Your Bunnies Stories How did it all begin?

How did you meet them? was it love at first sight? fate or did you get them on a whim only to become an expert?

My first bun was called Bilbo. I found him by accident. It was 1997

I was babysitting and one of the children kicked a ball over the fence into the neighbors garden. The neighbors had moved away. When I got into the garden I could smell something awful, I could then see a rotten falling apart hutch, something moved inside. I was a bit scared of what I would find. As I got closer I could see this thin, almost hairless pityfil creature inside His eyes were running, his claws were curling into his feet, his skin was red and sore and there were maggots inside the hutch Inside the " bedroom," part of the hutch there was a dead bunny
I scooped Bilbo up, wrapped him in my coat and took him inside. I was fired from my job as babysitter for bringing him into the house

The vets wanted to end Bilbo's suffering but I cried and pleaded for his life. The vet clipped bilbo's claws, gave eye drops and baytril and gave me a week with Bilbo. He said if there was no improvement he would be PTS. He was not expected to live.

I took Bilbo home to my bedroom at my parents. I knew nothing about rabbits, I had never even considered them as a pet before. I decided to keep him in my bedroom to keep an eye on him while he recovered. He spent a few days living in a cardboard box filled with hay with a bowl of russel rabbit and a bowl of water. I later bought a large indoor cage for him and let him out while I was there to watch him. I was a lonely teenager and spent a lot of time in my room.

As the days and weeks went by Bilbo went from strength to strength. He gained weight, his eyes looked brighter and his fur grew back. He was like a different bunny He became my best friend.
With each vet check the vets were amazed. They guessed his age to be around 2 or 3. Unfortunatly Bilbo had to have a lot of vet checks in his life as his teeth were not right, they caused him a lot of eye problems so he would have regular dentals and eye flushes. He was still the most friendly bun ever though

Bilbo house trained himself and was a good boy and never chewed up my stuff. He couldn't jump onto my bed. He couldn't jump very high at all, probably didn't know he could after being cramped in a hutch bless him. He was such a good boy and used to follow me everywhere. He was there for me when I had no one. He saw me grow up, get married and for it to fall apart. He was the constant in my life back then.

In 2003 I ended up taking on another bunny, Freeda. I was at the vets with Bilbo and one of his many checks when the vet told me that there was a bunny around the back. Freeda was disabled. One of her back legs did not work at all and had muscle wastage. She was also slightly incontinent. The vets didn't know what was wrong, they never did, but I suspect now, all these years later, that it was EC.
Bilbo was fixed so that they could be together and he was such a gentleman. He loved freeda very much. He was always grooming her and watching out for her. They were so happy together.



Sadly Freeda's condition got worse the vets still didn't know what to do. she was leaking urine all the time and needed bathing every day. Her poorly leg became burnt from urine so I had to try and keep the wee off her. I didn't know what to do, bandages became soaked so I put her in a little nappy with a hole cut out. The poop plopped out so it didn't become mushy but the wee was kept away from her weak leg. Dispite everything she was such a happy little bun.

Freeda's time with us was very short just 8 months. One night she had a fit and was rolling. I rang round every vet I could think of but no one knew what was wrong and she was PTS I am so very sad when I think of her now as I know she could have been treated and that her and Bilbo could have had longer Both Bilbo and I were devastated.

That's a lovely story.
Molly has quite a good story but I'll save it for her special gotcha day post tomorrow

In 2004 we were at the vets again. A lady was there with a baby bunny I was in love straight away and said " awwww what a cute bunny," the lady said " I'm having her PTS today," I was horrified and asked why, she told me that she was the wrong colour and that her female was " raped," by a wild bun ( still not sure if this is true! ) I ended up taking home a very tiny and very frightened wild coloured lionhead bunny

So begins Gypsy's Story

Baby Gypsy



Bilbo and Gypsy




Gypsy was the most frightened nervous and wild little creature I have ever met :shock: honesty, I couldn't even scratch my nose without her running away!. Bilbo adored her though and seemed to calm her and soothe her. It took a long time before Gypsy would come up to me. I had to sit in the bedroom sitting perfectly still covered in bunny treats for hours :lol::lol::lol: I nearly cried the first time she took a treat from my hand.

