Exact Answer: As Soon As Possible
Necropsy is a surgical procedure that requires the surgeon or the practitioner to examine the corpse thoroughly by dissecting the whole body. This procedure is important because the result of this surgery determines the cause of death of the person or an animal.
It determines the cause, mode, and manner of the death of an animal or a person. However, necropsy results can be used to evaluate any kind of injury or disease for research and educational purposes. There is also a difference between autopsy and necropsy because autopsy means examining dead people and necropsy for animals.
How Long After Death Can A Necropsy Be Performed?
| Necropsy | The surgical procedures used to determine the cause, mode, and manner of the death of an animal. |
| Autopsy | The surgical procedures used to examine the death of a person. Also known as a post-mortem. |
The soon the surgical procedure is performed the better it would be. For example, necropsies conducted on rabbits should be done as soon as possible but no later than six hours after the death. Doctors say that the tissues present inside the rabbit’s body deteriorate rapidly.
However, on the other hand, if an autopsy has to be conducted then that too has to be done as soon as possible. Following the death of a person, it should take about 2-3 days for the autopsy to be conducted on the dead person.
Medical practitioners and doctors recommend that necropsy and autopsy should be conducted as soon as possible for extracting better results from the surgical procedure. The information extracted after the surgery could be a piece of useful information. The examination could last for about 3 hours.
Necropsy needs to be done and when your pet rabbit dies suddenly then you need to make that important decision about whether you want to go for necropsy or not. Sudden death could lead to many questions arising inside your mind and it is important that you know the exact reason for the death of your pet rabbit.
Many rabbit owners feel that they should not go for a necropsy surgery and it is quite difficult for them to take that decision. However, this should not be the mindset of a person whose rabbit has died recently without any reason.
Why Does It Take That Long After Death For A Necropsy To Be Performed?
There is no time as to when a necropsy could be performed after the death of the rabbit. However, owners should make sure that if the surgery needs to be done then it needs to be done as soon as possible following the death.
Whenever a rabbit pet dies without any reason and the incident shocks the owner then people think about many things about what could be the exact reason for the death of the rabbit. Well, there could be many reasons for the death of the rabbit and necropsy would just give you that results.
The whole process of necropsy could take about 30 to 60 minutes and this includes gross necropsy where the practitioners have to dissect the organs for abnormalities. However, in some necropsy fluid samples, tissues are taken for further investigation.
After the surgery, if you want you can get back the body or else you can get it taken care of by the practitioners themselves. The primary aim of the surgical procedure is to find out the reason for the death of the pet rabbit but sometimes necropsy might not be needed to be performed.
Conclusion
Ask an expert if necropsy should be done or not or you can figure out yourself what was the reason for the death of your pet rabbit. Most people do not go for a necropsy procedure because the owners are in deep grieve and they do not want their pet to be used for some kind of research.
However, sometimes it is important to know the reason for the death of the pet so that if there are any serious outbreaks of a certain disease then that could be determined. If you are also an owner of a rabbit then make sure that you know the habits and all the other behavior of your rabbit. If the rabbit dies suddenly then do try to know the reason for his death.