alsh
New Kit
Hi, (sorry if I ramble on a bit here) I work at a kennels, but we also care for all manor of animals and also act as an RSPCA overflow centre. Anyway last night my boss was driving home and spotted a tiny baby black rabbit at the side of the road outside of a caravan site. Not really considering whether the animal was happy where it was, she picked it up and brought it to the kennels. This morning when I got to work there was a note on the desk to say that there was a baby rabbit in a pet carrier in one of the rooms.
My colleagues refer to me as the crazy rabbit lady, so it was kind of assumed that I would take it home to look after. So at lunch time, I went home and considering it was such a sunny day put the rabbit on the lawn in a tiny run. My boss said that she has found it grazing, so although we didn't know the age of the rabbit, I thought that it must of least started to be weaned (it's eyes were open, he had small teeth). In the run I left a shallow bowl of water, some '1 week+' rabbit pellets and a log shelter filled with hay. He immediently shot into the shelter when I had put him in so I left him there and went back to work. I was preparing myself for him not to survive the next couple of days, but referred to him as Moomin.
On returning I was pleasantly suprised to see that he was bobbing about in the sunshine, but ran back into the shelter once he saw me coming. I then let my other two rabbits out in the garden as I do every day. They went crazy! My female was snapping at the bars of Moomins run, and my male was shooting about with his ears and tail in the air (both are neutered by the way). So I took Moomin inside, where I planned to keep him for the night, and prepared another per carried with a towel or the base, with a little meadow hay in one corner, a shallow bowl of water in another corner and some scattered pellets on the floor.
I kept checking on Moomin every hour or so, he seemed to be doing fine. There were a lot of tiny poops scattered about, and he kept hopping into his water bowl but I didn't rush to dry him because I assumed that when cleaning himself he would also be ingesting the water? I handled him for a while, he was running around a lot and wee'd in my hand at one point. He then started to snuggle into my onesie so I thought he might be chilly and ready for a snooze. So I put him away and decided to collect some grass to put in the carrier as he hadn't seemed to of touched the pellets. He dived straight for a small dandelion leaf which had slipped in with the grass, then didn't seem to eat the grass. So I went out and got some more leaves, again he snaffled these up straight away.
I then went to sleep, but having tonsillitis meant I was awake every one or two hours so I kept checking on him throughout the night. Each time I picked him up, checked for fresh poops, any areas soaked with urine, any food missing etc. All seemed fine.
Then at 3am I woke up, looked in on him and he was laid on his side sprawled out in the corner, eyes closed. At first I assumed he had died, I picked him up to check for a heart beat and he opened his eyes so I felt guilty for waking him from his sleep. He was still a nice temperature, not cold to the touch but not warm either. So I put him back in, this is when I realised all was not well. As I put him back his legs kind of spread in all directions so rather than placing him back on all four feet I was essentially balancing him on his stomach, his back was arched and his head was lolling to either side. I immedietly tried drip feeding water into his mouth as I assumed he was dehydrated, he wasn't responding to the liquid into his mouth and I noticed his nostrils were firmly closed and his mouth was gasping for air rather than water like I had thought. I immediately began trawling the internet looking for some kind of explanation, nothing really stood out as describing exactly what I was seeing. Over the next (what felt like hours) his back became increasingly curved backwards so that his head was almost touching his tail, his head was falling from side to side, his arms and legs had become floppy but occasionally stretched out asif having a seizure. It was then that I considered waking my dad up to ask him to 'put him out of his suffering' but some of the articles I had just been reading on the internet suggested rabbits sometimes recover from these type of seizures like nothing has ever happened. It was truly awful to watch but I carried on trying to find some explaination, I could only find that the probable cause was VHD? At this moment (3.30am) my dad woke up to use the toilet, so I called him into my bedroom to show him what was happening, he picked him up and there was no heartbeat
So my question is, have any of you had this experience with a baby rabbit? What do you think it might be? Will I need to burn my clothes, pet carrier and wooden shelter that Moomin was using to avoid risk to my other rabbits (they are both vaccinated against myxomatosis and VHD)? I'm going to try and phone the vets in the morning to see what they suggest but I'm hoping you may have some advice
Feeling cruel
My colleagues refer to me as the crazy rabbit lady, so it was kind of assumed that I would take it home to look after. So at lunch time, I went home and considering it was such a sunny day put the rabbit on the lawn in a tiny run. My boss said that she has found it grazing, so although we didn't know the age of the rabbit, I thought that it must of least started to be weaned (it's eyes were open, he had small teeth). In the run I left a shallow bowl of water, some '1 week+' rabbit pellets and a log shelter filled with hay. He immediently shot into the shelter when I had put him in so I left him there and went back to work. I was preparing myself for him not to survive the next couple of days, but referred to him as Moomin.
