[Suckling mortality in fattening rabbits in Switzerland]

The aims of this project were to determine mortality rate and aetiology of losses in suckling rabbits during the first 14 days of life. Post-mortem examinations were done on 1096 siblings from 8 conventional farms. Mortality rates varied from 0 to 17.0%. Main death causes were non-infectious and included stillbirth (13.9%), weakness due to reduced birth weight (3.0%), starvation (11.6%), runting (11.6%), cannibalism (0.5%) and scattering (7.9%). The last four causes mainly attributed to insufficient nursing by the doe. Only 21.8% of the losses were of infectious aetiology.