The Second Half

Rabbit Blogging: Happy Birthday, Leo!

Happy birthday to our cute litte bun, Leo!  As with Pinchita, we don't really know when Leo's birthday is so we've lumped in with some of the cats on their assigned birthday of March 15th.  We also don't know how old Leo is.  We thought he was 2 years old when we adopted him, but when we took him to a rabbit savvy vet recently, we learned he was likely 5-7 years old.

That was a bit of a disappointment bc his life expectancy is 7-10 years old.  When we thought he was about 2 years old, we thought we had many years with him ahead of us.  Now we have to get used to the idea that we'll probably only have a few years with him.

Leo, posing on his blankie:

A little more relaxed for this photo op:

Enjoying the view from the top of his Bunny Luv Critter Castle:

He's usually pretty tidy, but once in a while he makes a big mess:

Like all of our critters, he's too cute to elicit any anger at anything he does:

Everything he does is cute, as far as I'm concerned.  Happy birthday, Leo, and I hope you have many more happy, healthy days!

Leo's Trials & Tribulations

As Charlie Brown would say, "Auuugh!"  I just typed up a big long post about Leo's recent health problems and then the internet connection dropped and I lost the whole thing.  Perhaps it's just as well bc the post was getting a bit wordy and involved there.  Let me sum up things better then:

• Leo got sick in December, 2011: lost weight, not eating, messy stools, goopier eye discharge.
• We brought him a couple of times to our housecall vet's colleague with a brick and mortar practice.  He got him feeling better, but not back to normal so he referred us to Dr. Margaret Fordham at Oakhurst Veterinary Hospital.
  • Leo's been there a couple of times already and has had:
    • x-rays (looks good), fluids, Critical Care, meds, exam, observation, nasolacrimal duct flush
    • his teeth ground down to the gumline
  • Back at home, he continues his meds and he's doing very well.
  • We learned that Leo is older than we previously thought.  He's approx. 5-7 yo so he's actually an elder bun.  This is disappointing bc we had thought he was 2 or 3 and life expectancy is 7-10 years.  He remains, however, cute as a button regardless of age.
  • We also learned that the eye discharge is not related to his incisor removal (done before we adopted him), but more likely due to a blocked nasolacrimal duct.
•  He goes back to OVH for a follow up in a few weeks.  The idea is to see how fast his teeth grow in order to figure out how often he needs his teeth ground down.

We've learned a lot about Leo in particular and rabbits in general.  Not all vets are rabbit savvy, so, even though it's a bit of a hike to OVH, it's a relief to know that he's receiving well-informed care.  He's an excellent traveller and patient.  Here he is about to leave for OVH:

Is he freaking adorable or what?!  Here he is, back at home, feeling better.  He loves just sitting on top of the ottoman.

 I like seeing him stretched out like in this picture:

I don't know if I'm correct, but when I see him lazing around all stretched out in the open, I interpret that to mean that he's feeling safe and relaxed.  That pink bed is actually Pinchita's pink princess bed, but Leo's taken it over and camps out in it for hours at a time.

Casual feet!

He's doing very well now: eating his select greens (he only likes certain greens) and pellets; producing good stools; his eye looks much better and bopping around and relaxing like his usual charming self.

Rabbit Blogging: Hanging Out

Rabbits, like cats, are crepuscular.  From the House Rabbit Society:

Rabbits are actually "crepuscular", meaning they are most active in the twilight hours of both sunrise and sunset.

This is because before becoming domesticated, rabbits evolved as a prey species for thousands of years. Evolutionarily it was safest for rabbits to leave the safety of their burrow and forrage for food in the transition between day and night when the light is dim. This is the time when nocturnal (night) predators such as owls can't see well because of too much light, and when diurnal (day) predators such as foxes, can't see well because it is too dark. Smart bunnies!

I did not know this.  Actually, I hadn't had reason to think about it one iota before Leo came along.  This works out well because cats are also crepuscular.  So Leo and Pinchita, his feline roommate, are roughly in sync.

