Prevalence of some Enteric Bacterial Infections Causing Rabbit Enteritis and Attempts to Control Rabbit Coli Enteritis with Phytobiotics

A field survey was conducted to monitor the prevalence of some enteric bacterial infections incriminated in rabbit enteritis outbreaks. Ninety bacterial isolates were recovered from diseased /or freshly dead rabbits with a history of severe diarrhea representing four farms in El-Sharkia Province. The predominant isolates were E. coli (24.29%), Klebsiella (14%), Proteus miriables (2.33%) and Proteus vulgaris (1.4%). All bacterial isolates were highly sensitive to levofloxacin. Isolated E. coli was later identified by using PCR. Fifty-three recently weaned White New Zealand rabbits were experimentally used to monitor the efficacy of two herbal extracts and probiotics (Healthy gut®; Immuplant plus®) supplementation with/or without enrofloxacin treatment in controlling artificial infection of the pathogenic streptomycin adapted E. coli isolate strain in a rate of (2.5 x 1010 CFU/0.1 mL/ rabbit orally) and improvement of growth parameters. Our results showed that; treatment with two (Healthy gut®; Immuplant plus®) induced an improvement in general health conditions and growth performance parameters with significant decrease in total labeled pathogenic E. coli shedding of infected supplemented group. In addition, this supplementation when followed by treatment with enrofloxacin after E. coli infection refluxed significant reduction of bacterial shedding with improvement of mean body weight and feed conversion ratio when compared with all other treated groups