"RABBIT FEVER" Disease??

ARKDOG,
I will probably spell this wrong but Tuleramia is the disease. It is caused by small mites on the rabbits, and they can pass it on to humans also.
 
I had to get a tetnus shot last week, and they had a flyer at the health department about it. I thought I saw something that they were offering a vaccine. I could be wrong.
 
I don't know how dangerous Tularemia is now but during the depression this disease killed hundreds of people in North Louisiana and to this day most of them will NOT eat rabbits.
We used to rabbit hunt around Monroe and folks up there thought we were crazy for eating rabbits.
 
Although I have heard about this disease all my life...I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I've hunted/ate rabbits for years without any illness.
 
It is my understanding that one should look for white spots on the liver of a rabbit and that is a possible indicator of tularemia.

A friend who guides for lions in the west was skinning a lion and had a cut on his hand. A little while after skinning the lion, he was on the Flight for Life to the hospital. He was in intensive care for about a week. He made a full recovery, but he now wears surgical rubber gloves while skinning all lion and bear. All of those years and he never had a problem, and then all of the sudden he was staring death in the face on a helicopter ride to Salt Lake.

Surgical rubber gloves are great. They make clean up easier and can protect you from tularemia.
 
As a kid we used the rule that we wouldn't hunt or eat rabbits until the snow had been on the ground and frozen up for a couple of weeks. Anytime that we shoot rabbits with fleas on them we bury them in the snow for a couple of hours until the fleas get off.
 
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As a kid we used the rule that we wouldn't hunt or eat rabbits until the snow had been on the ground and frozen up for a couple of weeks. Anytime that we shoot rabbits with fleas on them we bury them in the snow for a couple of hours until the fleas get off.



That's probably a good practice...for avoiding fleas and ticks. But this is a bacteria that resides also in the internal organs of the infected animal. Other precations are in order to avoid infection. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Francisella tularensis is one of the most infective bacteria known. Humans are most often infected by tick or deer fly bites, or through handling an infected animal. Ingesting infected water, soil, or food can also cause infection. Tularemia can be acquired by inhalation. Hunters are at a higher risk for this disease because of the potential of inhaling the bacteria during the skinning process. Tularemia is not spread directly from person to person.

Francisella tularensis is an intracellular bacterium, meaning that it is able to live as a parasite within host cells. It primarily infects white blood cells and is able to evade the immune system. The disease spreads to the lungs, liver, spleen, and lymphatic system.

Mortality in untreated patients has been as high as 50% in the pneumoniac and typhoidal forms of the disease. Overall mortality was 7% for untreated cases. The disease responds well to antibiotics, with a fatality rate of about 2%. The exact cause of death is thought be a combination of multiple organ system failures.
 
I shot a 260lb. hog last week, and while skinning it I was also eating Christmas snacks without properly washing my hands. I was sick, throwing up, all the next day. The following day I had an infected cut on a finger which I ended up having to take oral antibotics for. I just assumed it was my own dumb-&^% for improper hygeine practices, but now I'm thinking I should toss the whole thing? Thoughts?
 
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but now I'm thinking I should toss the whole thing? Thoughts?



Probably not necessary. Hogs, dogs, cats, and other outdoor critters are NASTY just because that's their way of life. An open cut could find bacteria from the outer skin and hair as easily as anything else. Now understand....I'm NOT telling you that it is CLEAN MEAT! But if you care for it properly before cooking, and cook it thoroughly, your chances if being infected by anything that it may have had are almost nothing. Most of these infections and diseases are transmitted to you when handling UNCOOKED meat improperly. Guy, GET SOME CHEAP GLOVES to wear when skinning and butchering. And I don't need to talk about eating candy, do I ?? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

I keep threatening to get the wife to make me a list of diseases we can contract, and which critters are the carriers of each one, and what precautions that we should take to protect our health. Maybe I can get her to do it in the next few days. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
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