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people keep telling me its why they dont have rescue rabbits.

purplebumble

Warren Veteran
sigh.....tok baxter for a bit of a trim so i could clean him up properly....and hes ended up staying in the night!!

His respiratory infection is not active at the moment...but there is background noise/wheezes coming from the aleovi in his lungs....points to his resp infection being pasturella related.
He has dental spurs but they dont want to do anything unless he goes off eating so much hay...resp problem buns and GA are nt a good mix i know.
The wee is not dominamce sitting in it flicking it all around the lounge all over the lino floor. No she thinks its a side effect of spondylosis....his hip on one side is dropped and thus his thigh....pointing to spine problem for him to be unable to wash himself. He isnt incontinent we hope its just the not being able to wash himself. And yet he lays on his side and cat washes just like bluebell.

let me see....first rescue bun was a dental bun with severe gi problems all her life here
second rescue bun only had a sspected wee infection once but was clear after
third rescue bun turns out to be a dental bun with this weird necrotic fatty tissue/fatty lipoma around his guts.
fourth and fifth rescue bun came to me as a pair.....one got very sick and had to be hospitalised but went downhill and had to be pts instead. The other has suffered these bouts of inexplicable raging fever......with no known cause. she has behavioural issues too and had a large fatty lipoma removed fom her shoulder area.....then another has grown a bit further down and to one side.
sixth rescue bun is healthier than any of the others but is prone to gi robs as shes a nervy bun.
seventh rescue bun is a dental bun with gi issues.

now baxter:cry:

people have said...and my mum when she was alive said....its why bunnys are in rescues....theyre all defective...lotsf problems and its why theyre dumped at the rescue in the first place.

tonight i feel tht way too....but my 1st bun from a pet shop...oral syphilis and a dental bun with gi issues. second bun from a frend f a frend......suffered bladder infections....and calcium problems.
third bun came from a breeder of 25years who was retiring.....hevwas a dental bun. Bertie i borrowed then adopted...he had a few things happen but itvwas the pasturella lead to his fits and respirtory roblems until he died in his litter tray. Willow came from the ladyni aopted bertie from.....she was never sick...just died in front of us.....casper we took in as hed been dumped at the vets....he had dental issues and then a tooth root abscess leading to osteomyalitis ...and hed been dumed with a necrotic lip which had to cut off bit by bit...but we knew hevwas ill and would not last long.

its swingsvand roundabouts i say....but hear the arguements about it all and do find myself wondering...is it because so many bunnies are dumped at rescues because theynave an oboing health problem?

baxter....spondylosis?! but hes only two years old!! And hes not obese!

i think im having a woe is me moment i do apologise!
but i do wonder after all....do any of you wonder too?
 
You can see Mimzy's picture in my siggy. He was dumped with two REW's in my OH's business parking lot.
Mimzy never exhibited any malady in the first year he lived with me, but one of his companions became obviously ill with something leaking from his nostrils and odd spots on the inside of one ear just before winter hit and he disappeared. We were sadly unable to find him and I figure he perished soon after we last saw him. :(

Not long after his neuter Mimzy began to display signs of snotty nose and sneezing. We cleared up the first infection but six months later it was back. And no matter what we threw at it we never kept it away.
We never got a definitive culture on him but presume he has pasturella. Then in his third year he was diagnosed with hip spurs and started needing dentals every three months. He now has spondylosis and most recently, headtilt...two months in and there is minimal improvement.

I could not have anticipated this looking back at his beginnings. He seemed a perfectly normal rabbit to me.
I think they are just dumped because it's easy to do so. People put babies in dumpsters...why not bunnies? :(

Sorry your buns have so many issues. :( Sending healing vibes, prayers and hugs. :love:
 
I don't believe rabbits end up in rescue because they are defective in any way it's 99.99% of the time that the humans are fickle: they didn't know what to expect/just plain got bored/the rabbit became inconvenient/they are generally bought as children's pets and the adult expected the child to stay committed to looking after them .... etc etc. Most rabbits end up in rescue/get ejected from their first home in the first year of their lives - presumably for most before they've had chance to develop health problems.

I think they lost their first (and maybe second, third etc) home simply because the humans weren't committed to them, not through any fault of the rabbit's health or even temperament.

I think my rabbits have been pretty even health wise between the early "bought" ones and the rescue ones (either from formal rescue or otherwise). As for temperament - they are all adorable, I just can't understand why they were ejected from their previous homes :(

A lot of it must be down to luck. Each time I've taken on a rabbit I've wondered if there's 'something wrong with' them and that's why they are homeless. Oh and, my most recent 'family member' Dinky, came from P@H adoption and I chose her because she was stated to have molar spurs and uneven jaw line, she was five years old - I thought this poor rabbit doesn't stand a change of an ordinary home, it needs a rabbit-obsessed individual to home her ... so I did :oops::oops::oops: Turns out, when a rabbit vet looked at her teeth she has a small spur but unlikely to need ongoing dental treatment. So even deliberately taking on the 'broken ones' doesn't always end up that way.
 
