Rabbit Nose

Many people don't know this, but almost 90% of a rabbits breathing is done purely through their nose.

That being said, this is why it's so dangerous when a rabbit gets the sniffles.

If they mainly breath through their nose, and their nose gets all stuffed up, you're going to end up with a very sick bunny.

Now, when a rabbit wiggles it's nose, this is body language.  Because their nose is wiggling, doesn't mean they are breathing quickly.  Just like if their nose isn't wiggling, this doesn't mean they have stopped breathing either.

Basically, the more relaxed a bunny is, the more it's nose will wiggle.  A terrified rabbit almost never wiggles it's nose.

Often times, people have their rabbits indoors with them.  A relaxed bunny may watch you doing something.  As they become more interested in what you're doing, their nose wiggling may increase. Along with this action, they will probably raise one ear in their curiosity.

Now sometimes, your rabbit will be wiggling their nose, then suddenly stop.  This could be they suddenly feel frightened, confused, unsure, or maybe they're just so happy, they've even past the point of wiggling their nose :)

Rabbit Eyes

Rabbit eyes, unlike their ears, are not as good with picking up things.  They don't have the best eye sight.  This is why their ears are so good at hearing, to make up for what they lack with their vision.

Now, rabbits actually have 3 eye lids.  No, not 3 sets of lids, just 3 lids per eye.

They have their 'normal' eye lids.  Similar to humans, it's the lid on top and the lid on bottom which open and close as the rabbit blinks.

Then, their third lid is the interesting one.  The third lid comes from the front of the eye and when the rabbit blinks, goes across the eye, all the way to the other side, then back into the front corner.  This lid is what lubricates the actual eye ball.

Now, sometimes, if their is a lot of dust or hay particles floating around, they can clog up your bunny's third lid, making it weepy or even swollen.  I've found eye drops do the trick.  A few drops per day really help flush all the bad stuff out nice and quickly.  Now, there are lots of eye issues your rabbit can get, but this is one I feel most likely to happen.

It's something that can easily arise as fast as it can easily be taken care of.  And since bunnies eat hay all the time, it's something very likely that will happen.  

Rabbit Ears

 Rabbit ears.  The thought of their ears normally isn't much.  When we think of rabbit ears (or any ears, for that matter), you instantly think of hearing.  Ears are what allow bunnies (and everything else) the ability to hear.

And while this is an extremely important function...rabbit ears do a little more than just that.

A rabbit's body temperature is regulated by their ears.  This is crucial information for anyone who owns a bunny.

If your rabbit is too hot, you can mist cool water on the outside of their ears, helping to cool them down.  If your rabbit is too cold, you need to warm their ears up.  If a rabbit gets frostbite on it's ears...your bunny's chances aren't good.

This is why it's important to know.  These tips can literally save your bunny's life.

Now, a rabbit's hearing is extremely sensitive.  They can hear things from great distances away.  This is because of their large ears.  Now, there obviously are breeds such as the Lops, which means their ears go down.  But for the most part, rabbits ears go straight up.  When a rabbit is listening, they can turn their ears in almost any direction, allowing them to fully focus on any noise. 

They also communicate a lot through the use of their ears.  Here are a few examples:

1) Ears Straight Up - this means the rabbit is on high alert.  If it's eyes also appear a bit bulged when this happens, you should give your rabbit some space.  Eye bulged along with ears straight up means your rabbit is terrified.  In this state, your bunny might easily bit, thinking it needs to protect itself.

2) Ears Laid Back - this means your bunny is totally relaxed/trusting.  Since ears up means it's listening/on alert, if both ears are flat back, the rabbit clearly feels safe being with you.  You therefore, pose no threat, allowing the rabbit to completely relax and put it's guard down.

3) One Ear Up, One Ear Down - this means your bunny is more curious then anything else.  The ear down, represents it feels safe, but the one ear up represents it's still a little unsure or interested in what's going on.  If you take a rabbit into an area it's never been before, it will probably do this.  It will feel safe being with you, but curious to all the new sounds it now hears. 

There you go, a little bit on information on the complexity of rabbit ears and how they can correlate to their behavior.

No Velveteens

So...my Velveteen Lop female, Lily had 12 babies and today they would have turned 10 days old.

However, day after day, Lily killed off her babies.  First, she started by eating one each night.  After a day or so, she stopped feeding all of them.

I mixed up some formula and fed - along with stimulating - each baby.  I don't know why, but she saw they were being fed and then began feeding them herself.  But, she kept eating one a night.

A few days ago, she was down to 3 babies.  One baby was really fat and healthy.  The other two were being fed, but not as much.

So I was heading out the door one morning to go to class, and saw she'd eaten from the bottom of the rib cage down on the one baby...who was now dead.

Instead of taking it out (like I'd done with all the others), I left it in...hoping if she wanted more, she would finish that one and not kill another.

Oh - and keep in mind we never let her food bowl go empty.  She was also getting extra protein from the special food we bought her.  Her water dish was never empty either...she had everything she needed and no reason to eat her babies.

Then the next morning, the top half of the one baby was still there...but she'd killed the second baby, slicing it across the throat and down it's back.  I was devastated.

In one last attempt to save the single remaining baby, we separated him from Lily right after a feeding/stimulating.  This morning I went to check on him.  He had died during the night.  And because he was under a heat lamp...he inflated like a water balloon.  It was horrifying, heart-wrenching, and to me - very unexpected.

