Is enterotoxaemia in grasscutters (Thryonomys swinderianus) caused by C. perfringens toxovars?

In 1985, in a colony of domesticated grasscutters in Cotonou/Benin (West Africa), an endemic disease that caused severe losses of up to 50 percent of the population was found. The animals regularly showed a necrotic small intestine and strongly reddened and granulated (like a raspberry) Peyer's plaques of the whole small intestine protruding into the intestinal lumen; the latter has never been described in other necrotic enteriditis caused by C. perfringens. In further investigations (Schrägle and Müller, 1989), C. perfringens strains were typed and isolated from the faeces of healthy animals, and 81.6% belonging to the type C were found, a type that causes severe necrotic enteritis in pigs. Two figures show the pathologic-anatomic findings. Meanwhile, the disease was eradicated by the use of a prophylactic vaccination.