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MagpieConcept posted:Kind of a weird bunny question but.... How often can you go home? Can you reasonably come back and do a weekly cage clean/etc? Can’t you find a different living arrangement?
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Jun 15, 2023 17:44
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Ajax is officially an old man, the vet called him geriatric and he needs daily anti-inflammatory meds now. His ear is still hosed up but it seems manageable, apparently that just happens to lops sometimes. Ear drum is ruptured, has been for years, but no infections or anything but I need to start taking him in for a cleaning every month. Or he gets a surgery that sounds unpleasant, which I would rather avoid. Also his hosed up little nail might be an issue later on, for now we're just keeping it trimmed short and seeing what happens but worst case scenario might need to amputate that little toe. So far he seems fine though, he's a trooper.
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Jun 15, 2023 21:23
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Ok Comboomer posted:How often can you go home? Can you reasonably come back and do a weekly cage clean/etc? I can come back about once a month and I can't do a different living arrangement. :x Maybe I really should look at rehoming, I don't want to but....yeah this setup sucks.
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Jun 16, 2023 23:31
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For the next two months I am taking care of an absolutely gigantic rabbit. A Flemish Giant. Bigger than any cat I've ever had. Of course the owner gave me a guide and walked me through how to take care of her, but I was wondering if there were, like, general rabbit tips. Things to be smart about with a rabbit. Stuff like that.
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Jul 10, 2023 01:08
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Hand Knit posted:For the next two months I am taking care of an absolutely gigantic rabbit. A Flemish Giant. Bigger than any cat I've ever had. be careful about how you lift them. Make sure to always support their hindquarters and do your best to always scoop them up but also be very careful that you don’t hyper-extend their spine or put all of their weight on their lower backs when you do so. Rabbits are not as flexible or malleable as cats and they have big heavy swingy hindlimbs that they will flail about if scared or upset or angry enough. A lot of the ways that you can easily or awkwardly hold a cat will simply not work for any bun, especially a large one. If your rabbit is kicking madly and you can’t restrain them correctly it’s best to just let them go as quickly as you can and chill out before retrying. Understandably, that may not be 100% possible at times. Be smart and plan your interactions accordingly (ie probably don’t give your rabbit meds in the car). One of the most common ways in which rabbits are injured and killed, often unknowingly, is by owners manhandling them and/or lifting them improperly and causing spinal injury. It can paralyze their hindquarters and greatly limit their mobility and sensation. A lot of rabbits that “can’t/won’t litter train” are actually incontinent from secret spinal injuries that nobody knows they sustained at one point. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 10, 2023 01:20
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If you can tell me her weight, I can help you with nutrition. You can be pretty liberal with greens, but it's important not to overfeed sugary stuff like carrots and fruit. What's your setup for litter and hay?
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Jul 10, 2023 01:31
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Halloween Jack posted:If you can tell me her weight, I can help you with nutrition. You can be pretty liberal with greens, but it's important not to overfeed sugary stuff like carrots and fruit. That is entirely prescribed by the owners, don't worry. She gets hay and greens but neither carrots nor fruit. I think I read somewhere that carrots aren't really a rabbit thing. Rather, it's a myth from Bugs Bunny, who was eating the carrot because that was a Clark Gable thing. Ok Comboomer posted:be careful about how you lift them. Make sure to always support their hindquarters and do your best to always scoop them up but also be very careful that you don’t hyper-extend their spine or put all of their weight on their lower backs when you do so. Thanks a ton. I haven't had to handle her yet but I was worried about having to move her around to clean places. I'll definitely be careful about how I pick up and hold her.
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Jul 10, 2023 02:01
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The best way to move a Flemmy around is just lure it away with a couple of food pellets.
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Jul 10, 2023 02:52
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grack posted:The best way to move a Flemmy around is just lure it away with a couple of food pellets. this. They are generally pretty easy to get to move around with gentle bribes, and its always better not to pick them up. My giant was mellow as heck and I didn't pick her up (lap time involved me being climbed on)
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Jul 10, 2023 04:49
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My rabbit hates being petted or touched anywhere near her back legs, so me vacuuming usually involves me slowly following her around the apartment gently nudging her butt my with foot which causes her to walk roughly 6 steps every time.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:38
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Never thought to post here before, but we've had a rabbit for almost two years now, and we got a second one about a month ago. Bonding the two was thankfully pretty smooth, and now the two spend all day around each other. Here's Holland (black and white dutch, our first bun) and Fia (dutch mix, not sure with what) having some homemade ice cream: 
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Jul 17, 2023 04:01
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Congratulations! (Strawberry?)
