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Horrified by What I Have Just Seen

Jack's-Jane

Wise Old Thumper
I was up in the loft looking through some old photos from when I first had Rabbits. I am so ashamed of how awful their accommodation was and how OBESE the Rabbits were. I dont just mean 'chubby' I mean morbidly obese. What on earth possessed me to think the 'care' I was giving them was in any way acceptable.

I feel awful that I failed them :cry:
 
move on there is no point on dwelling on the past concentrate on the here and now , you must of thought you were doing the right thing we all make mistakes and at least you learnt from yours because your now rabbits look amazing!:thumb:
 
We have all been there sweet heart. Thanks to you and your advice we have moved on.

Thank you for being there xxxxxxxxxx
 
Jane, I let Sunshine get obese before I joined RU. Then once I knew better he lost a kilo.

As to accommodation and what I fed previous buns I still feel so guilty. Wasn't terrible but wasn't great either. I did what I thought was the best at the time. I am sure you did too.
 
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And your advice is critical to those of us still learning so please keep being there xxxxxxxxxxx
 
i know what you mean - i feel so guilty over my rabbit patch. in photos you can see his hutch and it's so tiny and he looks really underweight. i feel disgusted when i think of how his hutch was and how little we knew about caring for him. he had overgrown teeth and the vet clipped them with normal clippers. :cry: he must have been starving and in pain. i'll never forgive myself for it all. i loved him so much but didn't have a clue about his needs. :cry:
 
I think the majority of people have been there, I feel sick when I think of the hamsters me & my brothers had as kids. Sure we loved them but, thinking back, the cages they were kept in would horrify every person on here now. We all make mistakes. I know it's not much consolation but the bunnies you have now could not have asked for a more perfect and loving life.
 
Jane, I know it's not "right" but people then (and now) just didn't have a clue. You may not of given him the care that you now give buns but I can guarantee that they all would have been loved and cared for in the best way you knew how at the time.

And for what it's worth, you're like the rabbit fairy godmother, you know everything (or so it seems) and you're admired by many people on here. Your caring personality wasn't developed over night, it's something that you were born with and I have every faith that you cared and loved all your previous rabbits as much as physically possible whether ten days ago or thirty years ago.
 
I was up in the loft looking through some old photos from when I first had Rabbits. I am so ashamed of how awful their accommodation was and how OBESE the Rabbits were. I dont just mean 'chubby' I mean morbidly obese. What on earth possessed me to think the 'care' I was giving them was in any way acceptable.

I feel awful that I failed them :cry:

then as now, you did your best. i'd rather be loved and podgy than not loved at all. xxx
 
When my mom was growing up she had bunnies who lived outside in tiny hutches and had no hay :( However she learned, as you did that this was not okay. Jane, your bunnies now are all happy, loved, and given amazing care, as to your past buns rabbit information is a recent development and you did the best you could with what you knew.
 
We all make mistakes at some point of our lives. You learn from your mistakes and so do others. At least you wern't actually trying to make him obese. Don't be hard on yourself. A year ago when I got Ash I didn't know that heat could possibly kill bunnies if at high temperatures. I've already learned LOADS more about bunnies from joing forums like these.
 
I would think that the vast majority of us have kept rabbits in the past in far from ideal conditions.

My Dad built our hutch for our 2 rabbits that we had when I was a teenager. Looking back, it was probably about 5ft long and plenty high enough for them to stand on their back legs. But, he also built a "run" which was probably only about 6ftx4ft, not attached to the hutch, and they didn't get to go in it everyday either :(

You live and learn, as do we all.
 
I also have one photo of two Rabbits housed in a too small enclosure with several Guinea Pigs

God, I shocked myself when I saw the photo. Shame does not even begin to describe how I feel. But as you say, I guess we have to learn from past (dreadful) mistakes. I just am so sorry that my first Rabbits did not receive the standard of care that all Rabbits deserve :cry:
 
I'm totally with you there Jane. I had a rabbit and guinea pig in a 4 ft hutch fed on a muesli (can't remember even if it was rabbit or guinea pig muesli). They had free range time every day during Summer but were stuck in that tiny hutch all through Winter.

I thought I was doing my best for them - even paid a professional photographer to take photos of them but didn't pay for a bigger hutch :cry:

Thankfully we've all learnt and moved on from those days

I was ignorant then
 
We all make mistakes, I feel guilty to this day for the small cages my hamsters were kept in as a child that's in part why I over compensate with my animals now. But we didn't know any better at the time.
 
Jane, you did the best you could with what you knew then.

Lets face it information on keeping rabbits was pretty think on the ground. I have looked through some of my older how to care for rabbits books and you can certainly see how dated the ideas are compared to what is known about rabbits now. My origional rabbit was a house rabbit simply because I did not want to leave a bun outside in a hutch where the fox could look at them and everyone else who had rabbits laughed at me for having a rabbit in my own home, they laughed even more when I had her speyed and vaccinated after seeing the vet.

The important thing is that you have allowed each bun you have ever had to teach you more about rabbits and they will continue to teach you.
 
I agree, most of us who had bunnies 'back then' unknowingly made mistakes. Years ago there just wasn't the same level of knowledge and understanding of their needs as there is today. We did our best at the time, but I know how hard it is to look back without feeling shame and guilt.
 
We've all been there, and can't change the past. Just have to think about how great our bunnies lives are now. :love:
 
Don't forget too that research has moved on a great deal over the past years.

Now we have the internet, clear leaflets printed by welfare charities and some books that say the guidelines on how rabbits should be kept, but going back not that many years ago that information was not there, or was very ambiguous. I'm sure many of us (I do!) have books that say it's fine to keep rabbits and piggies together. How were novice owners meant to know better when good info was hard to come by then?

Don't beat yourself up Jane, we've all made mistakes, and we all are still making mistakes. In 15 years time we'll all probably realise we're making mistakes now too. It would be different if we knew we were doing it wrong and still did nothing to rectify the situation.
 
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