The story
about the bunnies: The Gray One and The Yellow One
Part 1 - necrotic intestine due to corn and grains
Sebastian from Croatia
|
My friend bought those two couple of months old rabbits some time
during July 2007.
The Gray
One and The Yellow One during young days
They were nice. Nobody knew if they were male or
female and nobody cared. That is, until 10th sept. 2007. Then The Yellow One
suddenly produced 4 young ones. The Gray One was than separated the same
day but it was already too late. So, The Yellow One produced another 5 young
ones on 09.th Oct. 2007. One of the young ones fell through the bars of the
cage and was found dead next morning. Now they were ten. She was
proud mother and The Gray One was a caring father.
The Yellow One - The Mother
The Gray One with his young
ones They were all kept in cages and occasionally they
were allowed to walk around the apartment. Soon they showed their inclination
to leave their feces and caecotrophes followed soon same as urine markings.
The urine proved to be harmful to the ceramic floor tiles so this free
roaming became quite unpopular. There was the taste for wires too and there were
other things to be nibbled so this became quite complicated. There were also
some plants to make inaccessible because rabbits would chew on anything
without caring much for eventual consequences. So, the sooner you remove
those accident possibilities less time will you spend with your vet. 6 Bunnies grew well as they usually do but they have
explored what they could and that is the reason why The Gray One felt like
sad maybe. There were lots of bunnies around but I guess he missed The Yellow
One who was interested only in the young ones. And also they were kept
separated as a preventive measure against producing more new bunnies. So, I would occasionally take him with me to my
place. The bunnies lived in the city of Makarska and I live in the city of
Split (Croatia). So, in Split at my place I would keep him inside the
transporter I used to carry him around and that worked well. He would explore
my place and that was fun for him for several times. The Gray One was fond of
my balcony where I have some flowerpots and also there were some interesting
noises to study. So one time I brought The Gray One to my place and went to
sleep. He was in his transporter. Early in the morning, about 5 a.m. he
started making noise and woke me up. That was 16.th July 2008. It was going
to be nice warm day so I was thinking, maybe I should release The Gray One so
he also could enjoy this nice day. So I did release him from his transporter.
Ten minutes maybe passed and I heard a single cry.
It is hard to describe this cry but there was no doubt that something was
about to die violently. There are cats around my house and they often hunt
birds so I thought that must be it. I was still in bed, but I was curious to
see what's going on, so I got up, went to the balcony ant took a look. There
was nothing to see. Everything was calm and silent. Then I looked under the
balcony and there was The Gray One lying. It is impossible to explain how I
felt. Anyway, he died maybe 20 minutes after I found him.
A single drop of bright blood appeared on his nose. He just looked at me. I
placed him on the floor hoping that somehow this was some mistake, that he
will recover, I don't know. But in vain. I guess he must have been happy and was running on
the balcony but there was no fence around. Maybe he forgot that, maybe he
couldn't see that well. But he fell down from the balcony. Soon I made some rabbit fence around, so the balcony
was now safe but at a steep price. Now they were nine. But life goes on !!!
The small Bunny's were fed with most common and the
cheapest food for rabbits available. You can buy this kind of food at any
general store large enough to accommodate it. It is very cheap and as much as
worth. Whatever money you may save buying cheap rabbit food you will spend at
least ten times more that for vet fees and bunny might easily pay for that
with his life. This kind of food contains whole wheat grain, whole corn
grain, some pellets and some expanded grains and who knows what else. Often
there are also some dried candy fruits. And sugar is generally bad for
rabbits even though they love it. And all of the bunnies eat that, except for
corn. They wouldn't eat corn. But, The Yellow One, the mother loved corn. So
my friend collects corn daily from other bunnies and feeds that to the
mother. He now even saves money! In the
meantime, to the cage a wooden terrace was introduced so that all of them
might find this somewhat interesting. Also it was meant to "to
utilize" height of the cage by adding more place for hopping. Young ones
loved it and mother found the shelter underneath it. So if there was some
disturbing sound they would all gather underneath this terrace. Seemed
convenient
The Yellow One under the
terrace, the young one exploring the upper floor The mother used to stay all the time under the
terrace. There was something wrong with this but nobody knew what. That was
until she stopped eating. I took her to the vet and the stasis was diagnosed.
At that time stasis at rabbits and what causes it was completely terra
incognita to the local vets. So they said, she must have eaten something and
she must go under the surgery to remove this item. And it was done. Vet
removed the part of the intestine that was necrotized. Unfortunately, she
still died on 3rd Dec. 2008. That is what the vet has removed:
The terrace was removed and quality food was
introduced. No corn or whole grains of any kind. Expensive lesson, again, though. Now they were eight. Next: Part 2.
|
e-mail: info@medirabbit.com
