Can anyone tell me what it is.

[Guss33 375]

Being catching a lot of rabbits with their livers looking like this. The rabbits look good and healthy but we don’t eat them , we give them to the dogs. Is it just a fatty buildup is their any body out their that has seen the same or could tell me what it is. 

[comanche 3,025]

3 hours ago, Guss33 said:

Being catching a lot of rabbits with their livers looking like this. The rabbits look good and healthy but we don’t eat them , we give them to the dogs. Is it just a fatty buildup is their any body out their that has seen the same or could tell me what it is. 

 I've always put it down to Coccidiosis .

Edited November 25, 2022 by comanche

[Arry 21,948]

Think it might be tape worm cyst's.

We used call it spotted liver rabbits caught in wet ground areas. Christ knows if thats right.

Cheers Arry

[Luckee legs 471]

What's it look like cutting open the liver? I've not seen that on livers before but it's not unusual to see similar looking white flecks in cysts in rabbit muscles. Those muscle cysts are a life stage of a protozoan parasite and I don't feed those rabbits to ferrets. So I don't know about livers but fat accumulation around kidneys comes away leaving no mark on the kidney or skin

[chartpolski 23,740]

Liver fluke ?

Cheers.

[Ferretman65 2,253]

6 hours ago, chartpolski said:

Liver fluke ?

Cheers.

Looks very like it to me 

[paulus 26]

It could be anyone of the 3 conditions mentioned above, if the rabbits are from pasture land i would go with the parasitic ones as i remember an old boy telling me that the rabbits caught the parasite from where snails had been traveling in the wet grass, Could be a load of old baloney though as he was pissed at the time  

[Guss33 375]

Went out again today to a different spot and still found the same thing with the rabbits and as someone had asked I have cut the liver in half and it is right through it. 

[comanche 3,025]

57 minutes ago, Guss33 said:

Went out again today to a different spot and still found the same thing with the rabbits and as someone had asked I have cut the liver in half and it is right through it. 

That sort of cirrhosis is quite common in rabbits . 

Without a vetinary inspection you'll never know but it doesn't look like fluke

My money is still on the coccidiosis  parasite but that's  a good bet because all rabbits carry it .   It affects little rabbits badly  but as they age they aquire a level of immunity. After that the cocci and similar parasites usually only erupt to dangerous levels in older rabbits under stressful conditions. Which could include  chills caused by damp  weather and that rabbits' digestive system  is not designed for wet food. 

Scarred livers don't  necessarily indicate that the rabbits are suffering as they might  indicate recovery from past  infection  .

It's  also possible  that  there may be more than one factor affecting the rabbit at the same time. So without a microscope and vetinary training it's  hard to know for sure.

As my rabbit farming book says " The carcasses are fine to eat but the delicious livers go to waste ."

 

 

The liver scarring might well 

 

[Aussie Whip 4,103]

1 hour ago, comanche said:

Which could include  chills caused by damp  weather and that rabbits' digestive system  is not designed for wet food. 

That would make sense, we have had unusually wet weather over here for almost 2 years in a lot of places.

[Guss33 375]

How bad is is coccidiosis would you feed them to your dogs or ferrets as I have being letting old mate who I go out with taking them and he has bing them to his dogs and ferrets.  I also appreciate all the feed back.  

[Bobtheferret 1,248]

I have fed lots of these to my ferrets with no issue, I bet you could eat them yourself but I haven’t.

[Guss33 375]

No if the livers are not Rossy red I would not be eating them that was the way I was brought up and it has just the way I have been  

 

 

[The one 8,482]

Lob the livers freeze the rabbits for 3 weeks and then feed them ?. The freezing kills everything else 

[Netmaker 909]

 

 its Liver fluke