Tiggertime
Young Bun
My first post here, though I have browsed for advice & comfort before (we recently lost our little 8yr old sort of suddenly but that's another story).
We are adopting a lovely little 5 month old boy Tigger. 'Til recently he had been at a rescue charity with his 2 male siblings and when we met them he looked to be boss of the group and perhaps the most independent. As his two brothers were due to be re-homed, we took Tigger last Thursday. He's only tiny and the weather's been a bit awful in North East England so we kept him inside for the next couple of days with a view to trying him outside over the weekend as the charity were then of the opinion he should be alright living outside.
Thursday night - absolutely fine, eating plenty - apparently they couldn't feed these rabbits enough, pooping in his indoor cage, exploring, investigating etc and responding well to his new humans.
Friday day time - we're at work, but I'm not far and we have a camera set up to keep watch. He was fine, eating in his cage, having a sleep, little mooch about. Then out and exploring once we got home. We put him in an outdoor run to introduce him to the garden which he seemed fine with. He'll have the full garden eventually but whilst he gets to know us and his surroundings we thought it best to limit his explorations. Brought him back in, eating, pooping in his cage (good lad), running around the living room, binkying and hopping, settling in fine.
Saturday, much the same, though we thought we'd introduce him to his hutch - a two floor, freshly renovated, insulated and sheltered hutch that belonged to our late bunny, who at twice the size of Tig loved his private abode. He seemed ok with it, but didn't explore it much and seemed to prefer to stick to the downstairs. We then began to notice he wasn't keen on eating in there and didn't poo or wee. We only left him out a couple of hours and brought him back in on the evening and he was much the same as Friday. He also pooped and wee'd in his indoor cage which was fine.
We did however start to notice a reluctance by him to eat unless we were around.
Sunday - problems. Tried the hutch again - just sat, huddled up - not eating, no pooping, no weeing. Brought him in, and apart from a couple of explorations he settled into his cage for much the same. A once hungry bunny now wasn't eating. He managed a couple of tiny poos - not good.
We assumed he'd gone into stasis, and our suspicion was that he was missing his brothers.
We called the charity we got him through and they kindly took him in straight away as they had the relevant meds etc to best care for him. Luckily he responded well to the meds and force feed and has been recuperating since. Our suspicion was also theirs and that he'd become lonely without his brothers.
Where we need advice (apologies for the lengthy read)
Now we're due to pick him back up tonight and bring him home. The decision has been made he'll now be a house bunny for at least the winter, as we don't think he'll cope out in the hutch, and he didn't exactly take to it.
The concern is the fact he'll still be on his own. We've no issues with trying to bond him to a second bunny, but we don't have that second bunny right now, and he went down so quickly at the weekend. He'll get plenty of love and attention and playtime with us when we're there, but I'm concerned about his wellbeing during the day. We'll be keeping an eye on him during working hours and I'll probably call home halfway through the day, but any advice on bringing him some comfort whilst he's on his own may be helpful.
Thanks
We are adopting a lovely little 5 month old boy Tigger. 'Til recently he had been at a rescue charity with his 2 male siblings and when we met them he looked to be boss of the group and perhaps the most independent. As his two brothers were due to be re-homed, we took Tigger last Thursday. He's only tiny and the weather's been a bit awful in North East England so we kept him inside for the next couple of days with a view to trying him outside over the weekend as the charity were then of the opinion he should be alright living outside.
Thursday night - absolutely fine, eating plenty - apparently they couldn't feed these rabbits enough, pooping in his indoor cage, exploring, investigating etc and responding well to his new humans.
Friday day time - we're at work, but I'm not far and we have a camera set up to keep watch. He was fine, eating in his cage, having a sleep, little mooch about. Then out and exploring once we got home. We put him in an outdoor run to introduce him to the garden which he seemed fine with. He'll have the full garden eventually but whilst he gets to know us and his surroundings we thought it best to limit his explorations. Brought him back in, eating, pooping in his cage (good lad), running around the living room, binkying and hopping, settling in fine.
Saturday, much the same, though we thought we'd introduce him to his hutch - a two floor, freshly renovated, insulated and sheltered hutch that belonged to our late bunny, who at twice the size of Tig loved his private abode. He seemed ok with it, but didn't explore it much and seemed to prefer to stick to the downstairs. We then began to notice he wasn't keen on eating in there and didn't poo or wee. We only left him out a couple of hours and brought him back in on the evening and he was much the same as Friday. He also pooped and wee'd in his indoor cage which was fine.
We did however start to notice a reluctance by him to eat unless we were around.
Sunday - problems. Tried the hutch again - just sat, huddled up - not eating, no pooping, no weeing. Brought him in, and apart from a couple of explorations he settled into his cage for much the same. A once hungry bunny now wasn't eating. He managed a couple of tiny poos - not good.
We assumed he'd gone into stasis, and our suspicion was that he was missing his brothers.
We called the charity we got him through and they kindly took him in straight away as they had the relevant meds etc to best care for him. Luckily he responded well to the meds and force feed and has been recuperating since. Our suspicion was also theirs and that he'd become lonely without his brothers.
Where we need advice (apologies for the lengthy read)
Now we're due to pick him back up tonight and bring him home. The decision has been made he'll now be a house bunny for at least the winter, as we don't think he'll cope out in the hutch, and he didn't exactly take to it.
The concern is the fact he'll still be on his own. We've no issues with trying to bond him to a second bunny, but we don't have that second bunny right now, and he went down so quickly at the weekend. He'll get plenty of love and attention and playtime with us when we're there, but I'm concerned about his wellbeing during the day. We'll be keeping an eye on him during working hours and I'll probably call home halfway through the day, but any advice on bringing him some comfort whilst he's on his own may be helpful.
Thanks
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