Just a reminder about rabbits

[Rock_skipper]

For those of you that don't know, The rabbits up here get a lung problem. If when you clean your hare and you see white spots on the lungs, be careful of what meat you keep. The back legs are probable fine, but thats not a for sure thing. Believe me I know about this because I had my dog take a chunck of my leg off, and did'nt understand what the attack was about til I learned a little more about it, it drives a dog insane, just thought I'd through that out there for you all.

[akula682]

That’s good to know, any idea what its called?

[starmac]

Thats something I never heard of where did you find out the info.

[Rock_skipper]

I'm not sure what it's called, but the F&G could probably tell you, or look it up on line. It has something to do with the cycles. The rabbit has a 7 year cycle, and during 2 years of this, you have to be careful.

Lol. I never got the info, I got bit and lost a part of my leg.lol

I was 8 years old when this happened (41 years ago ) we had got into alaska 4 years before that, and me and my brother went out and got the rabbits for the ware on the table. An old timer came by one evening while we were cleaning some of them and told us this was a bad year for spotted lung, say what I says, well it ended up we got looking at the critters and over half of them had white spots on the lungs. O.K. we discarded them and after we were done, I went to let the dog out of the garage and he smelled it and just like that I was missing a part of my leg.

The point is look up spotted lung for rabbits, or if I can find some link I'll post it

[Rock_skipper]

Look up rabbit fever in a search engine and there's to much info there for me to post

[akula682]

Look up rabbit fever in a search engine and there's to much info there for me to post

it was looked at to be a freaking Bio-Weapon
did a google image search too...
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/26/tularemia_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/11/rabbit-fever-ma.html&usg=__i2Cq3Y871ejLnmRew2Gro88AS7c=&h=246&w =250&sz=10&hl=en&start=4&sig2=UAiCFi_HZi57G1eMARxK 4Q&um=1&tbnid=iHq-igQL6nnZgM:&tbnh=109&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drabbit%2Bfever%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1I7G PEA_enUS313%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=aKnFSem7LqCxmQfAh dXlCw

[hre814]

yeah, it's Tularemia, very common in the rabbit population. luckily we don't have ticks here, but it is a tick-borne disease.

that is why you should wear gloves when cleaning hares/rabbits and not let other stuff get contaminated with its blood. as well as thoroughly cooking the meat.

a common bacteria studied for biological weaponry.

white spots on the liver, lung, etc are indicative of infection. tularemia can cause different infections in various body organs, including the most common one, the skin.

if you see white spots, i would ditch the carcass. if you are at home, just double bag it and throw it away, or else the neighborhood dogs, bears, can get into it.

some basic wikipedia info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tularemia

[OATS]

As some addtional input on this........I have hunted Alaska all my life (45+ years) and been a falconer in southcentral for a dozen. I, and my fellow falconers have caught and parted out countless hares. We pay particular attention to the organs because that's what the hawks prefer to eat over the muscle tissue of the hare. I have never come across a case of tuleremia nor have I heard of of any other falconers having seen it either. It is apparently out there, but seems to be very uncommon in southcentral where I have spent the majority of my time harvesting hares. We share some of the body parts with our birds and our dogs and we also inadvertenty swap blood with the hares ourselves as feeding a hawk is a very bloody process for both hare and handler at times. No health issues to report from the animals or the people. BTW, our hares seem to be on a 10-12 year cycle in southcentral and will peak in the next season or two. I'd be interested to hear about anyone having had experience with tuleremia.

[Rock_skipper]

Oats, when I was a kid when we moved up here in 64, rabbits were our main staple, I live in the interior, and you deffenantly had to watch out for this. It used to be a 7 year cycle here. and it used to be at the peak when you had to take notice. I think it was natures way of thinning them out. Its the old saying, -----like bunnys but it is dangerous.

[6XLeech]

Did the dog have tularemia?