Thank you both....and i have had some sleep to wake up to this.
I think its is because we have six unbonded bunnies living in shared space....two in the lounge....two in nikkis room and two in mine that i notice too often when things flare up. Maybe i panic a little too much but maybe inpanic the right amount some of the time. I would never have expected to cope with all 6 of them seeing the vet so often but if you do have more than one pet what do you expect! And bunnies are complex little creatures......that fall ill very quickly and take a long time to recover or live a life with a chronic condition until it kills them.

baxter was brought all the way down to us by lovely wendy from the essex rabbit and guinea pig rescue the day before my mum went into the hospice in march. Bertie had died on 17th february and bluebell was beside herself with grief. I tried everywhere for a bigger bun to match her frenchie size....but seems the rescues said they get snapped up right away.
Wendy had already homed a bun with me last july....original flintstone met her halfway and then bought the bun ti me. shes an older bun has these illness issues which have worsened but shes so affectionate compared to other buns weve had.....and more aloof than others.....shes jumps in my bed fir fusses even falls asleep with me etc...shes a moobag but shes my guilty pleasure....i fell in lovevwith her description.
Wendy had baxter and his brother a week and he was in her lounge so was his brther.....along with her cats! He ticked the boxes....bigger bun....likes cats.....friendly and laid back.

I wouldnt have got another bun so fast but bluebell was so lonely. Baxter got her eating again and moving.....theyve had a love hate relationship...he wanted to love her.....she had other ideas!

I think him coming when he did...a few days efore we found out mums cancer was back and she had a matter of weeks....close to losing bertie.....mums hospice visits.....then her dying....clearing her house....the funeral...all the oaperwork etc and certificates to get just got to me......it was selfish of me to get him when i did but we didnt know mums cancer was bak let alone she was dying till four days after shed gone into the hospice to get her symptoms under control.

All my buns...all their illnesses....all the heartbreak.....all the deaths........I feel im a bad owner....
But all my buns were loved and the ones nw are loved......i wouldnt not have had them if im honest with yse,f even knwing they were ill....or as ive been told.......defective!

I have been trying to find info on younger buns esp bigger buns developing spondylosis but advice and infirmation points to older buns.

Maybe they are...defective and in ill health...but then again so are nikki and i so they fit right in. And we muddle through it as best we can. No i am not in a financial position to take on knowingly sick pets but ive done it once.....and never regret it because he had an amazing few months...his last months with us.

I just feel its always MY pets ALWAYS ill because im talking tompeople whove had their rabbit for nine years and its never been ill...and sadly these people are the types who leave their buns as a prisoner in a teeny outside hutch.....i no longer have contact with one of half bros in west sussex.....and i got upset when he kept saying things like that ad how long ther piggies have been alive and never ill....etc.

So i am not evil..its just one of those things like it is in people.....better a shorter life span even with a chronic condition and well loved than a long life as a miserable prisoner right?
 
My vet often intimates that I have problems with my buns because they are all rescue buns but then he says he sees a lot of illnesses in buns who came from PAH too.

I think my Bridge buns Peggy and Sue were poorly because they had had a rough start in life. The vet thought their problems were because they hadn't received the correct nutrition in their formative years.

I am at the vet a lot but that's because I have so many fur children. I don't think it's because all my buns are rescue buns. I must admit I was delighted when the vet said Hovis had perfect teeth though - as he is a new addition I hadn't planned at all :)
 
Well people will be less likely to adopt if they can't afford regular treatments and will choose to go with a 'newer model' because they think it will be more healthy. But they are only as healthy as you try to make them. Making sure they have a good diet, exercise, vacs and such.

It's like anything else really. All we need is a healthy diet and exercise and we shouldn't really have any problems.

I always try to keep Rosie and Pebbles as healthy as possible and thankfully (touch wood) my efforts have paid off.
 
Well people will be less likely to adopt if they can't afford regular treatments and will choose to go with a 'newer model' because they think it will be more healthy. But they are only as healthy as you try to make them. Making sure they have a good diet, exercise, vacs and such.

It's like anything else really. All we need is a healthy diet and exercise and we shouldn't really have any problems. I always try to keep Rosie and Pebbles as healthy as possible and thankfully (touch wood) my efforts have paid off.

You can do all you can (both for yourselves and your rabbits) to but think you won't get any problems because you are doing things right is heading for disaster. Things CAN go wrong with health no matter how hard you try to prevent it. If you have a rabbit that lives all its life and never has any health problems then you are extremely lucky.

