Monday, June 30, 2008

Off to the vet again

I had Bambi's eye and stitches looked at today. He cleaned out her eye and did some other stuff that I don't know, because it was too gross to watch. But one of the stitches came undone and the area started scabbing over the stitch, so he took care of that. He said it looks good and I should go back next week to have them removed.

Bambi and Cinnamon had a great time running around the house tonight. I missed some great Cinnamon binkys, according to my hubby.

Thankfully, the weather has cooled off and should be decent for the rest of the week. Look what Cinnamon did to stay cool yesterday...
The fan was on MEDIUM speed-smart bun huh?!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

oh, would someone please let the cat out of the bag??!!

I have no idea why she decided to spend the latter half of a warm afternoon in a bag....

Dang, it's hot

The rabbits are miserable, the cats are miserable,and yes, the humans are miserable too. It's about 85 outside, and 80 in the house. Yuck.

Bambi and Cinnamon had free run of the house most of the day yesterday. Bambi decided to put on her big girl panties and ventured out of the bathroom. She figured it wasn't so bad since discovering how yummy house plants are....

all yummy house plants have since been moved.

I am concerned about a little pice of stitch that may be poking or have potential to poke Bambi's eye. I will call the vet Monday.



Thursday, June 26, 2008

Bambi is doing good!

Bambi is still doing good. She got her pain med this morning and liked it. Cinnamon is actually running around the house tonight. Bambi seems content with staying in the bathroom. They are even doing a great job using their litter pan! I haven't trained them to use it, but they do. Yippe! I did give Bambi an eyedrop tonight; I'm not sure if she really needed it, but I didn't want to take the chance.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Frankenbunny

Bambi is our 2nd Frankenbunny. Cinnamon was our first when he had 3 abscesses in his face that were lanced and drained. Yuck.

Anyway, Bambi did really well today. She has 2 stitches. She has pain medication too! Her and Cinnamon are inside and are doing as well as can be, both very active, maybe a bit too active. Unfortunately Cinnamon is cleaning Bambi's head and I'm worried he will bite the stitches or irritate the wound. Bambi doesn't have a collar, but may need one. I have to keep a close watch on the stitches and eyeball because the doc wasn't sure the eyelid was completely closing and there may still be some exposed eyeball, but right now it looks good.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Bambi's Eye Surgery

Bambi and Clint both show visible scars from their first home. Clint is missing half of his ear. It doesn't seem to bother him, and it doesn't need any care.

Bambi is missing part of her eyelid. After a few months of having her I noticed that the eyeball itself was drying out. She can close her eye, but there is always this exposed gap. Part of the eyelid itself is turning inside out. I put ointment on her eye every night to keep the eyeball from drying, but the eyelid still gets sore; somedays it gets more irritated than others. She also can't blink normally, which is a problem when she gets dirt in it (which is often because she loves to dig).

So tomorrow morning she will go in (Cinnamon will go with for company) and have a little bunny plastic surgery. You can kind of see her eye in this picture.


I want to keep an eye on her for a day or two while she is healing, so I have the guest bathroom all set up for her and Cinnamon.


Wish us well!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Cleaning day...

Today is cleaning day. Rabbitat is cleaned every weekend. Cleaning the 10x15 rabbitat consists of: removing straw, all blankets, cleaning litter pans, sweeping, mopping, drying the floor, putting down fresh newspaper and straw, dodging the mosquito's and keeping an eye out for large spiders, then, put everything back where it was. May not sound like much, but it takes an hour. It was almost 80 degrees in there today too. I like cleaning the rabbitat in the afternoon, the buns are pretty sleepy and tend to stay out of the way.

Here are the boys, hiding under the 2nd level, waiting for me to finish....


Bambi and Cinnamon wait for me to finish too...


They all love when I start to put out the fresh straw and timothy hay. They start digging in as soon as it comes out.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Captain fatty!



Clint is also known as Captain Fatty. I don't know how he got so fat. I don't over feed him, and he hardly gets any 'treats' (he is a picky eater).

He gets plenty of exercise chasing Gerald and digging holes.

Fatty...

June 2008 (*note: 1 year later from last entry*)



We still have the buns separated. It's working out well now. Clint and Gerald have one side, and Bambi and Cinnamon have the other.

Still takes me an hour to clean the rabbitat every week. Hubby doesn't go into the rabbitat anymore because of his back, but he helps as much as he can with the cleaning.

The weather is warmer and the fans are up and on.

I put sod down last week (because the grass keeps dying and turns into a dry dirt pile). They love the sod! Still doesn't keep them from digging however. They stopped digging for a few months, and now they are at it again!

