Mastitis on Rabbit Farms: Prevalence and Risk Factors

Mastitis has been a subject of interest on rabbit farms. To better understand various aspects of this disease, we evaluated the work done during 2001–2017, on 531 farms in Spain and Portugal. We measured the cases of mastitis on the days of visit, with the examination of lactating females. We found an average of 4% of mastitic does; they were mostly chronic forms, since females with acute mastitis often die in a few hours. Several factors affect the occurrence of mastitis. For example, rabbit lines have different susceptibilities. The number of batches per maternity barn also influences the occurrence of disease; therefore, a single batch is better, or the duo system, which consists of moving females near parity to a clean and disinfected room. In the last 200 visited farms, we found that injectable antimicrobials were often used for the mastitis control, in addition to the hygiene practices (for example, culling diseased does and avoiding their kits being fostered)