Rabbit Diseases: Signs, Causes and Prevention by Body System

Six conditions account for most preventable deaths in a rabbitry: rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD, including the RHDV2 variant), myxomatosis, pasteurellosis or "snuffles", the enteritis and enterotoxaemia complex, coccidiosis, and heat stress. The rest — sore hocks, mastitis, dental malocclusion, uterine tumours — bleed money steadily rather than suddenly, and are usually housing, genetics or age problems rather than something caught from outside.

That split decides how you respond. Viral disease arrives from outside and is fought at the perimeter: quarantine, vector control, disinfection and, where licensed, vaccination. Bacterial and parasitic disease is usually already in the herd, managed through ventilation, stocking density, fibre and sanitation. Signs overlap heavily, so the useful skill is not memorising symptoms but noticing patterns — which cages, which age group, which week.

• Viral: rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD/RHDV2) and myxomatosis — both WOAH-listed, both vaccine-preventable where licensed
• Respiratory: pasteurellosis (snuffles), plus Bordetella, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus
• Digestive: enterotoxaemia from Clostridium spiroforme, and epizootic rabbit enteropathy
• Parasitic: hepatic and intestinal coccidiosis, ear canker from Psoroptes cuniculi
• Production: pododermatitis, mastitis, malocclusion, uterine adenocarcinoma, heat stress

Rabbit haemorrhagic disease is caused by a calicivirus that destroys the liver and triggers disseminated intravascular coagulation. WOAH gives an incubation of 1–3 days for classical RHDV, death 12–36 hours after fever begins, morbidity near 100% and mortality of 70–90%. RHDV2 behaves differently: mortality is lower but far more variable at 5–70%, the course runs 3–5 days, and it kills kits from 15–20 days of age — whereas classical RHDV leaves rabbits under 6–8 weeks largely subclinical.

Spread is why it is hard to keep out. The virus moves by direct contact through oral, nasal and conjunctival routes, through carcasses, meat and hair, and on fomites: feed, bedding, water, cages, equipment. Flies and other insects carry it mechanically with unusual efficiency, and only a few virions on the conjunctiva are enough. People carry it on footwear, clothing and hands. Protected by organic material it survives at least three months dried on cloth at room temperature, and one US state fact sheet puts survival on objects at up to 105 days.

Myxomatosis is a poxvirus with a completely different route. Fleas and mosquitoes that bite an infected animal carry it onward, with midges and lice also implicated, alongside direct contact and contaminated objects. The classic picture is conjunctivitis with milky discharge, fever up to about 42 °C (108 °F), anorexia and listlessness, then oedema of the head, eyelids, nose and ears, often with skin nodules and secondary pneumonia. Losses in rabbitries have been reported at 25–90%, with death usually one to two weeks after signs appear.

• Suspect RHD when several rabbits die suddenly, sometimes with blood at the nose
• Suspect myxomatosis when swelling around the eyes, nose and ears follows insect exposure
• Neither virus infects people — but people move both between premises

Vaccine availability is the biggest difference between countries, and where generic advice goes wrong. In the UK and much of the EU, combination vaccines covering myxomatosis and both RVHD strains are routine: the Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund advises vaccination from five weeks old, and since a highly virulent RVHD2 variant appeared in continental Europe its guidance moved to two vaccinations a year, with different manufacturers' products given at least two weeks apart.

The United States has been much tighter. The MSD Veterinary Manual notes there is no FDA-approved RHD vaccine and that product has been imported under special permit; Indiana's animal health board described the available vaccine as unlicensed and conditionally approved, released on a priority basis to animals in affected zones. Two points survive every jurisdiction: WOAH states that vaccines built on RHDV or RHDVa do not adequately protect against RHDV2 — and vaccination stops rabbits dying, not the virus arriving.

Both RHD and myxomatosis are WOAH-listed, so member countries report outbreaks internationally, with national rules on top. RHD is reportable in the United States, and state fact sheets direct owners to the state veterinarian or the USDA area veterinarian in charge. If you lose several rabbits suddenly and cannot explain it, call your vet before moving anything and ask whether a report is required where you live. Boosters lapse silently, so recording each vaccination against the individual animal — what a herd record in RabbitBreeder is for — puts the next due date beside mating and kindling dates.

Snuffles starts as a thin, watery discharge from nose and eyes that later turns thick and purulent, with sneezing and coughing. It does not stay in the nose: the same organism produces pneumonia, subcutaneous abscesses, middle- and inner-ear infection that shows as head tilt, conjunctivitis, reproductive tract infection and eventually septicaemia. Rabbits with matted, crusted fur inside the front legs have been wiping their noses for a while.

