Constipative Mucoid Enteropathy – Rabbit

Also known as Mucoid Enteritis, Rabbit Mucoid Enteropathy (RME), Dysautonomia

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 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