[The pathology of ther reproducing female rabbit: a comparative, descriptive study of morbidity phenomena observed during the reproduction o purebred strains of rabbit]. / Pathologie des lapines reproductrices: étude descriptive comparative des phénomènes morbides observés lors de la reproduction de deux souches pures de lapin.

ABSTRACT

We analysed the working life of purebred New Zealand, and Californian rabbit breeding does kept in identical conditions. Our study notes the health of the does as well as various factors affecting the survival rate of baby rabbits until weaning. After the first six months of rearing the productivity and the health of the two breeds were very different. The Californian females came through their first two gestations and lactations very well but more than half of them showed signs of respiratory ailments, and many had to be eliminated. Their first two litters were characterised by a low number of baby rabbits weaned as well as a large number of whole litters dead before weaning. The females of the New Zealand breed were in good health but then died suddenly at the end of gestation or in the middle of lactation; the surviving females raised practically their whole litter until weaning. The loss of animals is numerically fairly similar in the two breeds but takes on different farms. This comparative study of the elimination of the does, of their mortality, or of that of the baby rabbits during lactation leads us to the hypothesis that these three phenomena are probably different manifestations of the same pathological phenomena occurring early on, probably from the first gestation onwards.