We usually keep Leo in his cage during the day so he can snooze without being bothered by or fussed at by Pinchi, who seems to be a little more active than Leo during the daytime.  The other day, however, he looked interested in being out and about so I let him out.  He bopped around for a while and then settled in for what I call his (and the cats') daytime nap, i.e., when they snooze the day away, from approximately after breakfast to somewhere between 4:00 - 6:00 p.m..  He likes to hang out in this one spot between the chairs and under a table.  Sometimes in the bed there, sometimes just al fresco:

 
Right now I have the book, Pet Projects: The Animal Knits Bible by Sally Muir & Joanna Osborne, checked out from the library.  I was thinking of knitting the tortoise hibernation tent for Leo.  I thought he might like to hang out in there.  Now I'm wondering if I can just take advantage of that table's crossed legs, which is what the tent calls for, and make a tent out of that since he likes so much to sit there.  I could knit it or sew it.  I think I'll fix up some fabric over it and see if he likes it.  If he does, I'll make him a proper tent.  The original has one flap door; I think I'd make two flap doors so that he can get out either way.  And I won't put the ties on it because, well, he's not going to tie himself in and out and Pinchi won't be tempted by the loose yarn (Leo's got no front teeth so he's not a chewer).

I'll close with him in his auxiliary bed:

 

Rabbit Blogging: Eating His Greens

When Leo first joined us, we understood from the rescue group that he was not eating any fresh greens or dried grasses.  I believe he was offered things like romaine.  Well, he ate romaine once since he's been here -- scarfed down a small bowl of it his first morning here -- but hasn't eaten it since.

Happily, he has eaten other greens with regularity.  He likes red radishes and their greens (not the white radishes and their greens, though), turnip greens, mustard greens, arugala, dandelion greens, pea shoots...perhaps a few other things that I can't remember.  We try different things with him, including whatever we hand on hand or get in our organic produce bag.

According to The House Rabbit Society (which is a great resource), the "basics of a good house rabbit diet" are:

A rabbit's diet should be made up of good quality pellets, fresh hay (alfalfa, timothy or oat), water and fresh vegetables. Anything beyond that is a "treat" and should be given in limited quantities.

While we're very pleased that he's eating greens, I see from their suggested vegetables list that we've a long way to go in terms of getting a variety of greens into him.  I just noticed this bit about variety and vitamin A:

Select at least three kinds of vegetables daily. A variety is necessary in order to obtain the necessary nutrients, with one each day that contains Vitamin A, indicated by an *. Add one vegetable to the diet at a time.

Twice a day we offer him a small bowl of greens, sometimes with veggies and/or fruit.  Sometimes we offer him a little fruit later, after he's eaten his veggies.  Kind of like dessert.  And he eats it like dessert, i.e., he'll it first if it's served with his greens and veggies.

According to the HRS, fruit is a treat and should be served sparingly: "daily ration no more than 2 oz. (2 TBL) per 6 lbs. body weight".  At 3.5 lb. he doesn't qualify for much fruit per day.

Here's a typical portion:

 
And here we've immortalized him actually eating his greens:

 
Well, I'm off to pick up Miles from the dentist!

Rabbit Blogging: Show Me the Bunny!

Hoppy days are here!  Kevin and I adopted a Dutch rabbit last week.  His name is Leo which must be Dutch for "adorable" bc that's exactly what he is.  We saw him on petfinder around mid-December and first made contact with the rescue group, Hug-a-Bunny, then.

We applied and were approved.  Since this was a first bun for either of us, we had -- and still have -- to do some research on rabbits.  Jamie from Hug-a-Bunny is super helpful about educating us so that we can properly care for our handsome Leo.  We got all the accoutrements that the well appointed bun requires and set up his home.  Jamie brought him here this past Friday.

