Rabbit health, step by step
Interactive lesson: a daily look, prevention, the hands-on check, vaccination, coccidiosis and first aid for heatstroke.
Free sample Chapters 1 and 2 (8 steps) are free. The full lesson comes with the Health without chemicals module. Already bought? Unlock
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The whole lesson as text
1. A look every day
A rabbit is prey, so it hides illness for as long as it can.
- How it sits — A healthy rabbit is curious, comes for food and grooms. A sick one sits hunched in a corner, fur staring, and grinds its teeth.
- Eating and drinking — A healthy rabbit eats hay and pellets straight away. If it doesn't eat, or eats only treats, something is wrong.
- Droppings under the hutch — A healthy rabbit leaves plenty of round, dry pellets. Small pellets, few or no droppings, soft or slimy droppings are signs of illness.
- Don't wait until tomorrow — A rabbit that hasn't eaten or passed droppings for half a day is an emergency. Call the vet straight away; don't leave it until tomorrow.
Why: By the time a rabbit sits hunched in a corner and won't eat, it has often been ill for days. That's why health doesn't start with medicine but with a look morning and evening: is it eating, drinking, are there droppings, how is it breathing and how is it sitting.
- With rabbits, time runs shorter than with other animals. Half a day for a rabbit is like two days for a goat.
- Normal breathing is calm, through the nose, 30–60 a minute. Fast breathing through the mouth is a bad sign.
2. Prevention before cure
Most illness on a small homestead comes from the same four mistakes.
- Hay ad lib — Hay ad lib and slow changes of feed. That way most gut problems disappear.
- Dry, clean floor — The floor is dry and the feeders are clean. Droppings and urine must not get into food and water.
- Air without ammonia — Air without ammonia and without draughts. Bad air and dust open the door to snuffles.
- 30 days of quarantine — Every new rabbit at least 30 days in quarantine, and you feed and clean it after your own. Back from a show or a neighbour's: change your clothes and wash your hands.
Why: Too little hay, a wet and dirty floor, ammonia and draughts, and a new rabbit with no quarantine. Once those four are right, two viral diseases remain that only a vaccine helps against.
- Don't handle other people's rabbits before your own. Boots and clothes carry RHD and coccidia.
- A doe coming back from mating with someone else's buck is kept apart for 3–4 weeks.
3. The hands-on check · Locked
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4. Myxomatosis and RHD · Locked
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5. Coccidiosis and the gut · Locked
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6. Heatstroke · Locked
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