Category: Health

Pros and Cons of a Dead Litter

10/4/2020

Recently one of my young does had a failed litter. Sparrow is a bit of a skittery doe, an anomaly in my herd, but sometimes skittery does settle down once they have a litter. She failed rather spectacularly which is always sad to see.

But with every sad thing in a rabbitry there are things to learn. Today I thought I'd talk about some of the pros and cons of a dead litter.

Positives of a dead litter

1. Gives you another chance to evaluate the doe. Why did she have a dead litter? Did you miss a genetic issue? Is she simply too narrow to give birth to live kits? Is it just "stupid first time doe syndrome"?
2. Your doe is still alive. That means you can try again with a different buck!
3. It shows that your doe is not sterile. Again, means you can try again.
4. Dead kits can be turned into food as long as they haven't gone bad. Donate to a raptor rescue, sell to a reptile guy, feed them to your furry companions, or use them for compost. Don't just toss them in your garbage.
5. It's just one month down the tubes. The doe can be rebred, or sold, or culled depending on your opinion of her long-term prognosis.
6. Gives you an opportunity to examine kits closely to see if there are any genetic abnormalities.

Negatives of a dead litter

1. You have a dead litter. Hopefully your doe is undamaged.
2. If your doe passed away as well, do a necropsy to see if you can figure out why. Use the knowledge you gain to improve your rabbitry.
3. No kits to enjoy and care for.
4. It is horrible to find a dead litter. Even though I know it's part of raising animals, and that sometimes youngsters don't make it, it still is horrible.

Have I missed anything?

These points are all I could think of, can you think of anything I have missed?

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Why Do Rabbits Sneeze?

7/5/2020

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The other day I received this message
"Since I got Lyra home, she has had at least one or two sneezing fits a day. She has no discharge and is eating drinking well. Could it be the hay? I’ve never heard a rabbit sneeze quite like that, but it’s not all the time, only once or twice a day like I said.

Any ideas or suggestions? Her cage is fairly sparse for litter training so she just has hay, wood pellets for litter in her litter box, a wood hide and a lava block to chew. Plus pellets and water."

My short response to her was "Rabbits sneeze sometimes. If you see no snot, or wet front paws it's probably just a sneeze."

I was reassured to hear that she saw no snot, and no wet front paws. A sneeze is sometimes just a sneeze.

But what about those times when a sneeze is NOT just a sneeze and is indicative of a bigger problem?

Causes of Sneezing

What can cause a rabbit to sneeze?

1. Dust and other irritants
2. Allergies.
3. Illness

Dust and other irritants

You get dust in your nose, you sneeze. Bunnies are no different. Irritants can be things like smoke, perfumes, air fresheners, and various dust particles. Eliminate the irritant, relieve the sneezing.

The bedding used, or the chemicals you use to clean, could be irritants as well.

I knew a girl who had a lovely bunny who one day started biting her and it was so surprising. After lots of questions we tracked it down to she changed her perfume and it was negatively affecting her bunny. She got rid of the perfume and the bunny reverted to his normal sweet self. Not sneezing...but an example of how something we don't know about can cause a problem with your bunny.

Allergies

People will often say "my bunny is allergic to hay." I have a really hard time believing this one. I tend to believe rather that the hay is dusty and the dust from the hay is the issue, not the hay itself. Hay can be dusty and some rabbits are highly susceptible to dust particles. Even if you don't see it, doesn't mean the dust isn't there.

But, given the anecdotal evidence I do think that rabbits can have seasonal allergies when there is most dust and pollen in the air, or a dry summer with farmers working their fields. Some rabbits can really struggle with the dust and other irritants that are in the air.

I firmly believe that rabbits who really struggle with allergies or a sensitivity to dust particles should NOT be used for breeding. There are so many rabbits out there that don't struggle, why would you perpetuate the health issue?

BESIDES a rabbit who is struggling with dust and/or allergies, would be more susceptible to the third reason.... illness.

Illness

Respiratory infections carry a much greater cause for concern. Frequently they are associated with discharge from the nose and watery eyes. You'll also see dirty front paws from the bunny wiping their noses.

