What Raising Meat Rabbits Teaches You About Health, Disease & Culling

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I recently came across an old rabbit processing and pathology guide that I had saved, and looking through it reminded me just how much raising your own meat animals teaches you.

When you raise rabbits from birth through harvest, you learn what normal looks like. You learn how a healthy rabbit carries weight, what healthy organs should look like, which symptoms deserve a closer look, and when something simply isn't right.

You also learn that raising a healthy herd isn't just about treating illness. Sometimes it's about deciding which animals should—and shouldn't—produce the next generation.

The processing guide covers everything from carcass inspection to coccidiosis, pneumonia, snuffles, colitis, conjunctivitis, and several less common diseases. It recommends examining not only the outside of the carcass, but the flesh and body cavities, kidneys, liver, other viscera, heart and lungs for abnormalities.

That is something I can't stress enough:

Knowing what normal looks like is just as important as knowing what disease looks like.

Coccidiosis: One We See and Watch For

Coccidiosis is probably one of the conditions most familiar to rabbit raisers, particularly when raising young rabbits.

There are intestinal and hepatic—or liver—forms of coccidiosis. The processing guide describes hepatic coccidiosis as being spread through ingestion of contaminated feces and commonly presenting as nodules on the liver. Interestingly, the guide specifically identifies a liver affected by hepatic coccidiosis as condemnable under inspected processing.

On our farm, we've found that coccidiosis and weaning enteritis can initially look very similar.

Young rabbits may develop a pot-bellied or bloated appearance while simultaneously losing condition. You can begin feeling that loss of mass along the spine, and appetite often decreases.

When we see those symptoms, coccidia is one of the things we consider and treat for. A rabbit already compromised by another issue is more susceptible, and we are particularly conscious of it with rabbits housed outdoors, during periods with a heavy fly load in the barn, and when feeding fresh greens collected outside.

At harvest, the liver tells you a lot.

Our standards for what enters our own freezer are intentionally strict. If we find only a few suspected coccidia spots localized to the liver, we discard the liver. If the liver is extensively affected, we don't keep that rabbit for our own table.

We also never feed a contaminated liver to another animal on the farm. Coccidia are generally host/species-specific, but our philosophy is pretty simple:

Why risk it?

The federal inspection rules included in the guide make a similar distinction with parasites that are not transmissible to humans: localized affected portions may sometimes be removed and condemned, while extensive parasitic involvement can result in condemnation of an entire organ, part, or carcass depending on its distribution and severity.

A Note About Treatment

We have used toltrazuril for coccidia in rabbits and young poultry and Corid (amprolium) in adult stock.

There is an important distinction here when talking about rabbits intended for food.

Toltrazuril does not have an FDA-established meat withdrawal interval for rabbits. On our farm, we have historically used a conservative 30-day waiting period before harvesting a treated rabbit. That is our farm practice, not an FDA-established withdrawal time.

Anyone raising animals for food should verify medication use and appropriate withdrawal intervals with a veterinarian rather than assuming that someone else's farm practice constitutes an official withdrawal period.

Snuffles—and Why a Sneeze Isn't Automatically Snuffles

Another familiar rabbit problem is what we commonly call snuffles.

The processing guide describes snuffles as a lifelong condition associated with bacteria including Pasteurella and Staphylococcus, affecting the nasal sinuses and tear ducts. Symptoms can include yellowish nasal discharge, runny or weepy eyes, respiratory distress and, in severe cases, pneumonia. The guide also specifically states that advanced stages of snuffles are condemnable in inspected slaughter under 9 CFR 354.130. 

One thing experience teaches you, though, is:

Not every sneeze is snuffles.

Rabbits stick their faces into hay. They inhale dust. They occasionally get water or other irritants in their noses. A sneeze by itself doesn't tell the whole story.

We're much more concerned when we're seeing the characteristic white or yellow nasal discharge, repeated sneezing and sometimes watery eyes along with it. Many rabbits can carry respiratory bacteria without appearing sick, with clinical problems becoming more apparent when an animal is stressed or its immune defenses are compromised.

That is why we watch the whole rabbit, not one isolated symptom.

Mooneye, Cataracts & Problems That Don't Show Up at Birth

Not every reason for culling involves infectious disease.

One example we've dealt with is what rabbit breeders often call mooneye—a cloudy, cataract-like appearance over the eye.

In our experience, it doesn't necessarily show itself immediately. We've seen cataracts appear from around weaning through six months of age and even approaching a year. It may affect one eye or both, giving the affected eye that characteristic cloudy or "moon" appearance.

