Rabbit Enteropathies on Commercial Farms in the Iberian Peninsula: Etiological Agents Identified in 2018-2019.

Digestive disorders are the main cause of economic damage to rabbit farms. This article provides a global and updated overview of the diverse etiological agents causing them, since 757 clinical cases were analyzed during 2018 and 2019-Ninety-five from young rabbits (<15 days old), 117 from preweaning rabbits (15-35 days old), and 545 from growing rabbits. Etiological diagnosis was carried out by bacteriological culture and a set of real time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) tests for the detection of enteropathogenic (EPEC), , , rotavirus A, , and spp. Also, 40 EPEC and 38 non EPEC isolates were investigated for the presence of other colonization factors (, , , and ) by qPCR. EPEC is the most prevalent agent in young rabbits, and although different virulence profiles have been found among EPEC isolates, the , +, and + profile is the most prevalent. and EPEC are the more frequently detected pathogens in preweaning rabbits, but appears to be a new possible emergent pathogen. In growing rabbits, diverse co-infections between , spp., EPEC, and rotavirus are much more frequent than infections due to only one of them. Other pathogens detected in very few cases are spp. and .