Weight For It...

Texas went back to the Rescue on Tuesday night, where I am pretty confident she will find a new home very quickly.  Unfortunately one of her babies seems to have digestive issues, so she was packed off to the Rescue too with one of her sisters for company. She has some odd shaped poo and extra caecal mucus, so she saw the vet and is now being treated and monitored at the Rescue. I was very sad to have to split them up and have those three leave me, but on the other hand, it was very difficult trying to distinguish and monitor 7 very similar looking babies! The remaining 5 are likely to now get better monitoring and even more attention!

Their new excitement for this week was being weighed for the first time (by me anyway).

Now I cannot stress enough how valuable the regular weighing of bunnies can be.  Weight loss is so often one of the first indicators of sickness, which means that knowing your bunnies' healthy weights and regularly monitoring it can literally be a life-saver.  Oh - it also tells you when you might be over-doing the treats!  Tubby bunnies come with their own health problems too.

It is very quick and simple to do. I use baby scales for adults, kitchen scales for the tiny ones, and add a non-slip mat to reduce their stress. If you can't stretch to those (baby scales seem particularly expensive for what they are), luggage scales and a canvas shopping bag are another option. With vulnerable bunnies I try to weigh them weekly, sick bunnies daily, with healthy bunnies I tend to do it every 3-6 weeks.  Once it becomes part of the health check routine, bunnies become used to it and as long as you handle them confidently and calmly they soon accept it. A small treat after to reward their good behaviour (and buy their forgiveness) helps too!

Initially though, bunnies reactions to health-check-and-weight day can be a little...intense...

"Don't.  Even.  Think-about-it."

Or not.

"Hey, what's happenin', dude? Did I get a good score?"