There examples I have here:

Artie had a kidney removed due to kidney stones, probably caused by EC. He has ongoing bladder sludge problems and needs £400 worth of treatment each year and has had surgery on his bladder. He has ALWAYS been on a good diet and lives in good housing; I've had him since 11 weeks old. Even with hindsight I don't think I could have prevented his health problems.

Erin has surgical adhesions from her spay. That could have been prevented by not being spayed!

Esme has a breach of her abdominal wall (not a hernia but similar). Again any amount of care couldn't have prevented this from occuring as it was a weakness she was born with.

My first rabbit had malocclusion of her incisiors - no amount of 'making' her eat hay was going to prevent her from having dental problems.

Shadow had a congenital problem with his liver which led to him not getting the nutrition from the food he was eating. This caused him to 'not thrive' and eventaully he died because of it. He was looked after really well, so if anybody thinks that they are only sick because they don't get the correct care - then think again!
 
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Thank you Karen....glad i am not the only one! Odd to think how ill bertie was but all his life he had perfect teeth bless him.

Little eskimo i am glad that your buns have no health problems...but it is not just a case of good diet etc means no health probs......i have found that out the hard way. i hope yours have a long healthy life..and you never ave to experience the heart break of so many health problems with your buns. I am not saying your buns will get sick....i am saying please please do not get complacent.....i lost oscar through that .....and one bun who never was sick who,lived with his wife whomwas a dental bun with gi probs. so i took the squishy poos to be hers....the small poos hers etc etc until we picked himup realised itnhad been him and hevwas freezing old gone into shock.....we raced yo vets and had him pts prob seobds before he would have died. vet presumed it was kidney failure but we asked her to open him up and sure enough he hadba blockage which he must have passed but his guts were entirely empty and he had torsion of the gut like dogs do...she was very very shocked....so were we.

never say never...

bunny buddy....i feel for you i really do.....such problems are not obvious things to happen but when they do.....they always seem they are happening to you.

poor baxter..we got him back...they coudnt get him all clean ether and shaved and clipped a lot of the fur away. watching him we now see he has a similar hobble to the one thst bertie had in the last two years of his life. will start his metacam tomorrow instead of a few days.

i am terrified he will get worse and end up covered in urine scald...he has a ptch of it already. Guess a disposable nappy will come into use bless him if it does get worse. Hes been weeing and pooping in his tray.....but its the notbwashing the wee off that causes the skin to turn sore.

thank you for remiding me everyone else has these same sort of problems xxx
 
I don't think it's a problem of rescue rabbits, I think it's a problem of rabbits. Most rescue rabbits aren't born in rescue, which means that before being 'rescue rabbits' they were just 'rabbits'...and most rescue rabbits with health problems have them before they come into the rescue, not after.

Of my most recent rescue rabbits, only Santa had any kind of ongoing problem; Dudley has a few problems now he is old, but that's because he is 9 and I would expect that; Harry never had any problems until the few months before he died also aged 9. Heather is now 9.5 and apart from one dental back in 2006 has never had any problems. Mavis is 5 and has never been to the vets for anything other than vaccinations. So based on my experience, I'd say that having rescue rabbits is in no way an indication that you're storing up problems for yourself. It may do, of course, if you are particularly unlucky, but I think that's more to do with them being rabbits rather than them being rescue rabbits.
 
Thank you Karen....glad i am not the only one! Odd to think how ill bertie was but all his life he had perfect teeth bless him.

Little eskimo i am glad that your buns have no health problems...but it is not just a case of good diet etc means no health probs......i have found that out the hard way. i hope yours have a long healthy life..and you never ave to experience the heart break of so many health problems with your buns. I am not saying your buns will get sick....i am saying please please do not get complacent.....i lost oscar through that .....and one bun who never was sick who,lived with his wife whomwas a dental bun with gi probs. so i took the squishy poos to be hers....the small poos hers etc etc until we picked himup realised itnhad been him and hevwas freezing old gone into shock.....we raced yo vets and had him pts prob seobds before he would have died. vet presumed it was kidney failure but we asked her to open him up and sure enough he hadba blockage which he must have passed but his guts were entirely empty and he had torsion of the gut like dogs do...she was very very shocked....so were we.

never say never...

bunny buddy....i feel for you i really do.....such problems are not obvious things to happen but when they do.....they always seem they are happening to you.

poor baxter..we got him back...they coudnt get him all clean ether and shaved and clipped a lot of the fur away. watching him we now see he has a similar hobble to the one thst bertie had in the last two years of his life. will start his metacam tomorrow instead of a few days.