On returning I was pleasantly suprised to see that he was bobbing about in the sunshine, but ran back into the shelter once he saw me coming. I then let my other two rabbits out in the garden as I do every day. They went crazy! My female was snapping at the bars of Moomins run, and my male was shooting about with his ears and tail in the air (both are neutered by the way). So I took Moomin inside, where I planned to keep him for the night, and prepared another per carried with a towel or the base, with a little meadow hay in one corner, a shallow bowl of water in another corner and some scattered pellets on the floor.
I kept checking on Moomin every hour or so, he seemed to be doing fine. There were a lot of tiny poops scattered about, and he kept hopping into his water bowl but I didn't rush to dry him because I assumed that when cleaning himself he would also be ingesting the water? I handled him for a while, he was running around a lot and wee'd in my hand at one point. He then started to snuggle into my onesie so I thought he might be chilly and ready for a snooze. So I put him away and decided to collect some grass to put in the carrier as he hadn't seemed to of touched the pellets. He dived straight for a small dandelion leaf which had slipped in with the grass, then didn't seem to eat the grass. So I went out and got some more leaves, again he snaffled these up straight away.
I then went to sleep, but having tonsillitis meant I was awake every one or two hours so I kept checking on him throughout the night. Each time I picked him up, checked for fresh poops, any areas soaked with urine, any food missing etc. All seemed fine.
Then at 3am I woke up, looked in on him and he was laid on his side sprawled out in the corner, eyes closed. At first I assumed he had died, I picked him up to check for a heart beat and he opened his eyes so I felt guilty for waking him from his sleep. He was still a nice temperature, not cold to the touch but not warm either. So I put him back in, this is when I realised all was not well. As I put him back his legs kind of spread in all directions so rather than placing him back on all four feet I was essentially balancing him on his stomach, his back was arched and his head was lolling to either side. I immedietly tried drip feeding water into his mouth as I assumed he was dehydrated, he wasn't responding to the liquid into his mouth and I noticed his nostrils were firmly closed and his mouth was gasping for air rather than water like I had thought. I immediately began trawling the internet looking for some kind of explanation, nothing really stood out as describing exactly what I was seeing. Over the next (what felt like hours) his back became increasingly curved backwards so that his head was almost touching his tail, his head was falling from side to side, his arms and legs had become floppy but occasionally stretched out asif having a seizure. It was then that I considered waking my dad up to ask him to 'put him out of his suffering' but some of the articles I had just been reading on the internet suggested rabbits sometimes recover from these type of seizures like nothing has ever happened. It was truly awful to watch but I carried on trying to find some explaination, I could only find that the probable cause was VHD? At this moment (3.30am) my dad woke up to use the toilet, so I called him into my bedroom to show him what was happening, he picked him up and there was no heartbeat
So my question is, have any of you had this experience with a baby rabbit? What do you think it might be? Will I need to burn my clothes, pet carrier and wooden shelter that Moomin was using to avoid risk to my other rabbits (they are both vaccinated against myxomatosis and VHD)? I'm going to try and phone the vets in the morning to see what they suggest but I'm hoping you may have some advice
Feeling cruel
