Rabbit Enteropathies on Commercial Farms in the Iberian Peninsula: Etiological Agents Identified in 2018–2019

Abstract

Digestive disorders are the main cause of economic damage to rabbit farms. This article provides a global and updated overview of the diverse etiological agents causing them, since 757 clinical cases were analyzed during 2018 and 2019-Ninety-five from young rabbits (<15 days old), 117 from preweaning rabbits (15-35 days old), and 545 from growing rabbits. Etiological diagnosis was carried out by bacteriological culture and a set of real time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) tests for the detection of enteropathogenic <i>Escherichia coli</i> (EPEC), <i>Clostridium spiroforme</i>, <i>C. perfringens</i>, rotavirus A, <i>Bacteroides fragilis</i>, and <i>Eimeria</i> spp. Also, 40 EPEC and 38 non EPEC isolates were investigated for the presence of other colonization factors (<i>afr2</i>, <i>ral</i>, <i>liftA</i>, and <i>paa</i>) by qPCR. EPEC is the most prevalent agent in young rabbits, and although different virulence profiles have been found among EPEC isolates, the <i>liftA+</i>, <i>ral</i>+, and <i>paa</i>+ profile is the most prevalent. <i>C. spiroforme</i> and EPEC are the more frequently detected pathogens in preweaning rabbits, but <i>B. fragilis</i> appears to be a new possible emergent pathogen. In growing rabbits, diverse co-infections between <i>C. spiroforme</i>, <i>Eimeria</i> spp., EPEC, and rotavirus are much more frequent than infections due to only one of them. Other pathogens detected in very few cases are <i>Salmonella</i> spp. and <i>Enterococcus hirae</i>.