I'm so pleased that Little Bill has shown some interest, & hope that it increases over the day.
It's very dear of you to start a thread, but in all honesty, I owe so much more to other people. They should really take the credit.
Above all credit should go to those who grouped together to start RU.
Pretty Lupin has sent me countless hay samples, & herbs to help when things were tight for us. There's Halfpenny who's incredibly busy & with so many sick animals in her rescue as well as work, as well as Louise & Guss, who have sent us plantain, when my area was devastated by mildew before I could harvest enough. It's fiddly to gather. I owe Thumper's life to these folk. I could never begin to repay them.
All I can do is to pass on the thoughtfullness & great kindness that they have shown to us, to others whose backs are similarly against the wall.
At the end of the day it's about our beloved bunnies, and it's about sharing what we have, freely to help the buns & their owners. The reward is a bunny saved, a bunny who gets ill less often & less severely.
We all know the anguish of a sick bun. It's about empathy & compassion extended to others who love their buns, & relieving the isolation, of being surrounded by others who cannot possibly begin to understand how we feel.
You have brought a treasure chest of knowledge & experience about sick buns to this forum freely, & helped to save more bunny lives than we could begin to count.
There are those who work tirelessly to improve the lives of thousands of buns in better accommodation standards, despite hitting a brick wall. They deserve so much praise, encouragement & support.
All that I can bring is a vague memmory of times years ago when the only vet care available for buns was pts. & the wild plants which were traditionally used to maintain bunny health & treat certain conditions. This knowledge has been almost lost now.
Before I joined the forum, I simply asked whether by combining the best of the old, & what wild buns do to stay healthy, with modern medicines, we could get a further improvement.
I also bring a bunny to the forum, who has a remarkable inner knowledge of what he needs to keep his gut working. HE taught me what to use. I only looked up why it should work; & watched him for 5 years, until I was convinced that I was seeing true benefits & not simple fluctuations in his condition.
I also bring a knowledge of what we did for humans before there were the potent modern drugs, to try to overcome some of the specific problems posed by differences in buns. This knowledge has also been almost lost. I can only begin to work out what to do, when I understand the particular problems which make some illnesses in buns difficult to treat.
Just like every other member of the forum, I am only contributing knowledge & experience. It looks like a new way, but it's only combining old ways & what wild buns do, with new advances in vet treatment, to achieve what neither can do alone.
Those who live in cities can neither buy, nor access some plants. As you have sat up all night over the computer with those who have sick buns Jane, I have done my tiny part of sending those plants I can find locally to try to tip the balance favourably, for those buns whose stasis isn't responding.
I apologise for my lack of input recently. It is a mammoth task to collect & dry enough wild plants to feed a bun without a functioning caecum totally for 4-5 months when they are unobtainable in winter. I have found that Blackthorn /Sloe leaves are only effective for stasis when gathered during a 6 week period in Autumn. It takes 2,000 twigs to get the minimum needed for Thumper with his megacolon issues. Domperidone only just got us through until Autumn. Sloe leaves + domperidone appear to be getting him much healthier.
So I would advise any of you with buns who can, to get in a few twigs worth now, & dry them to help any of your buns who may have prolonged stasis issues, not responding to standard treatment, in the next 12 months.
Perhaps some of us will remember those who cannot get them, & collect a small surplus for those whose back is against the wall.
Please forgive a very long post.