July 2007

July 6, 2007
How unusual is it that when Cinnamon was living in the house for a week and a half, that he never chewed on anything (except a few plants)??!! How unusual that he only used his litter box, NEVER peed or pooped anywhere else??!! (I never trained any of them to use a box, I just put the boxes where they pee the most....).

I let him go where ever he wanted, the only time he was confined (to the bathroom) was at night, and during the day when we were at work. He didn't even care about the cats!! He even thought my peach ice cream smelled wonderful and tried to stick his nose in the bowl!

After a week and a half I put Cinnamon back in with Bambi, outside, they started chasing each other (do they forget they used to get along). So I brought them both in, introduced them to a place neither has been (laundry room), and rebonded them. They stayed in the laundry room for 3 days, then I put them back outside.

Cinnamon still comes in every night for his shot. Sometimes I let him run around the house for a bit afterwards (but not too long because I have no box for him now). Last night he did a binki. I have seen him do binki's in the house before, but never outside.

I think Cinnamon is a house bunny at heart.

The bugs and bees don't seem to be as bad these last few weeks, not sure why. The fans are helping keep everything off the buns too.

July 13, 2007
But do you think a rabbit cares if he gets into trouble??!!

After Bambi's big dig, and I filled it up, she hasn't dug since.

Clint has been digging but just a little here and there (as soon as I fill them up he is right back at it).

Yesterday I come home (after being in the car for 2 hours stuck in traffic because of an accident) and I see Cinnamon running/jumping/fighting with Clint and Gerald. I run out to the rabbitat, with my husband behind me, go into the rabbitat and everything stops and Cinnamon disappears back to his side. That damn Clint dug a hole in front of the piece of wood that divides the rabbitat. Does Cinnamon like to get beat up or what?

I didn't see any visible injuries to anyone. I put a brick in the hole and filled it back up. My husband didn't think they were at it long, he would have noticed when he got home.

I think it drives Clint crazy that there are rabbits on the other side of the wall. There is a little space where he can see them, and he likes to poop there. When I am in the house I can see Clint looking through the tiny space. Gerald could care less, he just sits on his chair all day, just like an old man (hence the name Gerald).

Waskly wabbits!

June 2007

June 5, 2007
Damn. I spoke too soon!
I brought Cinnamon in last night to run around the house and I found a new lump on his face. We will go to the vet tomorrow....I thought we were done with this. He has been doing so well.

Cinnamon was having a great time in the house last night. He was all over the place. Even in rooms he has never been before. He would even run up to the cats! The cats didnt like that at all; Tiki would run away, Gixr would hiss or run away. The only bad thing Cinnamon does is nibble on my plants; but I always watch him, so he doesn't eat much.

June 7, 2007
Cinnamon is living in the house, but only for a few days till his wound heals up a bit. Right now he is in the bathroom. When we are home I let him go where ever he wants. I took him to the vet yesterday and he had another abscess. The doc cut it open and drained it. Vet says Cinnamon may need to have antibiotic shots for the rest of his life. Vet thinks a bad tooth root may be to blame, but he is not sure, so he doesn't want to extract the tooth.

Cinnamon is familiar with that bathroom. I put some towels and blankets down, and his litter box. Gave him water and timothy hay. He used his litter box to pee! Which he has, even when he was outside. He was thumping at 4:30 this morning, I think he was spooked because he was in a different place for so long.

Now I feel bad because Bambi is all alone. I put her with the other 2 last night and there was a little fight and lots of chasing. So I separated them again. Do rabbits forget who they used to hang out with? Why do they make things so difficult??!!

I haven't told my husband yet that Cinnamon may need shots for the rest of his life. He hurt his back almost 3 weeks ago and we just found out that he may need surgery. He will get a steroid injection tomorrow, and the doc is working on a referral to a specialist.

March/April 2007

March 22, 2007
We were at the vet yesterday. I haven't noticed over the last few days how swollen half of Cinnamon's head was, so I was surprised at how bad he looked when I got him to the vet. And his eye was no longer goopy because it was popping out of his head. Turns out that he has 3 abscesses in his face. 1 in his cheek, 1 on his chin and 1 behind his eye. Had x-rays done to be sure it wasn’t a tooth abscess, which it wasn't. Anyway Cinnamon had to spend the night so the doc could open and drain 2 abscesses, he was not able to get the one behind the eye. Guess Cinnamon couldn't close his eye this morning either because he is so swollen. So he is going to be on a antibiotic and pain med, for a month, and he as to be separated from the others because they can get infected with it too. If the antibiotic doesn't take care of the abscess behind the eye they will have to try other options. Doc called it snuffles or Pasteurella. That visit cost me $400.
I was up until midnight getting the cage ready for him today. My husband just picked him up and said Cinnamon is moving around and eating but didn't look good because of the incisions (doc doesn't close them, he just leaves them! Yuck). I almost fainted in the office yesterday when the doc got all the instruments out (to look in Cinnamon's mouth) and then got a needle out! I had to sit down and put my head between my legs or I would have just lost it.

