what happens when you have one rabbit left?

[BeatrixPotter]

I am in this situation myself. Molly lost her husbun Marble 3 years ago. Sadly when we lost him I was going through a whole mess of stuff with my mental health which led to me being hospitalised and therefore unable to find a new friend for Molly.

By the time I was ready to adopt another bun 2 years had passed. A failed bonding attempt and some health problems made me think that actually she was happy on her own.

She is an indoor bun with her own room. We have a sofa in there meaning we can spend loads of time with her. I am sat in with her right now infact. She is a happy rabbit.

If she had been an outdoor bun the situation would have been different and I would probably have been forced to rehome her.

In the future I hope to adopt a pair of buns but always indoor.

 

[Bess&George]

I'm dreading this situation.
I wouldn't like to have any more rabbits after my two, but if one of them dies when the other one is still relatively young I'd get another rabbit of similar age. But not sure what I'd do if I was left with one elderly rabbit.

 

[hannah]

We have this with Smokie. She seems happy enough indoors as we brought them in when Archie was diagnosed with Lymphoma. She is nearly 10 and has Brian the teddy bear for company and boy does she know the sound of carrots being taken out of the fridge!! She is getting used to us slowly, sometimes we clearly don't understand what she is telling us and she looks mad! I couldn't bear it if we got her a husbun and then something happened to her, no bunny will replace my Archie (or Smokie)

 

[Mollie100]

As others have said - a lot would depend on how the remaining bunny coped. But I am planning on bringing them indoors this year (hoping to move house - can't take their outdoor set-up with us and as we have very few other small animals now it seems to make sense!) so if one was left alone the other bun would at least be inside with us. xx

 

[biscandmatt1]

thanks for sharing everyone. i'm in this position and struggle with it alot. i just always thought bisc and matt would be together into older age. we thought matt would go before bisc because of his health, and we were right. but we thought he would be at least 8. then we would keep bisc single until his time.

but losing matt at just 7years 3months really threw us. it was in the middle age wise and we didn't know what to do. bisc has his own health issues and it was recommended by the vets that we don't bond him until we had a hold on his health issues. and to be honest, he never seemed lonely anyway. he's inside with us and i'm with him practically 24/7.

getting control of his health issues took a good year, and he still occasionally has a flare up of all his things. but lately i feel like he might now be ready for a friend. but stress affects him health wise and i'm so worried about bonding upsetting him.

we also decided that we didn't want anymore rabbits for a while after bisc and matt. and it all seemed to be working out ok as bisc wasn't lonely, and he's very close to me, and he's relaxed and happy with his routine and everything.

but i also said that if he ever showed signs that he may be ready for a friend, that we would do that. and now i feel like it's starting to happen. we don't know whether to try bonding him once and see how we go. it's hard to know what to do for the best.

bisc is nearly 9 now aswell (in june), so he's older, but doing really well despite his little health niggles (nothing massively major but small things that upset him at times) and we feel like there is no reason why he won't live another couple of years.

the insurance is another issue for us, as we would ideally like to insure a new rabbit, but don't want to have to get one under 5 to beable to do that. we would want an older rabbit of similar age to bisc. which then makes me nervous that they may well go before bisc anyway and leave him alone again.

the long term foster idea really appeals to us, however i don't think i could return them after. not after they'd settled and then after they had lost their friend aswell. it seems wrong to do that to them.

so our option is to keep bisc single. or to get him an older friend and keep getting older rabbits until we are left with one again who is very old. this seems like alot of heartbreak that i just don't think i could take.

it's a really hard situation.

eta: the other thing i worry about so much is if bisc is ever ill and needs to stay at the vets. when matt was poorly, he had bisc by his side. bisc would have no-one and i wouldn't be there with him all the time.