We could have gone there or met somewhere in the middle, but Jamie offered to bring him here and I was glad to take her up on that offer.  If we were adopting a cat, I wouldn't think twice about bringing it home ourselves.  But this is our first bun and I wanted an experienced rabbit person to see the cage we'd set up, give us some in-person advice, show us how to properly handle Leo, etc.

Here he is in his cage:

 
The white triangle in the corner is his bed and the grey box in the other corner (he's sitting in it) is his litterbox.  We understood that he had very good litterbox habits, but he seemed to get confused between his bed and his litterbox so we've since switched those two things around and put some fabric in the bed.  That seems to have done the trick.

Here the incumbent roomie is checking him out:

 
We had been thinking about getting a bun for a while and then thought about a bun as a roommate for Pinchita, who's confined to that room bco her feline leukemia positive status.  Pinchi is very cuddly with us and she's curious about the cats that she knows are on the other side of her door.  When we saw her in Aruba, she often hung out quite companionably with a black cat friend.  We thought she might do well with a roommate.

Of course, we could have gotten another feline leukemia positive cat.  The thing with that is that our Edison is currently on Prozac for inappropirate urination (aka marking) and over-aggression.  A new cat might well be too stressful for him.  Plus, there's no guarantee that Pinchi and this new cat would get along.  So, believe it or not, we decided not to get another cat.

So we decided to cruise petfinder for a cat-loving or at least cat-tolerant rabbit.  Leo interacted successfully with cats in two foster homes.  I'm a sucker for special needs animals so Leo caught my eye immediately just bco that.  Well, that, and his classic good looks.  His special need is that he needs his greens chopped up small.  Rabbits are rodents and, as such:

All of the teeth grow continuously throughout the rabbit's life, and are kept worn down by the action of chewing and grinding of tooth against tooth. Rabbits do not require sticks or other items to chew in order to keep the teeth at the proper length, because the teeth take care of themselves by grinding against each other whenever the rabbit is eating.

That info is from the very helpful House Rabbit Society website.  Anyway, Leo was born with maloccluded incisors, that is, his incisors were all out of whack.  This made it very difficult for him to eat greens properly.  House rabbits need to have their continuously growing incisors trimmed every 6-8 weeks.  Hug-a-Bunny decided to have the incisors surgically removed such that they'd never grow back.  This literally removed the problem teeth, but it did mean that he would need small bits of greens.  That's not a problem at all bc we often chop greens up for the chickens.

Now, Leo wasn't eating greens or dried grasses very much.  It's thought that his original owners might have only offered him pellets due to ease of use and so he never developed a taste for it and/or perhaps greens and grasses are now too foreign to him.   If I understand his history correctly, he could eat the pellets with his funky teeth, but a pellets-only diet is not optimal.

I'm very happy to report that we've witnessed with our very own eyes Leo eating greens!  He's not chowing down on them, but he is eating some, which is good news for him.  I don't think he's eating any dried grasses; it's hard to tell if any is gone from the feeder.  We try him with different greens, depending on what we have on hand.

He also likes fruit, but that's strictly limited due to its sugar content.

This is a very happy Kevin with his new bun:

 
And here they are watching football together:

 
Leo and Pinchi seem to be doing very well.  Pinchi was very, very curious about Leo the first day or so.  We supervised their first times together to see how they get on.  Leo noodled around the room, seemingly oblivious to Pinchi for the most part.  Occasionally, she'd reach out a tentative hand to touch his tail (who wouldn't?).  She tracked his every movement.  We'd put him back in his cage for a while and she'd collapse into a deep snooze.  She was like an overwhelmed nanny.

The novelty seems to be wearing off.  There have been times when he's been bopping around and she doesn't even bother to get down from her cushion.

Yesterday, the two were on my lap.  She was lolling around like she might fall asleep, but every once in a while she'd reach out and lazily bop Leo on the head.  He just sat there.  I pulled him a bit away from her, just out of reach, but he went right up to her and put his head next to hers.  She cleaned his head a bit, then bopped him lightly.  Their future together looks bright indeed.