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RHDV2 Prevention
While the Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease Virus (RHDV2) has not been detected in Santa Barbara County yet, it is important for all rabbit owners to take precautions to protect their rabbits.
Even if there are no wild rabbits in your area, the virus can be transmitted by flying insects, scavenging animals (birds, etc.), and tracked in on shoes. For these reasons, it is important to bring rabbits inside, prevent insects from entering your home, and remove shoes before you enter the house.
Another source of the virus is contaminated feed. Infection risk from dry feed such as hay is low (and hay is typically aged before it is sold), but you should consider the source of the greens that you use to make your bunnies’ salads. The virus would be very hard to remove from contaminated veggies through washing, so BUNS has stopped sourcing any greens from south or east of Santa Barbara. We recommend you check the source of your veggies and do the same. If the virus is confirmed further north (it is currently confirmed in San Clemente), we will adjust our source again. We have also stopped foraging for wild plants due to the potential interactions with wild rabbits. Many rabbit owners outside of California are afraid to feed their bunnies any veggies from our state, so we are thankful to have the ability to know the source of our veggies and avoid the outbreak areas.
The most important action you can take to protect your rabbits is to vaccinate them. We are excited to announce that we have placed the order for the vaccine (ERAVAC), and it should arrive in approximately 4 weeks. Please see our past newsletter post for more information and to sign up for the vaccine clinic (http://www.bunssb.org/bunnies/rhd/).
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