As Gypsy's confidence grew it was obvious what a little madam she was :lol: After Bilbo and freeda Gyspy was a shock to the system :shock: It was the first time I'd seen a bunny jump on the bed ( and rip it to shreads!) She ripped up the carpet, chewed through every wire imagineable and destroyed all my exs cloths as they hung in the warbrobe :lol::lol::lol:

When me and my ex split ( not bunny related ) I had to move back with my parents. Gypsy had reached new heights of crazyness. I have never seen a bunny jump as high as she could or destroy as many things. Then there was the nesting, in MY bed. I would come home shattered and ready for bed, peal back the covers to find a lovely big nest of fur and shreaded sheets in my bed :shock: If I dared to get in my own bed I was in serious danger of becoming bald :shock: poor Bilbo at this time looked like a harrassed hen pecked husbun. It got so bad that I had to sleep on the floor through fear of being attacked :shock::lol: I did of course get Gypsy spayed and all was calm, well, she didn't nest any more, still a crazy little madam though :lol:

By this time Bilbo was getting old and his health wasn't the best. he was a bit over weight had arthriis and his teeth were getting worse. He was prone to a messy bum but i always kept him clean. sadly this wasn't enough and somehow my very much loved and looked after indoor bunny got flystrike I will always blame my self for this. The vet tried to save him but it was too much and Bilbo passed away

Bilbo's death hit me very very hard. Gypsy was devastated too. I became the other bunny for 6 months. My bond with Gypsy was very strong. I had decided that I was never EVER going to get another bunny ever. It hurt too much

That was until I over heard a lady talking in a super market about the runt she wanted rid of. I had to step in and ask her what she ment. She told me about her Frnch lop bunnies and the runt taking up space. I offered to have him

Baby Storm (2005 )



Now Gypsy was NOT impressed one bit by this tiny little scrap of a bun half her size. She chased him and bit him. I was confused, after all all my buns had got along before. I joined RU and asked for help.
After a rocky start and a lot of advise from this lovely place I ended up with 2 loved up bunsters

Stormy grew and grew and grew :shock: he was no longer this tiny scrap all feet and ears, Gypsy however was still very much the boss

Gypsy and baby Storm



Storm is the most laid back, lazy but lovely boy ever. The only time he gets worked up is about food. He loves to throw things, He still makes me laugh thrwing his treat ball against the wall untill all the food falls out:lol: and he is the mater of poo olympics, he can kick poo onto the celing :shock:

Gypsy and Storm have seen some changes in my life. They've seen me get married ( again!) have River and they now have their own room in the family home. I sometimes miss sharing the bed with bunnies ( but not being weed on! )

Gypsy and Storm are an old married couple now.

Wake up Stormy





I love my bunnies




sorry for such a long post please post yours

Sorry I broke up your thread!!
I enjoyed reading that

FudgeTort said:

Sorry I broke up your thread!!
I enjoyed reading that

Click to expand...

aww that's OK, it was an epic thread :lol: I was having trouble posting it LOL

Sorry I cried so much when you found Bilbo.

What a wonderful life you gave him, Freeda, Gypsey and Storm.

But Gypsey, oh my word :shock: Shredded sheets.

A very touching and beautiful story, with sadness.

What a wonderful story and lucky bun Bilbo was to have you

I've had so many bunnies and all have similar tales would take me an age to post them all.

It took me an age to post these ones I'd love to hear some of your stories.

I was just thinking the other day that I never actually chose any of my bunnies, I was just in the right place at the right time :shock: I wonder how people DO choose, how do you know they are " the ones," ?

sparklefairy said:

It took me an age to post these ones I'd love to hear some of your stories.

I was just thinking the other day that I never actually chose any of my bunnies, I was just in the right place at the right time :shock: I wonder how people DO choose, how do you know they are " the ones," ?

Click to expand...

I think this should be your special stories. I am so sentimental.

I never picked, I let the rescues pick for me, except Mr Bennett. I liked his cheeky nose. Although he was a rescue bun. Oh and now Bandit, because he has always been overlooked. He arrives next week.

I got Boris through one of the kids at the school my mum works at. The family had 2 bunnies that they thought were both female.....until they'd had an accidental litter. They never even knew the female was pregnant, they just found the babies after they'd been born. From what I remember (this was 5 years ago now lol & my memory isnt the best!) they invited us over to have a look. We didnt plan at this point to get one at all, it was just for fun basically. But once we saw those little fluffballs We all pretty much fell in love. My mum and sis couldnt decide which one we wanted so I ended up picking Boris he was the first one I got to hold, and I remember it so well. He was so tiny i could hold him with one hand it was definitely love at first sight, him and I bonded pretty much instantly.

We went home, bought the cage & accessories etc. and came back to pick him up a few weeks later. They told us they had trouble finding the other ones homes so we helped with that too. Boris has 3 sisters 2 of which were adopted by a friend of my sister's and her parents, and one of my mums friends has the 3rd one. They've all grown up to be beautiful rabbits but they dont look anything alike :lol:

Then in 2009 we moved house & mum finally let me get him a friend I walked into a pet shop for some hay and in the adoption section, there was a beautiful black rabbit. Intrigued, i walked up to her and said hi, offered her a bit of hay which she accepted. She looked at me and I could tell that there was something special about her. What it was, I didnt know, but I somehow just knew that she was the one. She was meant to be mine. I brought her home a week later and named her Bella

I love your story.

