Rabbit placenta worries

What if the placenta doesn't come out ... what should be done?

***Karen Sez***
How will you know the placenta hasn't come out? And when it has, how will you know it, when the doe has eaten it?

Just sayin' ... In reality a retained placenta is very very rare, though it does happen.

I'm not a vet, and Rabbit Production, the textbook that has all the answers about rabbits, doesn't even mention retained placenta.

What to do? Here's what we do: We handle all the health challenges ourselves, and when we run into something too big for us, we take it to a rabbit-savvy vet. A retained placenta would definitely fall into that category, that is, if we had 'diagnosed' the problem correctly.

Gotta say, too -- because rabbits ideally live their whole lives without problems, and because it it not difficult to replace a doe, we tend to not worry about potential problems before we see 'em, and we don't keep problem-animals. This way, we act as Nature does - our herd stays healthy, and the sick ones fall to 'predation.'