Respiratory illnesses can be very dangerous to bunnies. It can make them so ill they can't eat, drink or breathe properly. They tend to be highly contagious, therefore putting any of your other rabbits at risk.

Diseases that cause snot in rabbits generally one of:
1. Bordatella. Treat it! Rabbits usually recover.
2. Pasteurella. This one is hard. Here is Dutch Rabbit's approach.
3. Pneumonia. Often buns die from pneumonia very quickly. It can literally have them on death's door overnight.

Less common:
1. Allergies.
2. Tooth issues. Drainage from the eye goes into nasal cavity.
3. Nasal Tumour.
4. Foreign body. Hay, or some particle stuck.
5. Trauma, such as a head attack by a predator.

My approach to excess sneezing or snot-laden rabbits can be found in this blog post. Always keep and use your best rabbits. If you just have one, do your best to keep them healthy, but let them go if it's time for them to go.

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Hay and Hay feeders

6/25/2020

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Hay.... love it or leave it, a lot of people love to feed hay to their bunnies. There are so many viewpoints on the feeding of hay.

The house rabbit society would have you believe that a rabbit must eat it's weight in hay every day to stay healthy.

Many rabbit breeders simply don't feed hay, finding it a messy waste, ergo a waste of money, and unnecessary as their rabbits stay healthy.

Both maintain healthy rabbits. Don't you find that incredibly intriguing? Completely opposite thought patterns, yet rabbits that are hale and hearty.

My approach is to use hay as the gut stabilizer that it is. Giving hay during times of transition and potential stress. Otherwise I find alternative sources of fibre (which is why people use hay, for it's long fibre content).

Black oil sunflower seed is one source of long fibre, as are weeds, grasses and various plants.

For people who are allergic to hay but not to grasses and various plants as well as black oil sunflower seeds, it means they can also keep a rabbit. They could also feed straw, corn stalks, and hay cubes.

Use a feeder or not?

Whether you are a daily or occasional feeder you'll find yourself feeding hay. You might choose to use a hay feeder, or simply put the hay in with your rabbits. Both have their advantages or disadvantages.

Homemade or purchased, hay feeders require rabbits to pull their hay out of the feeder. This of course means you need to stuff the hay in. I've never found a hay feeder that that didn't result in some waste simply in the process of filling it. :)

The advantage to a hay feeder though is you can put what the rabbit needs in it so they can nibble over the course of the day. Assuming that unlike MY rabbits yours will nibble over the course of the day. Anytime I give my bunnies hay they gobble it all up as fast as they possibly can. They then sit on (if they get full) and poop on any remainder. Rabbits are rather silly aren't they? :)

The advantage to just tossing it in the pen is that you don't lose hay trying to stuff it into the feeder, but rabbits are more apt to sit on it immediately. Doing so can cause them to foul it fairly quickly.

What type of feeder?

I have made loads of feeders out of those wire cutlery baskets. Just ziptie securely to the side of the cage, preferably over their litter box.

I do not recommend those wire ball feeders that are often sold inexpensively. Some rabbits are silly enough to get their head stuck in them and if that happens while you are away, your rabbit may perish due to strangulation or shock.

To be honest though, I'm not sure, outside of the 2 in 1 feeders that I would recommend most of what they have on amazon. And those ones I'd want to put up on a brick so the rabbit is eating higher up. I find they waste less feed that way. Even to hang it up beside a rectangular litter box.

The best hay feeders I've ever seen are the simplest ones. Cutlery drawers, kleenex boxes hung outside a wire cage, circular wire ones built into a corner of the cage, etc. Something that is less fancy and more functional.

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HELP! My bunny is not peeing in her litter box.

6/24/2020

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Litter training baby bunnies is sometimes a matter of patience. Sometimes they get ideas in their head and it makes you wonder what is going on with them. My post Help! My bunny is not peeing in her litter box is a response to one of my customers struggling with a young bunny.