My very first bunny was Lopsie. My mum's friend found him by a very busy road in Manchester, she wanted to keep him but her lovely huge dog wanted to play with him. I had been begging my mum for a rabbit since the age of five. I don't know what it was, my parents are not pet people, but there was something about rabbits and since I was five I was obsessed. Just before my 11th birthday my mum picked me up from school and said she had an early birthday present. I had to look in the back of the car. There was a huge bag of hay and a bag of sawdust... and rabbit food.

I didn't believe her until her friend turned up with the rabbit.

I called him Lopsie and he was my best friend and companion for eight years. I had him put to sleep just before I went to university when I was 19. He had an abscess on his jaw and stopped eating. It makes me so sad because if I knew then what I do now I think I could have saved him. But I couldn't syringe feed him, he just wouldn't swallow it. He started to get very floppy and couldn't walk. All in the course of a week. I think it was EC related now I look back. But he was an old boy so maybe it was for the best. I still miss him so much eight years on and I'm going to get a tattoo of him on my wrist when I've got some money.

As a baby and the tattoo I want:



And in his elderly years:



Here's a full picture thread of Lopsie.
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...ssing-photos-of-me-as-a-kid)&highlight=lopsie



And my next love was my brother in law's rabbit Hugs.

I posted this a long time ago:

My ex boyfriend's little brother who I still call my brother-in-law was bought two little rabbits. He's very good with animals. He called the two sisters Hugs and Cuddles.

Hugs is gray and white and Cuddles is ginger and white.







As you will probably not be surprised to hear Hugs was actually a boy and they had babies.





*sad bit*

A neighbour's husky escaped and got into their garden and ripped off the front of Cuddles' hutch while she still had the babies. She valiantly attacked it but was killed. She saved all her babies bar one.

They all went to lovely homes and his auntie kept one baby, Ruby, one of the white ones (I can't tell which).

*end of sad bit*

When I moved in with them I was rabbitless. I took to Hugs straight away and loved him and looked after him as if he were my own. Here he is in his favourite place.



In February 2007 there were severe gale force winds. He was out in the garden and a portion of the fence blew off. When I went to check on him he was nowhere to be seen. My brother-in-law was at school and I felt so awful that I'd let him down.

I ran around the whole neighborhood calling him and looking everywhere with no luck. I made posters and put them all over on every lamppost in the area. I rang all the vets and then the pet shops. And then I rang the RSPCA... and they had him! He'd been found standing in the middle of the road growling at cars. They brought him back to us and after I'd finished giving him lots of cuddles and they'd asked if the area was secure now they left him with us.

Epilogue.

Hugs lived happily after that, but a few days later I got a phone call. A woman had seen the posters I'd put up and because I had gone to so much trouble to get my rabbit back she said I must be a good owner and would I take her rabbit. She had to move house and couldn't keep him. :roll:

I thought about it very carefully and then said yes. She brought over hay, food and a big cardboard box. And in the box was....








Grimlock.

That's a lovely story, I'm so glad you found poor Bilbo when I have time I'll share my stories! :wave:

When our daughter was 6 she asked for a rabbit, we said not till you are 8. The plan being she would have forgotten about it by then.

Fast forward to July as she would turn 8 in the September we went to an open day at our local rspca. After awwing at the cats which are my weakness, we went to the 'rabbit house'. Biscuit and Alaska were in an enclosure, biscuit was a 5k french/german cross lop and Alaska was a white rex ex stud bunny. They had been there bonded for over 2 years and were free to a good home.

Well that was that. My mum had an unwanted wendy house so that came to us and a run was attached and the bunnies after a home check came to live with us, our daughter was delighted. sadly Alaska didnt like the move and died in my arms 6 weeks later, our daughter was deverstated. We contacted a local rescue the same day cos of how upset our daughter was, her early birthday present had sadly died two weeks after her birthday. we took biscuit and she immediately loved tommy.

We had 5 years of loves young dream with Tommy and bix. Sadly we lost Bix last september a week after my daughters birthday, Tommy then met Twinkle but he had lost the love of his life and we lost him a month later. Now Twinkle has Ozzie. Our daughter is now nearly 14 and a typical teenager, that said she lets them out every morning, feeds them and mucks them out every night, she maybe doesnt spend as much time with them as she did when she was little but I do love them and I reckon even when she leaves home I shall continue with bunnies. Cats will always be my first love but bunnies run a close second

Stevie-baby came to me from a friend at University.