When we believe we're dealing with a hereditary defect, we don't want to perpetuate it.

And that's an important part of livestock breeding that sometimes gets misunderstood:

Culling does not automatically mean killing.

Culling means removing an animal from the breeding herd. A rabbit that doesn't meet our breeding goals may still be perfectly healthy. Depending upon why it was culled, it might still have another appropriate purpose.

Our responsibility as breeders isn't simply to produce more rabbits. It's to make thoughtful decisions about which rabbits should produce the next generation.

What We Look for in Our Rex

We try our best to breed toward the Rex standard and preserve the characteristics that make Rex rabbits special.

Rex are a commercial body type. We're looking for short shoulders, good deep loins and wide footing. We try to move away from long, low shoulders, pinched feet and narrow or shallow loins.

We also look beyond body shape.

Correct teeth matter. Sound feet matter. Our rabbits have rest mats available on their cage floors, but we still watch for animals with a disposition toward developing sore hocks. If we're repeatedly seeing a physical weakness, that's something we don't want to deliberately breed forward.

Color?

We certainly have our favorites—but color isn't our priority.

Health, structure, function and bettering the breed come first.

And then there's mothering ability.

We have a very simple rule for that one:

We have zero tolerance for eating your children.

A doe that eats her litter is not retained in our breeding program. First litter, last litter, none. We want good mothering instincts in our Rex, and that's something we believe deserves to be selected for just as deliberately as body type.

A Breeding Cull Isn't Necessarily a Meat Cull

This distinction is important.

A rabbit with shoulders that are too long, a loin that isn't deep enough for our breeding goals, an undesirable color, or another structural trait we don't want to reproduce may still be an entirely healthy meat rabbit.

Health problems are different.

One particularly firm rule we follow came after the advice of a longtime veterinarian:

We do not keep rabbits for human consumption when we find unhealthy kidneys at harvest.

Our reasoning has remained very simple:

If it's in the blood, it's in the rabbit.

That's our farm standard. It isn't meant to replace veterinary diagnosis or USDA inspection standards. It's simply where we've chosen to draw our line.

And the kidneys really are something worth looking at. The processing guide specifically instructs carcass inspectors to examine them for hemorrhages, necrotic tissue, adhesions and enlargement. It likewise recommends checking the liver for abnormalities and examining the other organs, lungs, heart, flesh and body cavities.

Processing your own animals gives you an opportunity to see those things.

Don't waste it.

Sometimes the Animal Tells You Something Was Wrong

One thing I appreciated about finding this old guide again was seeing how often inspection isn't simply a matter of "disease = throw everything away."

For example, the guide shows a rabbit with hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver, where the liver was condemned but the remaining carcass passed inspection. It also shows a suspected bladder infection where there was no evidence that the kidneys or other parts of the rabbit were affected; that carcass passed as well.

On the other hand, the regulations included in the guide list conditions such as acute enteritis, septicemia, peritonitis, tuberculosis, emaciation and advanced snuffles among conditions requiring carcass condemnation in inspected rabbits.

That's why learning to process livestock shouldn't end at learning where to make your cuts.

Look at the animal. Look at the organs. Look at the carcass.

Ask yourself whether something is different from what you've seen in healthy animals.

And when you're uncertain, don't gamble with food safety.

Bettering the Herd One Generation at a Time

Culling can sound harsh to someone unfamiliar with livestock, but good breeding requires selection.

If we kept every rabbit simply because it was born here, we'd also be knowingly preserving poor structure, undesirable hereditary traits, bad mothering instincts and other problems.

That's not what we want for our Rex.

Every generation should be an opportunity to make the next one a little better: healthier animals, stronger bodies, good feet, correct teeth, deep loins, good mothers and rabbits that retain the characteristics that make the Rex breed what it is.

There will always be things outside of our control. Disease happens. Genetic problems occasionally appear. A promising young rabbit sometimes grows into something completely different than expected.

The important thing is paying attention—and being willing to make decisions based on what the rabbit in front of you is telling you.

Because whether we're selecting tomorrow's breeding stock or inspecting tonight's dinner, the principle is really the same:

Know what healthy looks like.

This article reflects our own experiences raising and harvesting rabbits alongside information contained in a rabbit processing and pathology guide. Our individual farm practices are not a substitute for veterinary advice, medication guidance, or federal/state meat-inspection requirements.

Signing off. Yours Truly,

May's Hobby Farm