i am terrified he will get worse and end up covered in urine scald...he has a ptch of it already. Guess a disposable nappy will come into use bless him if it does get worse. Hes been weeing and pooping in his tray.....but its the notbwashing the wee off that causes the skin to turn sore.

thank you for remiding me everyone else has these same sort of problems xxx

I've never had to deal with urine scald and that's one of my dreads. I'm now quite good (with practice) at pealing of cecatrophes (but can't spell them!) but urine scald must be so horrible for them and causing them pain and distress by cleaning them must be very hard to do :cry:

Back to the original question though - I guess some of the rabbits that go through rescue will have health problems due to poor care in previous homes but must health problems are probably just due to genetics. I think there's also the factor that a lot of us with "rabbits with health problems" are the ones with vets who have diagnosed the problems. There will be other people out there who have rabbits who 'never had health problems' who 'died of old age' at three or four years - because whatever illness it was wasn't picked up on.
 
After years of doing the best of everything I just feel Rabbits as a species are generally ' defective.' I've often said they should come with a warning. They are delicate and even when owners do their best it's not always good enough as I have found. All I can think is there is still so much about them vets don't know and that from nature's point of view they are just provided as a snack to a multitute of animals in the wild and meant to be short-lived.
 
I don't think it's a problem of rescue rabbits, I think it's a problem of rabbits. Most rescue rabbits aren't born in rescue, which means that before being 'rescue rabbits' they were just 'rabbits'...and most rescue rabbits with health problems have them before they come into the rescue, not after.
.

^^^ this ...
 
You can do all you can (both for yourselves and your rabbits) to but think you won't get any problems because you are doing things right is heading for disaster. Things CAN go wrong with health no matter how hard you try to prevent it. If you have a rabbit that lives all its life and never has any health problems then you are extremely lucky.

There examples I have here:

Artie had a kidney removed due to kidney stones, probably caused by EC. He has ongoing bladder sludge problems and needs £400 worth of treatment each year and has had surgery on his bladder. He has ALWAYS been on a good diet and lives in good housing; I've had him since 11 weeks old. Even with hindsight I don't think I could have prevented his health problems.

Erin has surgical adhesions from her spay. That could have been prevented by not being spayed!

Esme has a breach of her abdominal wall (not a hernia but similar). Again any amount of care couldn't have prevented this from occuring as it was a weakness she was born with.

My first rabbit had malocclusion of her incisiors - no amount of 'making' her eat hay was going to prevent her from having dental problems.

Shadow had a congenital problem with his liver which led to him not getting the nutrition from the food he was eating. This caused him to 'not thrive' and eventaully he died because of it. He was looked after really well, so if anybody thinks that they are only sick because they don't get the correct care - then think again!


That's usually down to poor breeding though. Humans can have poor breeding lines too. Genetics and conditions that are passed on and cause people to be more prone to a certain type of cancer or whatever. And as long as you try to keep them as healthy as possible it should help offset any problems for as long as possible.
If breeders bred rabbits properly and not for certain looks or inbreeding they would be a lot healthier.
 
That's usually down to poor breeding though. Humans can have poor breeding lines too. Genetics and conditions that are passed on and cause people to be more prone to a certain type of cancer or whatever. And as long as you try to keep them as healthy as possible it should help offset any problems for as long as possible.

But that's exactly what I said. It IS down to poor breeding, genetic etc so they are predisposed to health problems your previous statement (below) isn't true, and is quite hurtful to read for anybody with a bunnies with health problems.

It's like anything else really. All we need is a healthy diet and exercise and we shouldn't really have any problems.

Off-setting problems for as long as possible is the best you can hope for, making an assumption that just because your rabbits appear healthy when you first get them that looking after them well will mean that they won't develop problems is a very dangerous belief.
 
But that's exactly what I said. It IS down to poor breeding, genetic etc so they are predisposed to health problems your previous statement (below) isn't true, and is quite hurtful to read for anybody with a bunnies with health problems.



Off-setting problems for as long as possible is the best you can hope for, making an assumption that just because your rabbits appear healthy when you first get them that looking after them well will mean that they won't develop problems is a very dangerous belief.

Hear Hear
 
Only ever had 2 rescue buns and they've been healthy for most of their lives. One did have snotty noses which we treated every so often and she got water on the lungs in the last year of her life. Her boyfriend gets snotty noses every so often, but he's 9 years now. The only vet bill I paid for the girl was to remove a lump on her back at the age of 5 years. Then the massive vet bill when she got water on her lungs. But I expected them to get health problems when they got old, she died at 10 1/2 years.

I agree with being 100% poor breeding. Not because they're rescues. Petshops churn them out and the breeders don't care if the rabbit they're breeding from has tooth problems or has close relatives with tooth problems as long as they can make money from selling to petshops or showing.
 
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