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advice needed please

amysb86

Alpha Buck
right i seriously need some info people , firstly let me explain the situation i have found my self in i saw someone on the local facebook sale page selling a mother rabbit with her 4 x 4 week old kits and i immediately got a really worrying feeling of what if someone brought such a tiny family for there kids to 'play' with or to stick in a hutch or worse immediately sell on (when babys far to young to leave mother) so i found my self calling the guy and he just turned up in a van with 5 very frightened rabbits in a cardboard box,
i had gone and borrowed a large indoor cage from a friend and i made it up nicely with bedding that i had luckily run out and brought (as prev owner brought nothing with them but a little food)
the 4 babies looked very healthy as did mum.
i left them for 24 hrs to settle in with water bedding food hay etc. then took them out one by one to check them they all seemed very alert and no poo stains anywhere and they were all drinking and eating like mad. iv since started trying to bond with them including mother rabbit who is far more afraid of me than the babies - they seem quite fearless i let them run around my front room for a few hours a day and give them lots of strokes and cuddles - well not the mum yet as she is still not that ok with me but she likes to run around and have a treat from me ,yesterday she licked me :) afterwards
now my questions (sorry for rambling)
1) the babies dont seem to be feeding from mum hardly at but munching on her food and hay is this ok do i need to remove them from the mother?

2) one baby is different to the rest he eats well and drinks poop is fine but he very quite he likes to just sit, generally with me and be stroked or lick my hands and arms for ages but he never seems to run about with the others he just hops about slowly almost nervously also he hops different from the rest, should i be worried or is this particular bun just a little more placid?

3) how can i stop mum bunny (chloe btw) from eating my wallpaper and carpet? i rent my home and she is going to get me in to trouble lol

4)how can i find out if chloe has had her jabs will it hurt her if she has the same one twice (i just want her to be safe)

5)can i have some advice on how to lift chloe as she hates it very much but u have to in order to pop her back in her cage (i cant leave 5 buns running around they to small and fit everywhere lol)

right think thats it for time being thanks in advance for taking the time to read this xxx
p.s am planning to sell all but one baby to people i know will keep them as much loved house bunnys x
 
I don't have much advice baby bun wise but someone will I think so just giving this a bump for you :wave:

Think it's great you took them on away from the nasty guy btw :)
 
I can't help with most of those but for 1. I believe that rabbits only spend about five minutes a day feeding so don't worry if you don't actually see them suckling from mum.

As for 3 well I think we'd all like to know that! She's hormonal so that's probably playing a big part. I think the only thing you can really do for now is to protect. For carpet an offcut of Lino works well, for wallpaper cardboard would be a quick option. I use run panels or mesh storage cube panels to protect area where cables are, but these may be harder to get hold of quickly. I've heard of someone using large thick envelopes and bulldog clips to build a wall of cardboard round the edge of a room. I'll try and find the blog for you.
 
thanks i will try that :) have moved or covered all wires first things i did can handle them eating my house but not hurting them selves lol
the mess 5 buns that are not litter trained is interesting as well lol ( u ever tried litter training 5 bunnies you dont know who's poo is who's :lol:
il pop some pics of them all tomorrow for you all to see, they are so cute and all totally different colours xxxx
 
The only way I've found to stop rabbits chewing is to give them something better to chew. :lol:

Toilet rolls and cardboard boxes are great and free too. :)

You can put vinegar on the places she chews but that's a bit smelly. It seems to work though.

It might be that she's a little bored if she's locked in a smallish cage for quite some time. Obviously you have done a wonderful thing rescuing these rabbits so I'm not going to have a go at you about cage size. That would be silly. But rabbits need a lot more space than people realise. A good hutch size is 6 foot by 2 foot with an attached run. So it might be that she will continue the behaviour until she has more space. But it could also just as easily be territorial. She might be just marking her space as she's still quite nervous. And it might be that she just loves to chew. :)

There are some great ideas in the housing section for indoor set ups. You can lay lino or carpet over your carpet in a certain area and fence it off with a puppy pen or storage cubes to make them an enclosure. You can put all sorts of things in there to make it interesting without spending a lot. Like I said before, cardboard boxes seem to be a favourite but also kids' chairs and stools, wicker baskets. All can be found in charity shops, car boots that sort of thing. And the indoor cage could go in there as a big litter tray filled with hay for them to eat. I don't know if that sort of thing is possible for you to do but it might help them stop chewing.

Another thing is just bunny proofing with something like the pannels of a puppy pen against the wall so they can't get to it. But with tiny babies I imagine that's hard.

Again I think it's so good of you to take them on. We're always happy to help. :)

As well as vaccinations (not sure about whether she can have them if she already had) have you thought about neutering at all? I would recommend it for a few reasons. Firstly for health as about 80% of unneutered females develop ovarian cancer by the age of five which is quite scary. And for boys it prevents testicular cancer. But it will also help behaviour wise. They will be much more relaxed in themselves. Although it doesn't stop them being cheeky! But it stops a lot of territorial behaviour such as spraying and sometimes chewing as well.

And an unwritten forum rule... we love to see pictures. ;)
 
have tried giving her lots of things to chew, so far a wicker basket but she prefers my wicker magazine rack hehehee toilet roll stuffed with hey and a treat inside a yellow pages to eat dig etc 2 plastic toys from pet store a blanket to dig and nope she wants my wall paper and carpet lol
i am getting started on completely bunning proofing one corner of my house so she can have more room its killing me keeping her in a cage but i can trust her alone scared she'll get ill from glue on wallpaper. its just real hard with the babies they are sooo small they fit anywhere and they know it:)
pics on the way tomorrow :)
have names tho chloe is the mummy, then there is
biscuit (the shy one) dandelion the smallest one, jet the binkieing one, and chip the naughty one and i have fallen for them all:(

oh ment to add am having mum and which ever baby i keep neutered (just got to save some money as not exactly well off at mo xx )
 
Youll find it really hard to litter train little ones and unneutered bunnies to be honest. They poo and wee to mark their territory and little ones just won't really understand. You could maybe get a pen, an offcut of Lino and then cover the Lino with newspaper or towels and then use the cage base for newspaper and hay. That might also help to keep the little ones contained depending on how dinky they are.
 
was only joking not going to try and litter train the babies they wouldnt have a clue going to try and get hands on a pen or something similar so they can have more room as chloe looks so fed up i have to keep gettin her out as i cant bare it then she just hides and eats the wallpaper x x
 
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