Recently one of my customers wrote to ask:
Mr. Peanut eats his food and seems excited for it in the morning. But overnight if there is anything left or even it it's empty (as we tried last night) he gets right in and pees. He was doing well for a few nights of not peeing outside his litter box but for the last five nights he seems to prefer peeing outside of it rather than in. Just looking for a little advice from an expert!"

So What is a person to do?

I will freely admit that I am not an expert with house training baby bunnies. I've trained young and adult rabbits to a litter box, but I don't claim to know all the answers. Sometimes bunnies do things that are a bit confounding.

For instance, why choose to use the food bin as a place to go pee AFTER having used a litter box? I sometimes don't understand bunnies. My guess is that one night while munching on hay, bunny had the urge to go pee, was lazy and decided to go there. Since he peed there once, it's easy to just go pee there again.

In this particular instance I suggested they move the feeder up higher so it's up off the floor. You'll generally need it to be up at least six inches for this to be effective. But if the feeder is big enough to fit an entire young rabbit that's not going to work.

So I would simply remove the feeder at night.

Any other Advice?

I found this video which I thought was fairly well done. Mute the video and just read the screen as he speaks, I THINK, Spanish? I loved his emphasis on needing patience with young bunnies.

Sometimes you need to outsmart them, or to alter their habitat to make it easier for them to learn.

I thought Celia Haddon had some good advice in her post about why a rabbit might stop using a litter box. I particularly appreciated her thought that sometimes we don't know what caused our bunny to not like their litter box.

BudgetBunny has put together a similar list as well as pointing out a possible solution. (make it impossible for bunny to NOT use their litter box). :)

For some bunnies, litter box habits are vastly improved by neutering them. One suggestion from The Rabbit house.

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Gestation, Grooming, Giant Rabbits

4/11/2019

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You'll find a rabbit post on the "g's" of rabbits located here. In this article I talked about Gestation, grooming and giant rabbits.

Wafer is the largest rabbit I own. She is half Flemish Giant. She is a bossy but easy for everyone to get along with. She just knows what she wants and that I usually give it to her without much fuss. :)

Flemish Giants are the most common giant breed of rabbit in North America. They are very similar to the Continental Giant.

Baby rabbits are normally born 31 days after breeding. Their mom makes them a lovely nest of fur and bedding and cares for them once or twice a day.

This is a picture of Horatio. He was going through a heavy moult and needed help to feel comfortable. I needed to bring him out to my board over the compost bin and pull out his tufts of fur and also run my hands through this fur backwards while slightly damp. Doing this for 10 days helped him get through his moult without being too uncomfortable.

Anyways, go read the full article here!

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Ontario Plant ID

8/18/2017

One of the things I often talk about with my rabbit buyers is think like a rabbit when feeding them greens.

Rabbits LOVE fresh food, but not all fresh food is the most rabbit friendly.

My rabbits eat a lot of weeds out of my garden, and to my sister's chagrin, I'll even grow weeds for the rabbits.

This morning I was struggling with finding the right name for a common weed the rabbits love so I went searching for what it was called and discovered this great site for ONTARIO weeds.

Seriously.. it's a great site.

Weed Info.

What do I like about this site?

It gives common and Latin name, provides plenty of images, and has a search feature. It will be a great site for me to refer people to if they don't know what prickly lettuce is.

Mind.. people will still need to research if it's safe for bunnies, but if you know the true name, it makes it easier to do the research.

Take for instance one of my favourite weeds: Prickly Lettuce.

They have the write up, with black white drawings.
Then at the bottom they have pictures taken of different stages of the plants life.

Why do I love prickly lettuce?

1. It's a thistle type plant which rabbits love
2. it's great to give to bunnies who are starting to struggle with gut issues.
3. it grows REALLY easily. I started with one plant five years ago and now it crops up everywhere. :)
4. It keeps coming back when I cut it back for feeding.

Tale of a wee bunny

4/22/2017

Feeling a bit bummed this morning. But thought this might be helpful to others.

BrightSong x BonFire Kit
Bred: Feb 12
Kindled March 15
Litter of six (two DOA, one peanut) all normals appear to be torts or oranges all solids. Small kits as per normal with Song.

Tort? small kit fairly dark in colouration. Turned out to be a smutty fawn.

