Mixomatosis question

session savage

A friend of mine wants a rabbit for the pot so I said I'ld get him one. I told him he would be better off waiting till spring but he's mad for one. So I went out the other morning and shot a rabbit but it had mixo. I know they are meant to be ok to eat but the way I look at it, if I wouldnt eat it I aint giving it to my friend to eat.
So I went out again this morning and shot another rabbit and this guy was totally riddled too.
The thing is, since I moved up here a year and a half ago I saw hardly any rabbits with mixy and now I get two in a row. Is this a coincidence or does mixy break out at certain times of the year.
Thanks lads

homerhop

wet weather makes it spread like wildfire as the bunnys spend a lot of time under ground in close quarters

Tackleberrywho

session savage wrote: »

A friend of mine wants a rabbit for the pot so I said I'ld get him one. I told him he would be better off waiting till spring but he's mad for one. So I went out the other morning and shot a rabbit but it had mixo. I know they are meant to be ok to eat but the way I look at it, if I wouldnt eat it I aint giving it to my friend to eat.
So I went out again this morning and shot another rabbit and this guy was totally riddled too.
The thing is, since I moved up here a year and a half ago I saw hardly any rabbits with mixy and now I get two in a row. Is this a coincidence or does mixy break out at certain times of the year.
Thanks lads

My understanding is, in cold weather they are under ground more.
As a result they are in closer contact with each other and pick up diseases easier.

Best thing you can do is shoot mixy rabbits, as if you shoot them all early less chance of spreading disease to other rabbits.

I would not eat a mixy rabbit personally.

kildare.17hmr

Have yet to shoot a mixy rabbit myself but when i do itll be boiled up for the dogs. Its an excuse to go shoot some more bunnies anyway!

It wasn't me!

If you can devote some time to it, shoot as many of them as possible. If you do, the population should recover in the spring and you'll be back into good sport by the end of the spring. If you don't, it'll be a long while. Used to be piles of rabbits around here. Mixy broke out and it's not been the same since.

IceMaiden

It’s a sad sight seeing rabbits down with mixy, one place we lived had them like this very bad for a couple of seasons , & another place we lost them totally for about three or more years, you could just walk right up to them or young dogs out for training would peg them, it’s a sorry disease with very badly distorted heads & eyes making them so prone to everything
I think its spread by bugs between warrens & individuals ,we would not eat rabbit much after late winter because of any milky does & find the autumn possibly the best pound/pound , wouldn’t recommend eating much that wasn’t physically fit & badly infected ones really need to be dealt with if possible. One areas corn/cob fields showed lots of them after harvest either badly injured from the machines & others that didn’t get damaged just sick sitting about not realising the cover had all but been removed.

It wasn't me!

They're awful pitiable things. I remember seeing one just crouched in a field, too far away from a ditch or hedgerow, stock still. Walked over, saw the state he was in, was disgusted. Had to put him out of his misery, so went and got a good stout piece of timber. Walked back and killed it. Poor thing never moved a hair in all that time except to shake and shiver. Of all the nasty things ever unleashed upon the wild, mixy has to be way up there.

session savage

Yeah I always shoot a rabbit if its got mixy to stop it suffering and just as important to stop it spreading the disease.
It always amazes me how ignorant it was to unleash mixy on the wild rabbit population. I remember asking dad about it and he dais at one time, when he was a kid the fields were like carpets walking with rabbits, but still, wouldnt it have been better to encourage people to hunt them?

kildare.17hmr

session savage wrote: »

Yeah I always shoot a rabbit if its got mixy to stop it suffering and just as important to stop it spreading the disease.
It always amazes me how ignorant it was to unleash mixy on the wild rabbit population. I remember asking dad about it and he dais at one time, when he was a kid the fields were like carpets walking with rabbits, but still, wouldnt it have been better to encourage people to hunt them?

You would think more people would have been hunting them back then, free meat back in the day in this country i would of thought it'd be jumped on!! When was mixy reliesed into ireland anyway?

Birdnuts

Mixy is the rabbit equivalent of Malaria or TB - once the population developes resistaince to one strain, another one comes along that overcomes the resistance to the most recent outbreak. Its a never ending cycle which unfortunatly leads to regular crashes in local populations:(