year old and an eight year old right now (Annie's parents), so I never would have expected Annie or her siblings to go first. She had gone out in an extra stall yesterday to play, so she didn't have any weird weeds or anything. They are good about using the litter box and all looked normal there. I did disinfect the hutch just in case.

I'm just trying to understand. Does it sound like she fractured her spine? Maybe completely severed her spinal cord? The"seizure" I think could have been from lack of oxygen, because she was breathing very shallowly from the time I found her to the time she passed - her nose wasn't even moving. I never thought a broken spine resulted in such a quick death, albeit not immediate. I'm just looking to see if it sounded like a broken spine or something else I guess. At least a broken spine was a freak thing that could not have been prevented. Maybe something startled her. Sorry for all the details, but I think they are all relevant. I'm still in such shock :in tears:

I'm open to hear anyone's thoughts on possibilities - thank you
 
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I'm so sorry for your loss. I wish you luck in finding answers.
 
Having a necropsy performed would probably be the only way to know for sure.
It doesn't sound like she could have broken her back while she was confined in her hutch.
 
Thank you all. I buried her today, so unfortunately will not be getting a necropsy done.

I'm leaning more towards toxoplasmosis... the symptoms seem to match pretty well, and I do have a barn cat. I obviously would never let the rabbits out where there was cat feces, but maybe there was a trace of it or it was down in the soil (though she was only out in the barn this week). Does anyone know if TRACES of cat feces can transmit it?? Like if she walked in the stall that the rabbits go in and just had a trace on her foot or something? She definitely did not actually deficate in the barn, but I suppose could have tracked it in? I could be pulling at straws here :expressionless If she was infected, it would not be transmitted to the others unless they too were exposed directly to the cat feces, correct? I disinfected everything yesterday.
 

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