Constipative Mucoid Enteropathy – Rabbit
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| 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