Singleton left out of a litter of six, a tiny little boy. Momma didn't want him, first foster momma didn't want him, but Daisy took him. He was very cold when I found him after birth... I knew right them he's probably have trouble when he started to eat regular food.

He was smaller than his litter mates, perhaps half their size, but plunky!

He became a roly poly three week old and my hopes were that just maybe he'd be fine. He hit almost four weeks and he started to fail. My heart fell.

I removed him from the litter and put him on a straw bedding (it's a warm bedding when it has leftover fur in it). Solid bottomed cage. He snuggled in quietly and I wondered if he'd fail more quickly. He was so frail and looking poorly.

I've not had much success saving kits with entropathic illness so I wasn't holding out much hope but thought I'd try a treatment protocol that others have had some success with. Chives with plain grass.

I put him on grass and chives only... I figured either he'd die or he'd thrive. and ... HE THROVE!! He was feeling better, eating well, returning to his very sweet nature. He was eating pellets (just a touch) and my grain mix (quite well).

He was doing well enough to come out for pictures and to spend time exploring the world at large, sitting on a fleecy so he wasn't on the wet ground. just a happy little bun. I was starting to think he'd find a special needs home. I was getting ready to put him into a regular cage.

This morning though, I came into the rabbitry, thought he was sleeping until he didn't come to great me. He passed away during the night, looks like he passed away in his sleep.

I am not sure what he died from... his gut issues were over and he was eating well and acting healthy. I don't know if he had something else wrong with him as well that simply wasn't readily apparent. He was proportioned correctly so I don't think he was an odd ball peanut that finally just failed, but his runtiness may have been a sign of something else wrong with him.

i am just so bummed.

When Rabbits Annoy

3/18/2017

So BrightSong's first litter with me was a bit slow to start but overall she did an excellent job with them. Her kits ended up being little butterballs so fed them so well. I had HIGH HOPES for her next litter.

Her second...not so good but potentially my fault as she didn't pull sufficient fur so thought I'd add some...most rabbits are fine with that, but Song apparently was NOT. Dug out the box and I only saved two which I promptly fostered.

This litter she AGAIN pulled very little fur and the two does I bred to go with her kindled late. I saved chilled kits and brought them in the house to keep warm (the kits) but Song never got around to producing milk...

So as soon as I could I fostered them to SunnyRock as I know she feeds her kits well and she only had one.. but chilled once kits are easily chilled again AND they'd gone without food for a couple days so it was cross your fingers and hope! Last night I went out and found one dead, one almost dead and one doing fine (and well fed). The one almost dead looked like it had gotten chilled again.

SINCE two kits (Sunny's single, and Song's one left) can't keep themselves warm I fostered them over the Daisy.

All were looking good this morning AND fed. WOOT WOOT.

In the future Song will only be bred with at least two other does, and come spring she'll be looking for a new home. She's a very mild-mannered doe so I expect I can get her into a pet home no problems. Time will tell.

Wooden Plank Fix for Rabbits Peeing on it

8/18/2016

I thought this was good thinking on the part of Easy Ears, mind it only works for a certain type of hutch, but it was creative thinking worthy of sharing with other eh? :)

Poisonous Plants List

6/14/2016

Here is a Poisonous plant list.

Seems an interesting list. One surprised me as occasionally my rabbits will nibble on catnip with no ill-affects. Though I wonder... maybe I have the catnip wanna around instead?

Just makes me wonder. :)

<<Previous

Pros and Cons of a Dead Litter

Positives of a dead litter

Negatives of a dead litter

Have I missed anything?

Why Do Rabbits Sneeze?

Causes of Sneezing

Dust and other irritants

Allergies

Illness

Hay and Hay feeders

Use a feeder or not?

What type of feeder?

HELP! My bunny is not peeing in her litter box.

So What is a person to do?

Any other Advice?

Gestation, Grooming, Giant Rabbits

Ontario Plant ID

Tale of a wee bunny

When Rabbits Annoy

Wooden Plank Fix for Rabbits Peeing on it

Poisonous Plants List

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