Good subject for discussion though - a good thread about rabbit meat, includes tularmia at:
http://forums.outdoorsdirectory.com/...d.php?p=373721

Contributed by RskyBiz in that other thread, you can download a good brochure about eating rabbit in Alaska, pamphlet #FNH-00324 (last revised August 2008) from the Cooperative Extension service at:
http://www.uaf.edu/ces/pubs/catalog/...dex.xml?id=338

But tularemia in Alaska is sporadic, not so common - apparently 22 cases between 1972-1997. Descriptions of the Alaska cases are in these pubs:
http://www.epi.hss.state.ak.us/bulle...type=Tularemia

Or, go to State of Alaska Epidemiology website, http://www.epi.hss.state.ak.us/bulletins/bltnidx.jsp, and search for tularemia.

Sounds like we can enjoy rabbit safely with a few precautions; wear gloves, pay attention.

Thanks.

[RSKY BIZ]

Did The Dog Have Tularemia??

RockSkipper-

I'm a little fuzzy as to what you are saying provoked your dog to attack you. Did your dog have Tularemia? I know you were just a kid, but I am curious as to whether your dog was already ill. You seem to imply that he 'went mad with the scent' or something. Any insight there? Did your dog survive? You just tickled the curious part of me - no worries if it's no longer clear as to what happened 40 years ago!

Yes, 6X and I reviewed the references on the other thread he quoted here on the forum.

Here is one, though in 'medical-speek' from the veterinary literature:

TULAREMIA IN ANIMALS LINK

Thanks!
Curious Doc

[Rock_skipper]

No the dog was fine, a Siberian Husky. When we were cleaning the bunnys we would always lock him in the garage til we were done.

I will never forget that day, because of the bite he took out of my leg.

When we were done with the rabbits and got all cleaned up, I went to let him out of the shop, and it was almost instant attack, I was able to get on top of a car with my dad and brother yelling at him to distract him, and just like that he knew he did something wrong, But he would not get around me or my brother til we changed our cloths.

Could'nt figure out what caused the attack til we talked to an old timer and he asked us about the rabbits of which we told him about the white spots( we had heard about them before) and he told us it drives dogs wild for no reason.

On a good note that dog was my buddy for another 5 years before his best friend outside the family hit on the hwy, another sad day when he came carrying him up to our door step with tears in his eyes.

[RSKY BIZ]

I know how 'those experiences' tend to make for memorable days!

Thanks for clarifying. It was, indeed, how you initially posted, though my dang analytical mind is trying to make sense of it.
Who knows, seems like a man's best friend senses the problem with the game, perhaps.

Your dog didn't act that way all the time when you skinned rabbits, just when they were infected, eh?
I'll go with your Old Timer's insight. Always fun to learn...

'Man's best friend', for sure!
Thanks!
Doc

[Rock_skipper]

Acutaly after that episode, I was pretty freaked out for a long time.

So from then on it was clean up and change cloths before letting the dog out, no problems.

I don't know if anyone has had this experiance besides myself, but it is real, and I have a scar to prove it.

Instead of getting grants for collars for rabbitts, this might be a grant to see what kind of danger this poses to the wildlife that eats them,(and to humans that come in contact with them )

[Vince]

No the dog was fine, a Siberian Husky. When we were cleaning the bunnys we would always lock him in the garage til we were done.

I will never forget that day, because of the bite he took out of my leg.

When we were done with the rabbits and got all cleaned up, I went to let him out of the shop, and it was almost instant attack, I was able to get on top of a car with my dad and brother yelling at him to distract him, and just like that he knew he did something wrong, But he would not get around me or my brother til we changed our cloths.

Could'nt figure out what caused the attack til we talked to an old timer and he asked us about the rabbits of which we told him about the white spots( we had heard about them before) and he told us it drives dogs wild for no reason.

On a good note that dog was my buddy for another 5 years before his best friend outside the family hit on the hwy, another sad day when he came carrying him up to our door step with tears in his eyes.

wouldn't have anything to do with you and your bro being covered in blood?????? little kids could seem kind of succulent to a hairy ol dog....