Emeriosis, or coccidiosis, is the most common invasive disease of young rabbits that damages the digestive organs. Mortality among young animals reaches almost one hundred percent. Most often, rabbits from one to five months are affected. Due to eimeriosis, many farms are closed and the number of animals is significantly reduced.
Emeriosis rabbits. Parasitology
The disease occurs due to intracellular parasites of the coccidia subclass. The causative agents of eimeriosis are more often parasitic in the intestine; eight different types of eimeria affecting intestinal epithelial cells have been reported. It is also possible parasitism in the walls, mucous membrane and liver parenchyma. Young rabbits are affected, but are often found in adults, for whom these parasites are not so harmful.
Protected by a shell from environmental factors, the oocyst is able to exist for a long time in the environment and is highly resistant to high and low temperatures, due to which infection is possible even in a place where animals that have not been sick for a long time have been infected. The distributor of the parasite is sick rabbits. Also, the cause of the disease can be litter, fleas and ticks, mice and rats. Rabbit emeriosis is most common in summer and late spring, at high average daily temperatures. In late autumn and winter, the incidence of diseases is significantly reduced.
Pathogen development cycle
The development of the causative agent of eimeriosis in rabbits is very complex. The parasite enters the body of the animal with food, in the form of protected repositories of asexual individuals of the parasite - oocysts. After passing through the gastrointestinal tract, the oocyst membranes are destroyed, and parasites enter the intestinal lumen. Fixing themselves on the walls begin to rapidly increase their number. A multinucleated cell emerges from the sporozoite, forming the first asexual generation. In turn, they reintroduce into the intestinal wall and after reproduction, sexual individuals of eimeria - hemets appear.
The sexual specimens of parasites, varying in size, combine into a zygote, forming a protected membrane containing sporozoites, an oocyst. It leaves during the act of defecation with feces outside, and is attached to the feed, gets into the water, remains on the rabbits' wool and their litter. Invasive oocysts enter the gastrointestinal tract of other rabbits, where they again begin their life cycle. That is why eimeriosis of rabbits and other farm animals is very dangerous. If one animal is infected, the parasites will quickly spread among all the others.
Symptoms of eimeriosis
The disease can occur in the intestinal, hepatic or combined enterohepatic stage, which is particularly dangerous. In farms, most often it is a mixed form of the disease. Rabbit emeriosis can be acute, chronic or subacute. Chronic manifestation most often occurs in the process of caprophagy - eating your own litter.
Sick rabbits become lethargic, weakness occurs. The animal will spend a lot of time on the stomach. Appetite disappears, stomach swells, stop moving. The mucous membranes become whitish. Wool sticks out in all directions, there is no shine of wool.
Over time, the rabbits begin to eat a lot, then badly vomit, multiple urination appears. Fecal matter may contain blood. The growth of rabbits is significantly slowed down, the mass decreases. The general depressed state comes to the absence of a reaction to external stimuli. The mucous membranes may become coated with yellow films. Cramps and twitching are possible, especially before the case of rabbits.
Pathological changes
With eimeriosis of rabbits, the corpses of animals will differ in thinness. The mucous membranes are either extreme whiteness or a pronounced yellow color. At autopsy, severely affected areas of the liver and intestines will be pronounced. The mucous membrane is very inflamed, there will be many films and lumps of whitish-yellow in color. Blood splashes are possible, in some places the intestines will be covered with severe ulcers and necrosis. Also often affected areas of organs are covered with pus.
With liver damage, its size will be much larger than normal. It is possible to see small external branches, brown or yellow. They contain a huge amount of parasites ready to exit the animal’s body.
How to find out that rabbits are sick with eimeriosis?
Diagnosis of eimeriosis in rabbits takes place in several stages. First, confirmation of the external symptoms of rabbit coccidiosis is necessary. Next, it is necessary to conduct a clinical examination of animals. After that, according to the method of Fulleborn-Darling-Shcherbovich fecal masses of sick animals are checked for the presence of parasite oocysts in them. In the feces, you can detect any stage of development of the parasite. This is done in order to distinguish eimeriosis from other diseases with similar symptoms.
From dead animals, scrapings can be taken from the intestines, bile ducts of the liver. An autopsy is possible in order to take scrapings from the walls and liver parenchyma. If nodules are found in the process, they are used to make a preparation for microscopic examination. In the process of research, a fairly medium or small increase. If characteristic white and gray spots are visible under the microscope, then the chance is high that eimeriosis is in rabbits.
How to cure sick rabbits from eimeriosis?
Treating eimeriosis in rabbits is difficult because rabbits can eat litter to supplement Group B vitamins in the body. Due to this, the infection process is constantly ongoing. To stop this process, it is necessary to separate diseased rabbits from healthy individuals, and cells with healthy rabbits should be thoroughly cleaned of feces and replace the litter. Sick rabbits should be placed for the entire treatment period in cells with a mesh floor to stop caprophagy. The amount of time spent on walks with animals should also be increased to the maximum.
What chemotherapy drugs are used to treat rabbit eimeriosis?
In the treatment of rabbits, it is important to use drugs to remove parasites from the body. The histology of eimeriosis of rabbits is shown above (on a photo). Depending on the age and weight of the animals, the veterinarian prescribes individual dosages for each animal. Coccidiosis in rabbits can be treated with the following drugs: Phthalazole, Norsulfazole, Sulfapyridazine, Monomycin, Tricholop. In the treatment of rabbits, you may need to repeat the course of taking the medicine.
Prevention of eimeriosis in healthy rabbits
First of all, to prevent the disease of rabbits, it is necessary to reduce the possibility of caprophagy - eating your own litter. To do this, it will be enough to plant animals in cages with a mesh floor. It is necessary to increase the area of rabbits in the cells. Cramped spaces are far more likely to become infected.
After switching to solid food, young animals are best placed in a separate cage, for them eimeriosis is much more dangerous than for adult animals. A weak body is not able to cope with complications of coccidiosis, so the mortality rate of young animals is so high. Chemoprophylaxis with sulfanilamide group preparations before isolation of young animals from the majority of rabbits may also be necessary.
From time to time it is necessary to clean the habitat of animals from parasites, for example, using high temperatures. Eimeria oocysts do not withstand temperatures well above 55 degrees Celsius. You can perform cleaning with boiling water, alkaline solutions or other liquids heated to a temperature above 60 degrees. It is also possible to de-invasive using a gas burner flame or blowtorch, the main condition is high temperature, and it does not matter how it is achieved.