Caroline has been busy over the last few months. On top of the usual goings on at the Rescue, she's gone and built us a new website! Pop over to rabbitresidencerescue.weebly.com to have a look.
Our old site is all but shut down now and we will soon be moving our domain over to the new one, so in the mean time please do check the link above for the latest info.
Something we do regularly, both at home and at the Rescue, is to carry out a simple health check on all our bunnies. This helps us spot problems early and gives us a perfectly legitimate reason for cuddling everybun. :-)
I think I'll save the details of the sort of things we look for for a future post, but one thing we almost always check is their weight. A change in weight can often be the symptom of a real problem, or it can just be an indicator that we're feeding them too many treats! Either way it's a good idea to monitor it and take appropriate action when necessary.
But you're probably not going to want to shell out large amounts of money for a veterinary scale. The human scales are often not sensitive enough, the kitchen scales are often too small. So here's a handy tip: A good cheap solution is the "luggage scale". They are available very cheaply online, and with the addition of a ceiling hook/chain and an old shopping bag (NOT the plastic variety!) you've got yourself a perfectly affordable way to monitor your bunnies' weight!
Now all you have to do is persuade them to climb into the bag...
DISCLAIMER: We are not responsible for your carelessness. Think practically - DON'T hang your bunny 6 foot off the ground. Lifting a tubby bunny over your head could end badly for both of you! Add a sturdy chain so the bag hangs lower, put a chair under it so if something happens the bunny won't fall far, and test the strength of the whole thing by weighing something non-sentient first!
On Friday night we lost our beautiful little miracle bunny Tiara and I felt it was right that her passing should be noted here.
From soon after her arrival it was clear that Tiara would have been an easy bunny to re-home - a beautiful little lop with a sweet face and very friendly. However, Caroline had concerns over the way she moved and felt it best to keep her at the Rescue, at least until we could ascertain the extent of her mobility issues.
When it looked like she might need to be with us for some time, Caroline bonded her with Giggles, one of our shy and often overlooked single bucks. They seemed a bit of an odd couple, but they certainly got on well together.
When Tiara's back legs began to fail her, Caroline moved her to her office/hospital to keep a close eye on her and where it would be easier to keep up the regular cleaning of her tail end. It was here that the super-group started to form as Tiara and Giggles got to know Lacey and Grommit, and later on Rocket, Dakota and the two guinea pigs.
Tiara found new ways to frighten us pretty much every month. At one point she stopped using her back legs completely, but she was so spirited and happy despite this that many of our volunteers and friends of the Rescue pitched in to buy her a little wheelchair. However, Tiara had other ideas - defying the vets and our own expectations she suddenly became responsive to her steroids and it was enough to kick-start her rehabilitation. Some days you'd look at her rushing around and it would be hard to believe it was the same rabbit we'd seen struggling for so long.
Her mobility problems never completely went away and we always thought that at some point they would overtake her various treatments and we would have to say goodbye to her, helping her to rest. But it seems that in the end she decided on her own that she had reached the end of her time, going peacefully into the light, snuggled up next to Carolinet.
Goodnight sweet Tiara. Our lives were better to have known you.
One of the things I love about Spangle, Porridge and Sprat is that they are possibly the most sproingiest of bunnies I have ever met. They don't just perform your standard binky - it's binkies with extra flair, poise and performance. It really is like watching ballet.
If ever you wanted proof that A Hutch is Not Enough then these guys are it. Given a bit of space they'll show you exactly what those powerful back legs do best. In fact, despite their small stature, they are good examples of why those rubbish two foot high runs are not enough, such is the impressive height attained by their skilful leaps and spins.
Capturing their efforts has proved slightly tricky, as their binkying antics are very random and spontaneous. Plus, nothing makes them more suspicious of me, and therefore puts the dampeners on their enthusiasm, than pointing a camera at them!
But I had a go. Here for your pleasure (and mine!), my attempts to document the sproing of 2011.
Porridge...
"I'm just warming up..."
"Landing is the hardest part of course!"
"See ya!"...Spangle...
"Weeeeeeee!"...and champion sproinger, but the hardest to capture in a photo, Sprat...