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Jul 17, 2023 18:23
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Strawberry banana, they run at full speed to get a taste of it. We had a big scare yesterday when Fia didn't want to eat. Had to feed her critical care and hope for the best, since I couldn't find a vet that would see me the same day. When I checked up on her at 4AM though, she seemed pretty normal, and now she's eating just fine. We had a similar scare with Holland last year, and it took weeks for him to fully recover, so I'm really glad this wasn't like that. Not sure how to embed an imgur vid into a post so here's a link to their breakfast https://i.imgur.com/Wl4z8VS.mp4
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Jul 27, 2023 15:46
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It's always scary when they miss a meal. I've had bunnies miss a meal because they just ate a lot of hay, or I overfed greens or water-rich veggies, or maybe they just had a little gas or something. How long did she go without eating? I'm sure you were right to start CC, though; it's not like it can hurt. Bert is not cooperative about eating it, at all, and vets usually give you these small-bore syringes that get clogged instantly, and then you squeeze the thing and squirt a big glob all over their face. I ended up having to buy big-bore syringes from Tractor Supply and cut them down even further. So Bert's got this thing going on where it seems like his right eye is watering. The fur below that eye is frequently a little matted and damp. When he had head tilt, I was giving him eye drops daily to prevent irritation on his "down side" and once I had a scare where peed on himself and almost got urine scald before I realized. His head still tilts somewhat, sometimes, especially when he stands on his hind legs to take a treat. I thought maybe he was just getting his face wet in his water bowl--but the dampness is on the wrong side. I can't find any sign of irritation, conjunctivitis, tear duct swelling, cataract, or anything else, and he doesn't seem to be in any pain about it--he sits still and lets me pull his eyelid back to check him out. His regular checkup is tomorrow, so I guess I'll find out!
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Jul 27, 2023 16:36
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https://i.imgur.com/AU1ox9W.mp4
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Aug 1, 2023 12:15
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Seems like something Hieronymous would do Also, so....I may have gone a bit crazy and spoiled the bunnies too much    I built them a castle
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Aug 1, 2023 13:45
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bunnyofdoom posted:Seems like something Hieronymous would do Congrats, that's impressive! Would be a darn shame if someone was to chew it down piece by piece though. 
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Aug 1, 2023 23:38
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That's a drat fine castle, been meaning to get something like that myself. I've just been using cardboard boxes, but I wasn't sure of the best way to give them some steps they could climb. Halloween Jack posted:It's always scary when they miss a meal. I've had bunnies miss a meal because they just ate a lot of hay, or I overfed greens or water-rich veggies, or maybe they just had a little gas or something. How long did she go without eating? I'm not sure exactly when she stopped eating, but it was going on at least 12 hours from when I first observed it to when I was going to bed. Poor girl didn't want to move at all and ended up peeing on herself. I planned on getting up at 4am to feed her more, but when I got up there she seemed totally normal. It was a scary day, but thankfully she seems fine now. I had to go away on a trip for six days, now Holland seems a bit more distant with me. Not sure if I'm just imagining it, he still licks me when I come sit near him, but he doesn't walk over to me as often. Fia is still pretty shy, but she's actually been licking me lately too. She runs off when I try and pet her, so I'm really getting mixed messages here. Hopefully in time she will want to be pet, she is very soft. 
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Aug 10, 2023 00:16
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Look at them, plotting adorably
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Aug 10, 2023 03:10
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Bert was crying because his tear duct was blocked, so the vet flushed them at his checkup. He kept crying, so we went back and got them flushed again, along with a prescription for antibiotic eyedrops. That seems to be doing the trick very quickly; I haven't seen any signs of wet fur around his eyes. This has been going on for a long, long time and the vet agrees with my assessment that it wasn't causing him any discomfort--there are no signs of irritation at all. But of course I wanted to get it taken care of. I stopped following a particular account on social media because they put up a picture of a dead rabbit. I don't know why people do this. I can kind of understand when someone's pet dies and they post themselves crying over the body; it's awful, but I get that they're not in a rational state of mind. But the people who post dead rabbits to say like "Here is a picture of a bunny that fell off the vet's table and died. This is what happens if you don't towel them properly." Or "Here is a picture of a bunny that died from illness. This is what happens if you don't take them to the vet." I know what a dead rabbit looks like, rear end in a top hat.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:19
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I'm assuming this wouldn't actually hurt a bunny? https://i.imgur.com/4Cyu4uP.mp4
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Aug 24, 2023 02:31
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Bunnies are pretty fragile, it might be fine but I would probably check for potential head trauma, esp. teeth.