Pasteurella multocida is the primary cause, with Pseudomonas, Bordetella bronchiseptica, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus also involved. One fact changes how you manage it: in conventional colonies, 30–90% of apparently healthy rabbits are asymptomatic carriers. Treating individual sneezing rabbits therefore never clears a rabbitry — the organism is already in most animals, and clinical disease appears when something else tips the balance.

Prevention targets what tips it. Ventilation without draughts keeps ammonia off the respiratory mucosa; sensible stocking density and unhurried handling reduce stress; and buying stock from a herd with a known respiratory history matters more than any treatment. Penn State's extension guidance is blunt — buy disease-free animals, and keep casual visitors out, because they introduce disease and stress the animals. Chronic snufflers are a breeding decision. One drug detail matters: procaine penicillin is used by injection in rabbits, but the same drug by mouth can kill through enterotoxaemia.

The enteritis complex concentrates in a narrow age band, and enterotoxaemia is its sharpest edge. Clostridium spiroforme produces an iota toxin and causes disease mainly in rabbits 4–8 weeks old; the veterinary description is exact and familiar — an animal that looked healthy in the evening is dead the next morning. Fibre is the lever: enterotoxaemia is seen less often on high-fibre diets, ad lib hay or straw is the standard preventive measure, and adding 250 ppm copper sulfate to young rabbits' diets also helps.

Epizootic rabbit enteropathy (ERE) is a separate post-weaning syndrome that became a serious problem on French rabbit farms from 1997. Morbidity after weaning can reach 100% and mortality runs 30–80% without medication. Jin and colleagues reproduced it experimentally on a low-fibre diet and traced the mechanism — overgrowth of Bacteroides fragilis and Clostridium perfringens, suppression of Bifidobacterium, and a collapse in butyrate production. Their conclusion is directly usable: ERE risk can be manipulated by adjusting dietary fibre.

In practice that becomes a few unglamorous rules. Change feed gradually and never in the same week as weaning, because two stressors stacked together is what produces a bad batch. Keep fibre high and consistent, and treat a new feed lot as a variable worth writing down — when a litter breaks down, the useful questions are which doe, which lot, which week, which row. EFSA's review places enteric disorders among the recurring health consequences across all housing types.

Coccidiosis comes in two forms and they are not interchangeable. The hepatic form is caused by Eimeria stiedae; young rabbits are most susceptible, presentation ranges from subclinical to severe, and affected animals show anorexia, poor coat and stunted growth, with death within a month after heavy exposure. The intestinal form involves several species including Eimeria magna, E. irresidua and E. media, and often causes no clinical signs at all even in well-kept rabbits — which is why diagnosis rests on faecal flotation, not on how the animals look.

Transmission is faecal-oral: rabbits ingest sporulated oocysts in contaminated feed or water. That sentence contains the whole control strategy. Anything that lets droppings reach feed, water or the cage floor — overcrowded pens, feeders low enough to sit in, hay dragged through soiled bedding — drives infection pressure up. Oocysts also resist most routine disinfectants; a 10% ammonia solution is lethal to them.

Ear canker is the other parasite every breeder meets. Psoroptes cuniculi produces serum and thick brown crusts in the ear canals; infested rabbits shake their heads, lose weight and produce less. It spreads by direct contact, so it travels along a row of cages. Treatment is well established — ivermectin at 200–400 µg/kg by injection, two or three treatments 10–21 days apart, or topical selamectin — but dosing, licensing and withdrawal periods vary by country.

Ulcerative pododermatitis — sore hocks — is a housing disease with a genetic component. It comes from pressure on the sole of the hind foot in wire-floored cages, or trauma when a rabbit stamps, followed by infection of the damaged skin. Rex rabbits are predisposed because they lack the longer guard hairs that protect the pads; Flemish Giants and Checkered Giants are at risk through weight. Across 664 commercial farms, Rosell and de la Fuente found mean prevalence of 7.5% in does and 5.2% in bucks — and farms using footrests ran 4.87% against 13.71% without.

Mastitis moves faster than almost anything else here. It affects lactating does and can progress to a septicaemia that kills quickly; treatment started on the first day the doe goes off feed is what saves her, which argues for checking feed intake daily during lactation. Dental malocclusion is the opposite — slow and inherited. It ranks as the commonest heritable disorder in the species, overgrowing incisors and cheek teeth until the animal struggles to eat, and is generally detectable at 3–8 weeks old. Check every kit's teeth at weaning.