Why would I tell you this and leave in those details which make you think rabbits are evil mothers who care nothing for their babies and just love to kill them in their sleep? The answer is this - rabbits go off of instinct.  She wasn't 'killing for the thrill'.  She can't do that.  It's impossible.

But with many rabbits, their first litter comes and they don't know what to do...at all.  But almost every single time, after the first bad experience, rabbits learn from their mistakes and become really awesome, attentive mothers!

So with something as horrifying and disastrous as something like this...it doesn't make her a bad mother.  It doesn't make rabbits bad mothers.  It's part of the circle of life.

Now, if she has a second litter and treats them the same way, then yes, she's a horrible mother.  But I'm keeping my hopes up that she, like many other first time rabbit moms, just didn't know what to do, but will learn from this litter and become a good mother to her next.

So if you're raising rabbits and end up with a situation like this, don't be discouraged! Yes, it's sad, no doubt about it.  It's painful to experience as you feel so horribly for those babies.  But it's part of life and your female will almost definitely learn from this and do a much better job the next litter.

So consequently...there will be no Velveteen Lops in my near future.  And Lilac didn't take, so we'll see.  I'm still trying to decide how to move on from here.

Spoiled Rotten

So I sold a bunny to some people a week or so ago.  The bunny I sold them was actually the grey, female, single maned Lion Head I had gotten in payment for a stud fee.  

The other day, the family sent me a few pictures of the bunny!

So she basically has free-run of the house :)

And only uses her litter pan...

...and even has her own little bed! :)  

I'll use a small bit of her email to show exactly what she said, "We named her Flo and she is doing amazing! Spoiled rotten! She is fully litter trained. Because she is litter trained she spends hours out of her cage each day. Thanks for an amazing bunny!" - C.S.

This isn't the first time I've gotten feed back/pictures...so I'm thinking of adding a new tab at the top to put 'testimonials'.  We shall see :) 

Baby Velveteens!

So my sweet Velveteen Lop, Lily, had babies!!

The father of this litter is my tan Velveteen Lop male, Francis :)

My sister and I went out to feed and water the bunnies outside.  While suiting up (since we got 28 and 1/2 inches of snow!!), we saw her ripping out fur.  And since tomorrow's her due date, we figured she was go tonight sometime. 

Well, when we came back in, not 30 minutes later, we saw she had given birth!!! 

Now, she gave birth outside of her nestingbox.  All the babies are currently still alive, but they were really cold when we felt them.  So we hooked up a heating lamp (which is causing the red in the pictures above) in hopes they will survive the night.  In the mix of this, I didn't get an accurate count, but I believe she had about 12 babies :) 

Hopefully now they'll be warm enough to make it. 

They're all so adorable! They look like they might all get a Tort coloring, but we'll see.  Only time will tell.  This is Lily's first litter, so I'm hoping she's going to be a good mother and tend her babies well :)

They're so tiny and cute!

And well, Lily's doing very well! I'm sure she's happy to have all those babies out :)  And Lily's sister, Lilac is also supposed to be due tomorrow.  She had done some digging in her nesting box, but hasn't ripped out any fur or anything.  I'm actually not sure she's really pregnant.  The breeding was a first time for both her and Brody (the hopefully soon-to-be father of her litter) and it didn't exactly seem to go the smoothest.  But we shall see.  If she is pregnant, I hope she has an easy birth and is a good mother! But if not, that's par for the course.  She's still young, healthy, and will do fine another time, I'm sure :)

Escapees

This past week, 2 of my female breeders got out of their cage! The first one was Pumpkin...

We were out with the puppies, letting them run around and go to the bathroom, when my brother spots a massive rabbit along the tree line!  So I wasn't able to go right up and check it out...since all the puppies were out.  We quickly put the puppies back inside and into their whelping box.  Then I was able to walk right up to her. 

I wasn't 100% sure it was mine (as all the wild bunnies around here are brown), until I saw her myself.  No wild bunny is ever that large :)  

So I walked up to her, said hi.  She looked at me, then hopped over and I just picked her up and put her back in her cage.  Luckily her cage isn't far from the ground at all, so she didn't hurt herself in the jump.  All was fine :)

Then the other bunny was New Girl and that happened yesterday. 

I made myself a sandwich - which by the way, was the perfect amount of bread, to meat, to mustard - and was able to take less then a half of a bit.  My brother looked out the window and said, "There's a spotted bunny in the garden.  You might want to get it."

So I put down my sandwich of perfection and went running out...and it snowed the other day.  So in my grip-less All Stars, I made my way out with lots of slipping and sliding.  Now, New Girl's good about coming.  She's good about not biting.  But yesterday...she was not in the mood to stop her adventure so early. 

She decided to hid behind the manure pile...then run, to and fro in the garden and in the rabbitry.  With the help of my siblings and some food to coax her with, I was able to grab her.  Once I got her, she behaved very well.  There wasn't a struggle or anything.  But it was just a matter of actually catching her.  And once we did, she was quickly put back into her cage. 

My brother saw everything under control and went back inside.  I soon followed and entering the kitchen, went to get my sandwich...which seemed to have disappeared...mystery of the missing sandwich?  I think so! 

...nah, just kidding.  The dogs ate it off the counter...  too bad.