MY RABBIT EXPERIENCE

 MY RABBIT EXPERIENCE

Rabbits are very unique animals; they sometimes they act like humans. I will be sharing some of my experiences of handling rabbits from time to time.

Something funny happened sometimes back. We had a weaned rabbit which was very weak. Truth be told, its best you get rid of sick rabbits sometimes (using kniftazine and potamin (knife and pot) than trying heal them as some rabbits ailment have no cure. Diseases such as Mucoid and Tyzzers Disease, to mention a few, have no cure. Best practice is just to manage them until they get well naturally or you use the last resort drugs - kniftazine and potamin. Back to my story, forgive the digression. So it happened that this weaned rabbit was really sick. It was frail, not eating and had a zero chance of survival. I couldn’t cull it as it was too small to use a knife on it. Behind my house is this compound with overgrown bushes and grasses. I suggested to my son (our farm manager) to throw the sick rabbit there and allow it die naturally. The plan was go to back there later in the day to pick the dead carcass. This happened at about 7:00 am in the morning. Fast forward 11 hours later and the rabbit just strolled to the farm as if nothing happened to it. Fast forward 4 months later, the person who bought that rabbit is telling us it now weighs 2.5kg.

After that incident, we have made it a point to always throw such animals there. Guess what?  80% of the time they get healed. It’s funny though what cures them, but logically I feel they seem to know the grass or herbs (if you put it that way) to eat and get cured.

The number one thing for a healthy stock is being observant. Most farmers don’t realize a rabbit’s fecal waste tells you a lot about the rabbit. Over time I’ve used rabbit waste to detect healthy rabbits, about to fall sick rabbits and sick rabbits (by sick rabbits here I am talking about those that don’t show any sign of sicknesses but suddenly dies). This helps to know when to cull for the home or sell to intending rabbit meat buyers (it’s interesting to note that unlike other animals, rabbit diseases are rarely contagious to humans).

 Another thing a good rabbit farmer should know is that the best teachers of your rabbits are your rabbits; you should be prepared to learn on the go. That is on hand experiences or on the job experience. One problem rabbits have is that in is some cases no two rabbits are alike. What may work for one may not work for another. For example, research has shown that to treat a rabbit with Enteritis (diarrhea) greens should be avoided at all cost. Hay is your best bet (no wonder Bella 75% hay works well…abeg am not advertising ooo). I have often advised farmers with this problem to remove feed (pellet) and place on bitter leaf and scent leaves (green). This has worked over time but I noticed that not as fast as if you place on hay (my on the job experience).

Also the level of ailment determines the efficacy of the drugs. Truth is a very sick rabbit at times just needs kniftazine and potamin, no more, no less. Sometimes the drugs we give just aggravates the whole thing. The reason is simple…improper diagnosis (for example caked mammary glands is usually misdiagnosed as Mastitis).  LA (oxytetracycline) is an antibiotic of choice and indeed a good one for most animal farmers if not all. It’s a must have. However two issues here (1) there are limits to diseases it can cure (not all diseases you can use LA for).  Some diseases might look the same but are different or second stage of a prolonged one. In cases like these, LA might not work and may require stronger antibiotics or a different one entirely. You may be surprised to know that tylosin which is a drug for respiratory disease works perfectly for Mastitis as it’s effective against Staphylococcus or Streptococcus a similar organism that causes Mastitis) (2) duration of administration (I’ve known  farmers who give their rabbits LA over a long period of time and the next thing you know the rabbit is dead. I’ve learnt to give one or two days interval because of the long action properties of LA oxytetracycline). Drugs of choice also determine if your rabbit will get well or not. More importantly what feed your rabbits take determines what happens to them when they are ill in terms of efficacy of the drugs.

I will stop here for now and would share more next time. What are your own rabbit experiences? I would love to hear yours.

I remain Benjamin Ovie Ukutsemuya-Harrison

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