• Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.

From Christmas miracle to looking for answers

Warning, this story does not have a happy ending, but we are looking for answers ...

About a month ago a co-worker of mine mentioned a her neighbours rabbit was now living on her property. She advised the neighbour and told were she could find her rabbit but the neighbour showed no interest in catching it. Knowing the rabbit was lucky to be alive due to the mild weather so-far, we decided to catch it and find it a new home before she succumbed to the elements or a predator. We very nearly caught her our first attempt, but she was too quick and run under the house. We set a trap and continuously checked on it. Then, on Friday December 23rd, I spotted her and managed to catch her. I brought her home and set her up in a spare cage (we have three rabbits of our own). She seemed hungry and her nails were in need of a good trim. She also had three scabs on her (one on the hind, two in the inner ear) which looked like rabbit teeth. She had a good appetite but preferred pellets and vegetables but not her timothy hay. She seemed to be drinking twice as much as our other rabbits (who were twice her size) and did appear to pee a lot (mainly clear urine). We figured she had not drunk much water in the last month and was a bit dehydrated. Her coat had a healthy sheen and she had no discharge. Over the next few days she seemed to be settling in to her new home and was quite affectionate. She was feisty and would make little grunting noises. She would pee every time she was out of her cage so we limited her outside time while we got her toilet trained. We noticed two of our rabbits over by her cage and they seemed to be bothering her, so we quickly prevented their access to her cage so as not to disturb her. We think that may have been Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday evening we noticed a decreased interest in her food. She would eat, but you had to give her the food. We gave her some critical care and observed her holding her left paw in a "limp". We figured she may have hurt it jumping back into her cage after her exercise time. This past Friday, we noticed the left paw now swollen and what appeared to be a bite wound. She also was not her feisty self and no grunts, so we took her to the vet. They gave us Metacam and Sulfatrimal and noticed she appeared very disinterested. They tried to give her medicine but she would not open her mouth. We took her home believing she would be less stressed their to give her her meds. As we pulled into the driveway she started thrashing in her carrier. We rushed her inside and got her on a bed where she died right away.

We were devastated. She had been doing so well and had survived her negligent owners and being outside for a month, only to die in our home! We are going to have a post mortem, but will be extremely upset if she died because on of our own managed to bite her through her cage.

The vet seems to believe there were underlying issues with her health for having to be outside and lacking proper food. She may have had renal problems resulting in her excessive thirst/peeing. And I struggle to accept how she survived the other wounds in the wild but our rabbit bite was so catastrophic.

She appeared to be 6 months old and weighed 1 kg. We called her Chloe and she was a real sweatheart :(


http://s1138.photobucket.com/albums/n534/nicksamaras/rabbits/
 
The little darling:(

So many things went through my head..teeth issues, urinary issues, perhaps even E.C.

Bless her little heart.
Sleep Easy,Little one.xx
 
Im sorry, it sounds like you did everything you could and were very kind to take her in. I very much doubt a bite would have caused her death and I hope the post mortam will give you some answers x
 
I would think that either you or the vet would have noticed a wound :) i'm sorry the story did not have a happy ending :cry: I'm sure it could have a myriad of reasons. The thrashing, could that have been a seizure? Maybe she was ill and someone 'let her go' instead of paying out for veterinary care. :(
 
So sorry you lost her. :cry:

Sounds to me like kidneys, hence the excessive thirst. I assumed clear bunny urine was good too but my vet said it should be cloudy - another sign her kidneys weren't right. :(

Hope you get some answers but it sounds as if you did all you could...
 
Thanks all,

Here teeth were fine. Apparently, her owners kept her in a cage outside and claimed the rabbit always 'escaped' from her cage. When they were informed were she was to get her they said they weren't sure yet if they were interested in catching her (this according to my co-worker). When my co-worker made attempts to capture the rabbit, the owner came onto her property and told her 'how dare she try to catch their rabbit' while making no attempt to catch it themselves. The neighbourhood kids had passed the word on that others were looking for the rabbit, and the owners were probably trying to save face with their kids. They would then snoop around the property after they heard about the trap and demanded to see it.

I suspect with her age she may have been an "Easter" present who was kept outside in a cage and conveniently let go when the time came to move her inside. Makes my so angry to think about it.

Ironically, this poor rabbit's owners are giving her no thought now, but we are the ones with broken hearts...
 
Last edited:
The vet seems to believe there were underlying issues with her health for having to be outside and lacking proper food. She may have had renal problems resulting in her excessive thirst/peeing. And I struggle to accept how she survived the other wounds in the wild but our rabbit bite was so catastrophic.

She appeared to be 6 months old and weighed 1 kg. We called her Chloe and she was a real sweatheart :(


http://s1138.photobucket.com/albums/n534/nicksamaras/rabbits/

I'm really sorry to hear this. Very sad :(

It does sound like renal/liver failure. Those are the exact symptoms Fidget had when she was suffering from a liver disorder. Thankfully we caught it early enough and she was fine but the vet did say if we hadn't she would eventually lose interest in food and start fitting so it does sound a lot like that. My guess is she had the issue for a while but with negligent owners and living outside for a month it just wasn't detected.

Well done for catching her and taking her in though, at least she had a loving home in the end, if only for a short period :cry:
 
I'm sorry, that must have been really hard for you. The thing that stands out is the love & care that you showed her. Even a very sick rabbit would surely pick up on the fact that someone cared for her. How much worse it would have been if she'd still been fending for herself. You did Chloe a great kindness. :)
 
Back
Top