Parasitic Diseases

This chapter discusses the parasitic diseases in rabbits and their prevention methods. Rabbits serve not only as an important animal species for biomedical research but also as a common food source for people throughout the globe. Over the past several decades, great attention has been paid to controlling and eliminating the parasitic diseases of rabbits with the goal of making them more suitable animals for the laboratory environment as well as to increase their meat production capacity. Maintaining excellent levels of hygiene is especially critical with treating, controlling, and or/preventing parasitic infections in rabbits. The use of nonsolid flooring, along with proper sanitation, has been noted to decrease the level of fecal-borne parasites in rabbits today compared to other housing systems. Commercial vendors of research-exclusive rabbits in North America are mostly located in the eastern United States and Canada. Coccidiosis is considered to be one of the most important diseases of rabbits worldwide, affecting wild rabbits and domestic rabbits used for research, meat production, and companionship. Prevention is primarily through acquiring only coccidia-free animals and maintaining good sanitation. The severity of clinical disease is dependent on the amount of infective agent present, the susceptibility of the animal, and the pathogenicity of the agent. Subclinical infections can exist with no clinical signs. Diarrhea is the main clinical sign of disease associated with all of the intestinal coccidia species.