Constipative Mucoid Enteropathy – Rabbit

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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

References

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