Uterine adenocarcinoma is by far the most common tumour in rabbits, with incidence as high as 60% in intact does over three years old. In a working rabbitry that is a retirement-policy question: shrinking litters or a blood-stained discharge in an older doe deserve attention rather than another mating. For non-breeding pet rabbits, spaying at 4–6 months is the standard recommendation.

Heat stress deserves its own place because rabbits shed heat poorly and give little warning. The comfort range is 15.5–21 °C (50–70 °F) at 40–60% relative humidity, with a Fahrenheit rule of thumb that temperature in °F plus humidity in percent should not exceed 150. Utah State's producer guide notes that above roughly 29 °C (85 °F) heat stress sets in and bucks can go temporarily infertile.

• Shade and cross-ventilation first; a closed shed in still air is the worst case
• Cool water refreshed often, plus frozen bottles or ceramic tiles in the cage
• No handling or transport in the hottest hours — move work to early morning

No sign is diagnostic on its own, but a sign plus the animal's age plus how many are affected narrows things fast. The list below pairs the presentation you actually see with the condition it most often turns out to be.

Treat it as a triage aid, not a diagnosis. The first two lines justify stopping work; the rest can wait for the next inspection round.

• Several sudden deaths, little warning, sometimes blood at the nose → rabbit haemorrhagic disease. Stop moving animals and equipment; call a vet; reportable in many countries
• Swollen eyelids, nose and ears, milky eye discharge → myxomatosis. Check insect exposure
• Sneezing, thick white nasal discharge, crusted inner forelegs → pasteurellosis. Chronic cases are a culling decision
• Head tilt, loss of balance → middle- or inner-ear infection, often Pasteurella
• Head shaking, brown crusts in the ear canal → ear canker. Treat the whole row
• Diarrhoea in 4–8 week-old weanlings, dead overnight → enterotoxaemia. Review fibre and feed changes
• Poor growth and dull coat in young stock → coccidiosis. Confirm on faecal flotation
• Scabbed or ulcerated hind foot pads → pododermatitis. Check flooring, footrests, bedding, weight
• Lactating doe off feed, hot or hard mammary tissue → mastitis. Urgent
• Drooling, dropping food, weight loss with normal appetite → dental malocclusion
• Blood-stained discharge and shrinking litters in an older doe → uterine adenocarcinoma
• Rabbit stretched flat, flanks heaving, hot building → heat stress. Act immediately

Quarantine is the cheapest control measure available and the one most often skipped. Indiana's Board of Animal Health guidance is to keep new rabbits — and rabbits returning from a show — in a separate area for 30 days before any contact with the colony; Missouri's owner fact sheet sets a minimum of 10 days or as directed by a veterinarian, which makes 30 days the safer default. It only works if the routine holds: care for isolated and sick animals last, and dedicate feeders, tools, clothing and footwear to each group.

All-in/all-out is worth applying wherever the cycle allows. EFSA notes that the closed cycle of reproducing does does not permit complete all-in/all-out on a conventional farm, so the technique belongs to the fattening units, where a batch leaves and the room is emptied, cleaned, disinfected and rested before the next arrives. EFSA pairs this with dedicated areas for both sick and incoming animals.

Vector control targets two different insects for two different viruses. Flies move RHDV mechanically and do it well; fleas and mosquitoes transmit myxoma virus. That means screening buildings, eliminating standing water, running fly and rodent control, fencing out wild rabbits, housing cages off the ground, and — where wild rabbits are infected — not collecting outdoor forage or bedding. State guidance adds the mundane and effective: wash hands before and after handling, and keep rabbit-owning visitors out.

Disinfection fails when the cleaning step is skipped, because organic material protects the virus. Remove visible debris, wash with soap and water, rinse and dry, and only then disinfect: 10% household bleach (a 1:10 sodium hypochlorite dilution), 1% Virkon-S or an accelerated hydrogen peroxide product, allowing 10 minutes of contact. WOAH lists 0.5% sodium hypochlorite and substituted phenolics as effective against RHDV. Coccidial oocysts are the exception — they need a 10% ammonia solution.

None of this shows whether it is working — a log does. A mortality and treatment record turns scattered losses into a pattern: three deaths in one week in the same row of cages reads very differently from three deaths over six months. Penn State's guidance is to identify every rabbit by tattoo or ear tag and hold health information against it; RabbitBreeder keeps mortality and treatment entries per animal and per cage.