The reason I brought Cinnamon in was because he wasn't eating all of his pellets over the last few days, he was eating slower, and wasn't moving around as much as he usually did. I also wanted the doc to look at his genitals, which were fine. I didn't notice how swollen his face was because there is not much light in the rabbitat.

April 3, 2007
I took Cinnamon to the vet yesterday to have his eye looked at. All week he has had this film on his eye where he couldn't close his eye all the way. I was afraid it was doing damage to the eye. And I could tell he couldn't see out of that eye because he ran into it on Saturday night, causing some bleeding.

The vet looked at his eye, pulled his eyelid down and saw a small pocket of pus. So Cinnamon spent the night last night and the vet put him out and drain the pus. Vet called me about an hour later and said lots of pus came out (all the crap that was behind his eye). Said all the swelling is now gone and his eye is almost back to normal.

I still have to keep him on antibiotics, because it's not completely gone and it could come back. I feel so bad that Cinnamon is still there because I can't get him until I am done with work. So I called and asked if they would please feed him something besides dandelions, and if they would give him a blanket (they already gave him one) and if they would give him a bowl of water because he doesn't drink from bottles. They can think I'm crazy, I don't care. They said he didn't seem stressed, so I think he will be okay for the day.

I went to get Cinnamon yesterday and the vet says good news his eye is better, bad news, I have to flush the 2 holes because they can fill up with pus again. It's bad news because I can't stomach it, as the vet was showing me how to do it I got all hot, light headed and nauseous; I had to sit down. It makes me sick just thinking about it! Vet said I could bring Cinnamon in everyday and have one of the gals do it. My husband can handle it a little better than me, so he is going to try tonight, but he didn't see how the vet did it. I have a nurse friend that lives near me that may be willing to help, but she has a lot of back pain right now and I don't think I can ask for a favor when she is so miserable. I don't mind bringing Cinnamon into the vet everyday; but I can't afford it if they charge, I will have to call and ask.

Vet also said to keep putting eyedrops in his eye, even though he can close his eye now. So I did this morning, and Cinnamon made it very difficult. When I finally got the drop in his eye he started scratching it. That is not going to help matters!

I asked a bit more about how Cinnamon could have gotten this. And the vet said it is something he could have had for months and it could have been a puncture wound or scratch that set it off. He said it is very common in rabbits and that many of them carry Pasturella, but usually their immune systems keep it from coming out.

I spoke with some of my friends at work (medical clinic) and I have 2 nurse friends that live nearby that have volunteered to help. Yippee.

April 12, 2007
Well my husband picked up Cinnamon at the vet yesterday and they cleaned out more pus. The vet showed my husband how to clean the wounds (better) and give injections.

We decided to keep Cinnamon separated from the others because of his open wounds. But now that Cinnamon has gotten out he keeps standing up on his hind legs and bites and scratches at the chicken wire. He was obviously frustrated last night. I felt so bad for him. I gave him a stuffed bunny about 2 weeks ago, but it doesn’t seem to help. I'm sure he is also tired of being handled. He thumped at me the other night before I put a drop in his eye.

April 20, 2007
OK, since the buns are outside and in a large area we cover the entire rabbitat in straw, which is cleaned out every week. I buy 1 bale of straw at a time and it last for about 2-3 months. The last bale we got was just full of dirt. It looks like the straw was pulled from its roots, instead of cut, so there are these dirt balls at the ends of the straw. Along with that bale of straw we got a free half bale, just because he wanted to get rid of it. Well I was pulling it apart last week and spreading it around the rabbitat and there were dead mice in the straw! You know, I just don't need this crap right now. I am so not having outdoor rabbits ever again.

Then last week I noticed that Clint is fat. When did this happen?! And how?! Was it a gradual weight gain (so I wouldn't have noticed if it was), or did it happen suddenly and I noticed it when it did happen. When I first got them I thought I wasn't feeding them enough fresh food, now maybe it is too much. So I started cutting back on his pellets (I never give them more than recommended anyway). Is it possible to gain weight on greens??!! The only new thing I have been doing is giving them apple tree twigs (2-3 times a week) and papaya treats every night so they don't get hairballs.

