Did I kill My Rabbit?

Hello All

I am new to this forum but during my horrible guiltly grieving process I could do with some advice.

My story starts just over 3 year ago where we decided to go with a rabbit has a pet. Looking into it me and my wife decided that we would buy 2 rabbits because having one would be cruel. Again taking advice we got a male and a female (brother and sister) and had the relevent ops done so we would not have lots of bunnys.

I noticed on occasions that the male rabbit would have a dirty bum. Again reading all about rabbits I would clean him up because I wanted to prevent fly strike. The dirty bum seemed to get worse last year so I would fill an old bowl with small amount of warm water and gently bath him using Rabbit shampoo.

As October came around and the weather appeared to at first cool down so I felt a weekend check would be sufficient. However if anyone can remeber we had a red hot spell which concided with me having a business trip overseas. The night I arrived home I saw a trail of straw and rabbit poo behind his back side so I went to clean him straight away. To my horror I found him full of maggits so we rushed him to the vet. The good news is that he made a recovery and I nursed him back to full health, however I was paranoid that he would have further fly strikes due to his on going messy bum.

So I gave him a shallow bath in February during a nice sunny day when again he was messed up, I dried him off and placed him back in his hutch. Again there were no problems. Last Sunday was the same, a dirty bum so again I decided to give him a shallow bath. However when I went to feed the rabbits on Monday I found him dead at the bottom of his hutch.

I now feel dreadful and having looked at the internet it is now clear that bathing a rabbit can be very stresful and on occasions has led to rabbits passing away. All I can see is my healthy rabbit trying to escape me on Sunday where he appeared ok then to me bathing him and finding him dead.

My concern now is for the female rabbit I have tried to comfort her by petting her more often and letting her have extended runs around the garden but I don't know what to do for the best.

Any advice or opinons would be most welcome.

Thanks

Ian

Hi Ian,

Welcome to the forum. I am so sorry that you arrive here in such sad circumstances.

Often a full bathe of a rabbit is exceptionally stressful. Ideally, if a rabbit needs a bathe, it's advised to do a butt bath, which is what you did. It was something you had done multiple times. It sounds, to me, like something else happened (or at the very least, played a huge factor), but as to what, that is an unknown and it could only have been known through a post mortem at the time.

Grief is a horrible thing to deal with, especially when you think, or are sure, you played a part in your bunnies death. I can relate deeply to that, although mine was definitely my fault. Hopefully in time you will come to see that whilst whatever happened, happened, you did the best you could. All you can do is, if there is anything to learn from this, find it and use it in the future.

With regards to your lady, would you consider adopting a neutered, vaccinated male rabbit for her to bond with and live with?

Thanks for your kind words.

Having searched the web today for advice I am more and more looking into introducing a neutered male rabbit. Again having reserached this it can be tricky but I think at the moment that could be the best soluotion.

If you try local rescues (or even some that rehome nationally) then they might even do the bonding for you. That can make things easier. Also, often if the bond doesn't work, they will take back the bunny and try a different one.

Simply put, no I don't think you killed your rabbit, he might not have liked being bathed but he was used to it.... but leaving him with a mucky bum could have led to another flystrike attack which might well have killed him. I think you did the right thing.

Certain food can cause mucky bums, so if you were to have the same problem with another rabbit it would be worth trying different nuggets etc. I would also suggest adopting a rescue bun as a friend for your female rabbit. Our rabbit lost her partner last year (she was 3 at the time) and is now happily bonded to another 1 year old bunny from a rescue.

Hope you soon have two happy buns again.