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Aug 24, 2023 12:39
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Yeah it's very cute since we know he's okay, but if it happened to my little Holland Lop I'd be freaking out. Probably not so much if it was say a big 12-15 lb. rabbit.
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Aug 24, 2023 14:03
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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah it's very cute since we know he's okay, but if it happened to my little Holland Lop I'd be freaking out. Probably not so much if it was say a big 12-15 lb. rabbit. This is my take. That gif scared the hell out of me reflexively
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Aug 24, 2023 16:08
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Cythereal posted:I'm assuming this wouldn't actually hurt a bunny? Those panels weigh basically nothing. The bunny’s fine.
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Aug 29, 2023 15:47
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Bunny looks around with perfect comic timing at the end, is probably fine.
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Aug 31, 2023 08:33
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https://i.imgur.com/syJV1du.mp4
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Sep 16, 2023 21:53
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On Wednesday Lillian ate her breakfast but was just acting a little "off." She had a major bout with GI stasis in June so in my rabbit-owner paranoia I contacted our vet, who said "we wouldn't normally advocate bringing her in on a hunch if she's still eating normally but we know you interact with her a lot so we are going to go ahead and have you bring her in." She was diagnosed with liver lobe torsion and was in surgery by 5 pm. The surgery was successful and we were able to bring her home on Friday. We are handfeeding CC and she is taking tiny amounts of food on her own, but the vet seemed more optimistic about her returning to normal eating very quickly post-surgery so we are a little paranoid still. Does anyone have any experience with the recovery time on abdominal surgery in rabbits? She is 8 so pretty old, I just want to make sure her recovery isn't abnormally slow without racking up another vet bill unnecessarily. Anyway, trust your gut if your pal is acting weird! Not sure what would have happened if we had waited!
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Oct 8, 2023 14:33
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 A new rabbit appeared in my household! Her name is Fitonia. She is mondo territorial and gives Twix a hard time, but so far stress bonding seems to work, in that they have actually spent 15 minutes together without injury (which did not happen in regular bonding). Can’t spell „fight” without Fi i guess. She’s a real sweetheart to humans though. Will regularly come up to you and demand pets and lick your hand if you extend it.
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Nov 7, 2023 08:11
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goblin week posted:
So beautiful! I hope she is integrating well into the home. I am wondering if I should get a rabbit considering my circumstances. I have the energy and budget to take care of one rabbit, and I am a homebody and can spend lots of time around. However, I am planning to leave the country in under 2 years and I am highly doubtful that I could take them with me, and I do not own a car and thus may not be able to quickly reach the vet in emergency situations. Assuming I can arrange a new home for them well in advance, is this feasible?
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Dec 22, 2023 20:39
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saplings posted:So beautiful! I hope she is integrating well into the home. maybe consider homing some elderly rabbits, or working with a rescue to foster. If you can have one rabbit you can have a bonded pair, IMO I would not adopt rabbit(s) without a clear rehoming pathway that isn't dumping them on a rescue if you know you're leaving in two years
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Dec 22, 2023 21:01
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Hey bunny thread, been a minute. We finally decided have another go with a house rabbit now that our kids are older. I’d like to introduce Bean!  She was found in a public park in the South Carolina upstate. We adopted her two months ago and all parties are happy with the decision.
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Dec 26, 2023 00:49
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Nice! Bean reminds me of a rabbit my parents rescued, she was a bit wild. One time she decided to dig this big den under a bush to chill in during summertimes. There wasn’t much my mom could do to stop her so it just ended up becoming her spot after a while. 
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Dec 26, 2023 22:53
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trilobite terror posted:maybe consider homing some elderly rabbits, or working with a rescue to foster.
