What’s killing ‘my’ rabbits?

[LimaDelta]

We get a lot of rabbits in the garden. Since I’m not much of a gardener I just let them do their rabbit thing. The strange thing is that once or twice a year (in fact, three already this year) we are finding dead bunnies. The latest, today had bled out but showed very little tissue damage. We have had chickens taken by foxes in the past, but this happened in broad daylight and foxes are pretty rare around here anyway (right out in the sticks, surrounded by farmland). The chickens however were devoured completely save a feather or two. These rabbits when found are pretty much intact. My only other thought is a domestic cat, but they are big bunnies. The one today wasn’t much smaller than the average moggy.

Any ideas?

[Shuvi McTupya]

Maybe they caught bugs?

[Brads67]

What do you mean "bled out "

You have the obvious myxomatosis but you can't mis the signs of that , but you also now have VHD but they tend to die underground with that.

[LimaDelta]

No, not Mixi. Lots of fresh blood today so definitely some trauma rather than a disease. Just strange that they are not being eaten.

[Brads67]

VHD

Say goodbye to your rabbits as it will hammer them.

[LimaDelta]

Brads67 said:

VHD

Say goodbye to your rabbits as it will hammer them.

Having googled that it looks like it could be. Better get shooting...

[Ed/L152]

Have you put any rat poison down?

[LimaDelta]

Ed/L152 said:

Have you put any rat poison down?

Nope.

[ILikeCake]

We had a similar problem. Loved getting rabbits in the garden. I even started feeding them. Randomly I happened to discover that they absolutely loved a cheese toastie, and I used to put a couple out every evening. One day I didn't have any cheese, so put out a ham toastie instead. Next day, all the bunnies were dead. Couldn't believe it.

Asked a vet and it turned out they died from mixing-my-toasties.

[TimmyMallett]

I found one outside my house last week, looked stone cold dead but no sign of trauma. I took it inside and showed it to my brother.

I explained about the bunny. He said he knew what could help. I handed it to him and he took it outside, siphoned some fuel out of his car and carefully trickled it into the frozen rabbit's mouth.

Like a shot, it jumped up, ran round the garden a dozen times and then just stopped flat in it's tracks and keeled over.

I asked if he thought it was dead.

He said "No, it just ran out of petrol"

[Brads67]

[willld]

LimaDelta said:

We get a lot of rabbits in the garden. Since I’m not much of a gardener I just let them do their rabbit thing. The strange thing is that once or twice a year (in fact, three already this year) we are finding dead bunnies. The latest, today had bled out but showed very little tissue damage. We have had chickens taken by foxes in the past, but this happened in broad daylight and foxes are pretty rare around here anyway (right out in the sticks, surrounded by farmland). The chickens however were devoured completely save a feather or two. These rabbits when found are pretty much intact. My only other thought is a domestic cat, but they are big bunnies. The one today wasn’t much smaller than the average moggy.

Any ideas?

Stoat, weasel or similar. Pretty efficient bunny terminators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODEUK5sB5vE