Constipative Mucoid Enteropathy – Rabbit

Also known as:

Mucoid Enteritis, Rabbit Mucoid Enteropathy (RME)

A disease of weanlings previously referred to as mucoid enteritis, Rabbit Mucoid Enteropathy (RME), and now regarded as a dysautonomia analogous to grass sickness in horses and hares.

Incidence

Juveniles and weanlings 6 – 14 weeks of age but also reported by Whitwell (1997) up to 8 months old.

Clinical Signs

Some or all of:

• Depressed appetite gradually developing into anorexia
• Depression
• Pain
• Large bowel impaction
• Passage of mucus,
• Bilateral mydriasis,
• Dryness of mucous membranes and conjunctiva,
• Loss of anal tone,
• Bradycardia (<100 bpm)
• Urinary incontinence,
• Proprioceptive defects ,
• Caecal impaction
• Abdominal bloat
• Pneumonia

Pathology

• Distension/impaction of the small intestine
• Large bowel impaction
• Mucus in colon and rectum
• Variable microbiological isolations from gut contents, usually aerobic
• Coincident parasitological burden (Eimeria stiedae) (cholangitis)

Histology

• Polyganglionopathy with dying neurones, chromatolytic in mesenteric autonomic ganglia
• Chromatolytic changes also seen in the brain and spinal cord
• Neuronal vacuolation

Treatment

• Once the disease has been diagnosed treatment is usually pointless but o

Oral fluids and supportive therapy, as detailed in the article on acute diarrhoea of the young, newly acquired rabbit, may help.

References

• Whitwell, K. E. (1997) Mucoid Enteropathy: A new perspective. Procs Rabbit Welfare Fund Conference Watford