June diary

This month I found myself speaking to a number of people about their bunnies which always reminds me how much I didn't know when Dingleberry first came to live with us back in late 2001.

Our expectations for a rabbit were very low. Both Nimal and I didn't know much about rabbits and all we knew was stereotypical information about lettuce, carrots & hutches. Thank goodness for the US House Rabbit Society's website!! (http://www.rabbit.org/)

I imagine most people who get their first bunny make loads of mistakes... just like us!! This month reminded me how poorly we started out with Dingy. She really is lucky she's still with us! Fortunately for her, she was 8 weeks old when we took her home so she had been weaned from mum. Her younger siblings from the accidental second litter probably didn't have as good a start as Dingy. Unfortunately, we didn't really know what to feed her though. She suffered a terribly icky bottom from all those carrots we gave her, ate her way through several rugs and suffered many phantom pregnancies until we realised we should have her spayed.

Many of our bunnies now have the benefit of all that we have learned from Dingy. After she suffered a life threatening stasis episode in 2004, we started taking our bunny care far mor seriously. We almost lost her and that was a wake up call to us that we needed to find out far mroe about rabbits.

This month we also had a few buns that didn't feel so well. Izzy wasn't so well as she was moulting and went off her food for one day. Fortunately, she bounced back reasonably quickly.

Lulu, on the other hand (pictured above), was quite unwell for a few days. We were very worried about her. She sometimes has trouble going to the toilet and strains. It's very painful for her and she gets very tired. The pain of straining then makes her not want to eat, so stasis sets in. She was on critical care, fluids and pain relief for a few days until finally she passed some faeces. She was so happy after that and we are hopeful that she'll be okay for the next week as she is booked in for surgery to help her with her condition.

The problem is a small lump that sits near her bladder. We're nto really sure what the lump is yet but surgery will help to either remove it or attempt to open it up. The lump seems to cause a blockage at times when Lulu needs to go to the toilet. Of course, we're worried about Lulu and surgery, but if we can fix the condition, it will help Lulu for the future.