"Next up - a triple somersault!"
"Floating on air, baby!"Oh, and of course Whisky didn't want to be left out, but he can't really achieve the the same heights, bless him...
"Ehn!"
Two gross things happened to me at the Rescue today. And I figure, if there's something gross going on you want to hear about it right? No? Ok, well put down your dinner and read on anyway.
So the first gross thing that happened to me was that I was assisting and assessing a bonding between a rather large girl and one of our larger bucks. It wasn't going well, more like violent anarchy, so we decided to try her out with one of our innocent little as-yet-un-neutered rex boys. Well firstly, I have to say, he was a little confused, being still a little too young to know what to do with a lady. He was certainly willing to get to know his new friend but all she wanted to do was bite and dominate him. But she was no match for his youthful speed and agility and very soon the tables had turned - despite being four times his size, she was running away and hiding behind me trying to avoid him. He still wasn't quite sure what to do with her, so he kept chinning (rubbing his scent on) her as if she was something to own. But really the thing that turned the tables and switched the dominance from her to him was when he started spraying her with wee. Which would have been fine, and not uncommon behaviour for two bunnies getting to know each other, except that I was sat between them at the time.
So that was gross thing number one. The second, and easier to wash off, came from our little long-term snuffle-bun Clarence. His partner Cora is probably my most favourite little character at the Rescue (not including the bunnies who have at some point lived in my house of course). So to cheer myself up after the bonding incident, I went and sat with Cora and Clarence to relax and hand-feed them some crunchy treats. Which should have made me feel better about the day, but every time Clarence took one he would in doing so wipe his snotty snuffly nose all over my hand.
Thanks Clarence. I think I might go home and shower now.
Don't worry, I know EXACTLY why you are here reading the blog this week. But before I move on to that...
Saturday was completely hectic. Whilst in the middle of dishing out breakfast to everybun at the Rescue I received a text from Caroline telling me that she had been taken suddenly very ill. It was already late morning, but she was going ask Vicki to try and cancel all her appointments. If anyone DID turn up, please could I apologise, give them the tour and the talk and ask them to come back next week.
Oh dear.
I don't really do visitors, I'm more about the bunnies. Fortunately most of the visitors did receive the message, so I just had to deal with one pair of holiday boarding bunnies and the two sets of visitors that didn't pick up their messages in time.
Well, as always it's good to learn new things and this week I learned that if Caroline ever did put me in charge of the visitors we'd only ever have time to see 2 sets a week. It turns out that if you get me started talking about bunnies it's difficult to make me stop! I talked at people for most of the afternoon.
"Get on with it!" I hear you cry.
Yes, so anyway, the reason why you are here, the reason why none of the other volunteers did any work on Saturday and the reason I'm receiving emails from the rest of the Rescue committee enquiring if I have any new photo sets this week. Our new residents.
On Thursday last week we received 11 new bunnies. Yes, that's right, 11. In one day.
But don't worry, they don't take up much space. Yet. They are tiny little babies. (You at the back - stop squee-ing! Wait for the pictures!)
It turns out that, not only should you not trust your local pet chain-store to correctly sex your rabbits, or your neighbour who is unloading their former-children's-'toy' on you, but you also shouldn't trust a random stranger that offers to meet you in a car park to hand over their "female" rabbit to go with your existing two un-spayed girls. Yes, you read that right.
Well anyway, my purpose for telling you how busy I was Saturday was that I needed you to understand why I hadn't had time to take lots of good pictures of our new friends. So no ultra-cute or particularly well composed ones for you this week, but I did manage to snap a few quick pics just so you can have a peek. Much better than this, before I received Caroline's message I managed to record a short video of them eating breakfast, but if you want to see that one you'll need to head over to our Facebook page and have a look on our wall. (We haven't quite graduated to the leagues of having a YouTube channel yet.)
So here you go. Meet Frolic, Fancy, Frilly, Lassie, Frisky, Flipper, Fubit, Fitz, Columbo, Fletcher and Kagny!
Following the success of our last request, we have three new little boys who need names! As before, please submit your suggestions as responses either to this post or via our Facebook page. Thanks again!