Stephen's Poppa couldn't look after him anymore as they were moving away for University and so he advertised him on Facebook with his friend Winston. Unfortunately Winston died (don't know why) quite suddenly and so poor Stephen was left on his own. No one wanted Stephen (I don't know why, he's lovely) and so my friend advertised him again as "Free to a Good Home". I hadn't seen the previous advertisment but looked at this poor lonely bunny sitting in his cage and thought I had to rescue him. So I toddled off down to my friend's house and without even really properly meeting Stephen he had a new Mummy. My friend seemed to be keen to leave for University so cage, food and toys were bundled into the back of my tiny car, and a little bunny in a blue carry case came and sat in the front seat of the car with me. Because he is black and white at first all I could see was a little nose, scared, in his carry case, but I said hello, told him I'd look after him, strapped the carry case in so it didn't move about too much, and we went home.

Since then we have moved house together and have made so many changes. We're now a Wagg family, rather than Muesli, he has lovely farm hay which he munches on throughout the day and I have taken him from a big(ish) cage, to a slightly smaller one, but full free range access to the house. We still have a few accidents here and there (chewed phone charger, a few nibbled carpet edges) but he has gone from strength to strength, from being a timid scared little bunny who used to hide under the sofa everytime anyone went near him, to a confident, beautiful bun who jumps on the sofa for noserubs and cuddles Mummy when she's sad.



Soon, it's time for a wifey-bun!

I'm really loving all of you stories our bunnies become so specail the moment the set their first paw print in our lives and onto our hearts. They teach us so much.

I too look back in hind sight with freeda and think she could have been saved all those years passed and it's only now I realise it was probably EC. I also think I could have given Bilbo a better diet which may have helped his teeth. But russel rabbit was sold for rabbits so you'd think it would be ok. It wasn't until Storm came into my life that I learnt about selective feeding ( from my vet :shock: )

I was in a Garden Centre looking at the lionheads - had never seen one before. Wanted a fluffy baby but then saw tiny 18in x18in glass house with a little grey bun in - he was a lionhead (rung) but not fluffy. The woman said he had been returned twice for aggression. I bought him, named him Smirnoff.

He was never aggressive, but never friendly either. I kept him in a 3ft hutch & let him out in the living room when I was in for about 6mths - but he always seemed quiet & kept to himself. So I got him a boy-friend from P@H - an English Spot called Joey. I put them together & Joey nearly got battered - dunno if that scarred him for life, but after that Joey was always a dream to bond - approaching a new bun with respect & caution

So I googled - didn't get onto RU immediately - but found some stuff about neutering & bonding - & how Male/female pairs are the best. That led me to RR & I got my first Rescue Bun - a spayed rex female-Chocolate. Trying to learn how to bond was what let me to RU. Eventually these 3 buns were part of a Bonded 13

I'd been planning for ages and ages to buy an African Pygmy Hedgehog, one day on my way home from somewhere my mum said to me "Dad doesnt want you to buy such an expensive animal, what about a cheap one like a guinea pig or rabbit" :lol:

It so happened we were just about to pass our local p@h so in we went to have a look around, me sulking and thinking "no way am I going to buy a rabbit or guinea pig" I looked in all the pens and then I stumbled across the adoption pen, inside was a beautiful 4month old Agouti nethie called Brad

I had a cuddle with him and fell in love We asked if we could reserve him, go home and talk to my dad. Apparently thats not allowed with adoption animals so I looked at my mum and she said "Well go on then, call your dad"
I called him and he instantly said yes :shock: which never happens with my dad :lol: so we put Brad in a box, brought a cage and some sawdust and food and toddled off home with him.

Brad soon became Sebastian, my heart bunny, my baby

Heres a picture from the day after he came home


Eventually I presuaded my parents he needed a friend, so we adopted Mae sadly she passed away last November and thats when Imogen joined us

I was at Melton animal market with a friend, we went to buy buckets and haynets for our horses. Anyway, Sharon insisted we checked out the fur and feather section. I saw this tiny beautiful nethie hiding at the back of her pen, desperatley trying to get away from people staring and all the noise. I'd had rabbits as a child but it had never crossed my mind to get one as an adult. But as people started to buy the cheap ones for dog food, I started to rack my brain to how I could save her. I bidded and for the sum of £3 she was mine. I brought her home and set her up a dog crate in the shed. I couldn't believe how loving she was, she would climb up onto me and wanted to snuggle the whole time. I realised she was lonely and went back to melton a month later. Ferdi, a beautiful choolate fudge mini lop caught my eye, he was so different to shy Anky, he sat at the front of his cage, almost trying to catch the eye of the people swarming around. I kept going back to see where the bidding had got to, as I was desperate to take him home. Suddenly, I went back to find that he was gone. I shouted out, "where's the brown rabbit" at the top of my voice (something that my friends still rib me for) and luckily he hadn't sold. The owner had taken him out of his cage and was about to give him to a man who wanted to feed him to his ferretts :evil: I rushed over and literally threw him £1. I can't believe that at these places animals lives are so cheap. He came home and is the most gorgeous friendly rabbit. Him and Anky went for their ops and bonded effortlessly at the vets recovering from their neutering. They are so loved up and happy