I. Infection route of colibacillosis in rabbits
Escherichia coli is widely present in nature, so rabbits suffering from colibacillosis can occur all year round. Improper feeding and management, deterioration of feed, sudden changes in feed or weather, and poor feeding environment may lead to changes in the normal microbial flora in the rabbit’s intestinal tract, reduce resistance, and cause Escherichia coli that often exists in the rabbit’s intestinal tract. The number increased sharply, causing colibacillosis in rabbits. In addition, rabbit colibacillosis can also be secondary to rabbit coccidiosis or other diseases.
Rabbits of all ages are susceptible to Escherichia coli infection and colibacillosis, but the disease mostly occurs in young rabbits aged 1 to 4 months, especially those before and after weaning. Mortality rates are higher. Adult rabbits are rarely affected.
II. Symptoms of Rabbit Colibacillosis
The main features of rabbit colibacillosis are watery or colloidal diarrhea and severe dehydration. die. Most of the sick rabbits will have the following symptoms in the early stage: listlessness, rough coat
, loss of appetite, distended abdomen, small feces, clusters, with jelly-like mucus, etc. Later, as the disease worsened, the sick rabbit developed watery diarrhea, and the coat of its anus and hind limbs was often stained with a lot of mucus or feces. At the same time, the sick rabbits will also have symptoms such as cold limbs, grinding teeth, drooling, sunken eye sockets, and rapid weight loss, and most of them die after a few days.
The most acute case of rabbit colibacillosis is sudden death without any symptoms before death. Most of the newborn rabbits suffer from acute colibacillosis, which usually occurs 5 to 7 days after birth. The sick newborn rabbits may discharge yellow-white watery feces, abdominal distension and other phenomena, and the mortality rate is high. Unweaned rabbits and young rabbits usually have severe diarrhea after illness, and discharge light yellow watery feces with mucus in the feces.
Three. Prevention and treatment of rabbit colibacillosis
1. Strengthen feeding management . After the onset of rabbit colibacillosis, the effect of treatment is not large, and the key is to take precautions in advance. The owner should strengthen the management at ordinary times. The disease has a lot to do with the feed and hygiene. Almost all cases are caused by the feed. Therefore, the main focus of feeding is to mix the rabbit feed reasonably to ensure that the rabbit has enough crude fiber and control the feed reasonably. The energy and protein levels in the rabbits; check the feed before feeding to ensure that the feed is hygienic and there is no mold; do not change the rabbit feed suddenly, if you want to change it, it should take a week to replace it gradually. At the same time, pay attention to avoid high humidity in the rabbit house and keep the rabbit house dry and clean.
2. Maintain food hygiene and environmental hygiene. Disinfect the rabbit house regularly. Escherichia coli is not very resistant and can generally be killed with disinfectants. The owner usually regularly disinfects the rabbit house to keep the rabbit house hygienic. Care must also be taken to prevent contamination of feed and drinking water by mosquitoes, flies and rats.
3. Do a good job in immune prevention. For young rabbits after weaning, certain medicines can be added to their feed, such as ditrine, oxaquinol, norfloxacin or chloramphenicol, etc., to give it necessary disease prevention measures. Or adding an appropriate amount of 0.5% to 1% probiotics to the feed and feeding the rabbits for 5 to 7 days can help prevent colibacillosis. For rabbit farms where rabbit colibacillosis often occurs, rabbits can be immunized with multivalent inactivated rabbit colibacillosis vaccine or multiple vaccines.