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Dec 27, 2023 02:26
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It’s been so long since we had a rabbit that I’m drawing a blank on what we used to deodorize litter boxes. Any recommendations? Buntax: semaphore 
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Jan 20, 2024 18:53
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I use white vinegar for it
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Jan 20, 2024 18:58
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vinegar or rabbit & small animal-specific nature's miracle/equivalent. smelling vinegar + rabbit waste is the worst, so I try to get the enzyme stuff whenever I can but also I go thru a lot of it
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Jan 20, 2024 19:17
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how do ppl here feel about Blue Seal Show Hutch Deluxe 17 feed? One of my subadult mini lops broke her femur in October trying to get out of the bathtub (she got in the bathtub, she tried to jump out and slipped) and four weeks in a walking cast that made her move like Metal Gear Ray and like $2700 later she was fully healed up and right as rain but still underweight so the exotics vet that attended her throughout recommended that I put her + her siblings on a hutch/breeder/show/farm feed rather than the fancy Oxbow Garden Select for a bit to help them gain weight while they finished growing up and going through puberty. Of all the brands at Tractor Supply I looked at like MannaPro, etc, this seemed like the best and it was the best reviewed as far as I’ve been able to tell, with a lot of high-volume keepers like showers/breeders, etc seeming to use it. But it is an alfalfa-based fortified feed (obvi I also feed timothy hay, veg, etc), and there’s a lot of arguing online about alfalfa and also about hutch feeds vs “pet” or “house” feeds, etc. Since then I tend to alternate between big bags of the stuff, which they love, and the various Oxbow timothy foods, which they also love. The Blue Seal is like a quarter to a fifth of the price of the oxbow, so I’m both torn between the feeling that I’m doing wrong by my buns by feeding them the stuff (is it like rabbit McDonald’s?) and also the relief of being able to buy 50lbs of feed for $25 instead of $110, especially since I’m still paying off that e-vet bill. There appears to be debate about the goodness/badness of alfalfa vs timothy, but there’s no debate about the wheat-based fillers, those make for a fat bun. But as far as I can tell there’s no evidence of one category vs another (except for like the really bad “bunny buffet”, etc, ones that have colorful additives and fruit chunks in them) directly affecting longevity, only stuff like the animal possibly developing obesity (and that often has as much to do with how show/farm/breeder rabbits are kept and the tiny size of their enclosures). It should be noted that none of my rabbits are obese, although they tend to lose a little bit of weight when they’re on the Oxbow, sometimes to the point where I get a little bit worried. Should I just stop feeding the Blue Seal? Is there a more affordable alternative to the Oxbow feeds that’s better that I can work in? They don’t seem to have any issues being enthusiastic about their food or being physically active and I rotate the feed pretty regularly (about every month or so). I know there are people who claim to only feed hay, IDK how these guys would do with that. They have no problem munching hay as a bun should, I tried them on pressed timothy pellets and they all seemed to want nothing at all to do with them so I ended up using the 40lb bag of the stuff to fill their litter boxes until it was gone and afaik nobody ever tried to eat the timothy pellets. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Apr 7, 2024 |
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Apr 7, 2024 03:05
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How much rabbit pellets are you giving them versus hay and veg? I only give Lillian like a tablespoon of pellets along with her other food and that's only just because she likes it and it adds some variety to her food and I assume might help cover any kind of nutrient deficit. I honestly can't imagine that giving them a tiny bit of alfalfa pellets is going to make them obese but if it's most of their food I'd definitely be keeping an eye on their weight and I'd be worried about gut stasis from over-rich food (although if show breeders are using it that must not be much of a concern either).
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Apr 9, 2024 16:41
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Bunny owner E/N here- posting through it to try and sort out emotions. We have two bonded girls (echoing, by the way, that we will never NOT go for a bonded pair ever again. If you can do one rabbit, you can do two and they're so much happier!) and we THINK they're about 9 or so. We adopted them in 2018. One of them has been on anti-inflammatories for a few months now for her old lady hips, but last week wasn't able to stand up on her own. The vet assured us that it WAS probably a nasty fall exacerbated by her arthritis, and prescribed some gabapentin to augment the meloxicam. Asked to check back in in about 3 weeks. And sure enough, she improved over the course of the week! Could raise up from a loaf on her own, able to hunker down for some self-grooming. We still had to help her up a bit but progress is progress! Yesterday was a repeat of the first day last week, almost back to square one- no willingness to stand again. I'm concerned she hurt herself again overnight, but she's entirely on a carpet now to remove slippage. So we're keeping on keeping on... she still LOVES eating and grooming her bonded mate, but the wife and I are still worried and disappointed for obvious reasons. We'll see if we see another bounce back, but I'm trying to steel myself for a hard decision in a few weeks' time. Going back to bonded pairs, I think that's the part we'd feel worst about. Read all sorts of tragic stories about a bondmate just kind of giving up once their partner leaves.
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Apr 16, 2024 19:44
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