I also find myself going to the store way too much, 2-3 times a week. Either going to the pet store for timothy hay (since I don't get the 1/2 bale at the farmer supply store) or getting fresh greens. I go through a bag of timothy hay in 2-3 days. (I don't remember what size the bags are, but I have seen bags that are smaller than what I get).
OK, that is my rant for the week.

April 30, 2007
I let Cinnamon out to be with his friends for the first time in almost 2 months yesterday and the second him and Clint touched noses Clint freaked out and we had a fight. Never seen rabbits fight before, and I don't want to see it again. I'm surprised I didn't get injured separating them. I put Clint in a kennel since we still had to clean the rabbitat. The other 3 did fine.

Injuries are minimal. Cinnamon has a small cut above his good eye and a scratch and small cut under his neck. Didn't look like any of his healing wounds were affected. I didn't see anything on Clint, but I didn't look too hard, I was a bit mad at him.

Bambi and Cinnamon were cleaning each other, so I put them together, and Clint and Gerald are together. Bambi seems a bit confused. I feel bad because Bambi was the one that got along with everyone and cleaned their heads.

I really don't want to keep them separated. Having the rabbitat divided is inconvenient in so many ways, and we can't sit with them like we used to, so we really have no enjoyment with them.

Don't they recognize each others scent?? Bambi and Gerald were fine with Cinnamon, why did Clint get all upset? Pretty sure there is no way I can get them together again, I can't risk injury.

June 4, 2007
Sunday morning drama: When I went to feed everyone on Sunday morning all of Bambi and Cinnamon's straw was GONE. It was the freakiest thing I have ever seen. Only a few small bits left behind. I was freaking out, was someone so stressed that they ate it all?? Where did it go??!!
Afternoon drama: Not sure if I told you about the huge hole Bambi dug, it was about a week ago. She dug up 2 buckets full of dirt, I managed to get only one bucket full back into the hole. She dug again this weekend, which I saw Sunday morning, and figured I would fill it back up again when I cleaned. I go out Sunday afternoon to clean and Bambi is no where in sight. I could only assume that she was in the hole. My entire arm was in the hole and I still couldn't feel or see her. She eventually came out (I didn't see her go in or out), and I filled the hole again. Now I think all the straw is in the hole. Oh, and Bambi has a bad eye, actually missing a part of her eyelid, we got her that way. It is fine, until she gets lots of dirt in it and her eye can't get the dirt out on it's own, so I have to do it.

More afternoon drama: It was 90 degrees in the rabbitat yesterday. I drove past a bank sign yesterday afternoon and it said 80. Bambi was breathing pretty hard (she was the only one). I put a fan in the rabbitat for her. I'm going to be in trouble if the rabbitat is going to be 10 degrees hotter than the outside temp. What am I going to do on days that it hits 90??!! I put out a frozen bottle of water, but Bambi didn't seem smart enough to lay against it.

Monday morning drama: They are all digging (except Cinnamon), I had to fill up holes this morning! Clint and Gerald don't do the damage that Bambi does. But they are all driving me nuts!!

Oh, and I can't believe how great Cinnamon is doing. He is not getting shots anymore or any kind of medication. All his fur has grown back where it was shaved. He looks good; I think he may have gained another ounce or two.

October 2006

The buns were put in a huge semi truck and they rode from Nevada to Washington. The buns were delivered to Rabbit Haven in Oak Harbor, WA. My husband and I drove 2+ hours to meet the truck to get our buns. I remember the truck driver telling me that none of the buns died during transport. The owner of Rabbit Haven was a nice woman and spent some time with us. She gave us the great advice to put laminate down in the rabbitat so it would be easier to clean.

They adjusted well to their new home. Two months after we got them Cinnamon got sick with pneumonia. After a trip to the vet and some meds, he was all better.

August 2006

Photobucket
Almost done building the rabbitat. You can see that most of it is raised, and they have access to a little grassy part (which already flooded once from too much rain!).

After a month of having them we covered the wood floor with tile because they pee everywhere. It is always covered with layer of straw, and they have blankets.

The wire that surrounds the rabbitat is hardware cloth. It goes down 1 foot into the ground. The hardware cloth was a requirement from the shelter we adopted them from, so raccoons and other animals can't get in. It was also a requirement to put the hardware cloth down into the ground because rabbits dig (and Bambi is a digger!).

When we first built the babbitat we made it so the roof didn't cover the entire rabbitat. I had a vision that the buns would get some sunlight in the summer. We eventually had to put a tarp on it because of the rain and cold. The tarp became a problem, so we build the rest of the roof this summer.

We can see the rabbitat from our kitchen and bedroom.