If you do, I am feel less old now, so thank you! Basically, it was part of NBC's public servant announcements back in the day featuring education messages, like the one I am hoping to present today by showing you rabbit eyeballs. The point is essentially that the more you know, the better off you'll be.
That said, I'm (ass)uming that everyone knows what a healthy rabbit eye looks like. If not, google is your friend. Or you can look at any of the dozens of pictures on my blog for examples of healthy rabbits with healthy eyeballs. This is what Valkyrie has currently:
Doesn't look that dramatic right? Ignore the little eye booger on the left- it isn't drainage of any kind, just everyone is blowing their coat and the hair is everywhere.
The thing is, when you get the bright lights out and look closer, Houston, we have a problem (*cry*):
See the diffuse cloudiness on the right side of the pic? Also it is hard to tell, but the other eye looks like it may have some pressure issues also that I found. I used the red line to show that it appears to extend out farther than it should when compared to my other rabbits.
The hazy/cloudy part looks almost identical on Kurayami and is significantly more opaque on Kari and is across the whole eyeball. I am not sure if Kurayami and Valkyrie are blind in the worse eyes, but I know Kari is and it doesn't seem to have any effect on her or her behavior. None of the 3 does exhibit any signs of pain or discomfort whatsoever and continue to show a complete lack of other signs or symptoms of a problem.
I just wanted to share all of this in case it would be helpful to anyone else as we explore yet another health problem in our breed. I have added regular eye examinations with a penlight to the schedule for all of our growouts, so hopefully we can still isolate and eliminate the problem at some point, though my husband still doesn't see the point of continuing with this breed anyway, lol. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend and thanks for looking!
This is interesting (but still sad). What are you looking for in the growouts when you shine the light in their eye? Sorry you are dealing with this. I know it's a blow after all your hard work. Hopefully it doesn't carry over into your replacement stock.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it is very unfortunate. I'm looking for a gap between the eye and the external layer that could indicate pressure problems, a blown pupil, any kind of cloudiness, haziness, or anything that looks at all abnormal. Hoping we can keep moving forward and I am sure you are feeling the same way right now. Super sorry about Babette *hugs*
DeleteOh dear! It looks sort of like cataracts huh? Poor things, did you say this is a Harlequin breed thing? I tell you, it's so hard breeding purebred rabbits. So many troubles that can and do crop up in pure animal breeds of any species it seems like. Have you entertained the thought (horror of horrors) of out crossing to another breed to get a bit of hybrid vigor and then trying to get back to the Harlequin standard? I know that is a whole big project. I know it would take several (several!) generations to get back.....
ReplyDeleteI found this to be quite interesting...
http://users.tamuk.edu/kfsdl00/rabb.html
Of course I know you like to show a bit, and out crossing wouldn't work for that, but if you could get a solid, healthy meat rabbit with Harlie colors wouldn't that be awesome! :)
Ps, what I found interesting was the middle section about Dr. Lukefahr...
DeleteI know for sure it isn't cataracts, but I do think it is glaucoma unfortunately. Here is a pic of cataracts in rabbits for comparison:
Deletehttp://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Eye_diseases/Disorder/Cat_juvenile/juv5.jpg
My does seem to have fine lenses, but the overall eye is getting hazy and/or enlarged. I guess we will go ahead and treat for E. cuniculi, but I really don't think only 3 immediate relatives would be affected in adulthood and none of my other rabbits. Then again, I'm not sure that we would have much to lose except maybe the does if they have a problem with the wormer. I think they have to be culls at this point anyway, which is a very sad thing for us.
Thanks for the interesting link though. I am not a purist at all and have no problem crossbreeding to improve my own stock. At one point, I was actually planning to breed NZR x Harlie years ago, but the project didn't pan out. The problem is that with a color/pattern breed like Harlequins, I may be adding in a bunch of stuff I don't want that could be hidden in the breed I am trying to use. Like how steels and agouti pops out of NZB breedings. A breeder out West ended up with a bunch of torted Harlies when he did this also and I think he is still trying to figure out who is carrying what. Interesting research project, but not in the breed standard for sure, hehe. My hubby and I are still considering it though as we are limited on genetics and this eye thing is another monkey wrench into the plans for sure. Thank you!
Oops, I forgot to answer one of your questions- as far as I know it isn't a problem specific to Harlequins, but magpie lines were from chinchilla originally and it is a known problem in NZ, which may have been introduced at any point beyond the pedigrees I have now. It usually comes from NZW from what I read.
DeleteIf you are willing/able to get new Harlequins, there are some breeders who have made amazing strides in the breed as far as health and body type. They aren't nearby but the FB Harlie page often has people willing to offer transport.
DeleteI would offer you one of the Japanese kits from my recent litter but they have Magpie lineage and could ruin your color. :\
Thank you, but we are very hesitant to pursue buying rabbits from out of state after our previous bad experiences.
DeleteThanks for the offer! Do you know of any literature that talks about how the chin gene messes the color up or any idea how long it takes to correct? I've never attempted to cross colors before and I'm having trouble finding factual info on it.
Honestly I have had trouble finding information also. There are some who believe it is the actual magpie genes, others who say it will lighten the rufus on Japanese but I can find little information.
DeleteMost of the people I have seen crossing colors are doing it to improve a magpie program. My previous belief was that magpie would lighten the color of Japanese, but that does not seem to be completely true. I have a 3 week old out of a chocolate Japanese doe (out of a Japanese-only line sire and mag/Japanese line dam) and a blue magpie sire (out of 3 gens of magpie) with pretty good orange. The other 2 Japanese in this litter are dilutes so their color is lighter anyway so I can't accurately say how it affects rufus myself. 2 have white spots and 1 has a lighter area that may be more apparently white when it gets out of the fluffy baby stage.
Thank you for the link, I can see the difference better now!
ReplyDelete