English Adventure

This is definitely a long story...one that started out very exciting and happy!

Before Christmas, I saw a posting for some English Lop bunnies.  I immediately knew I wanted three specific females.  One albino, one broken blue, and one broken tort.  

Since English are a fairly expense breed, I agreed with my parents that these three girls would be a combination Christmas/birthday gift.  And so, a week before Christmas, we picked them up. 

Here are some pictures we took of them in that week before Christmas. 

The other part of the deal for my parents to get these girls for me, was that I had to name them Christmasy names. 

And so, the broken tort female was named Ginger Snap. 

The albino was named Snowflake.

And the broken blue was named Jingle Bells (But we all call her Jingles for short)

They were beyond cute and very sweet!

Each had their own unique personalities, and since they had been raised indoors, we kept them in the house where they'd spend hours out of the cage each day exploring the first floor. 

Well, Christmas rolled around and we got some adorable pictures of them in stockings!

They are beyond laid back and were happy to snuggle down for the pictures.

:)

All of them did a great job!

Jingles was the most content and sweetest of the three. 

Ginger Snap was definitely the explorer, always on the go and extremely energetic!

She was definitely my favorite as far as their personalities went.  She was so full of spirit!

Snowflake was a combination of her two sisters.  She was definitely adventurous, but no where near as curious as Ginger Snap.  And she was extremely sweet, but not as content as Jingles. 

I just love spotted bunnies, the reason I got these two girls!

But my favorite for looks was hands-down this adorable albino.  I saw her and knew she was perfect.

They all quickly conquered the stairs...

And would have lots of supervised fun on them.

They were all so sweet and cute!

:)

I just love English ears.  They're so long. 

They were all very good about not chewing on anything while they were out.

They reminded me of my English Lop female Ragnara, who I sold this past summer. 

Ragnara looked just like Ginger Snap, but much larger and more of a fawn coloring. 

However, Ragnara had the same spirit, very adventurous! Another reason why I love the English Lop breed so much.

I only sold Ragnara because she was unable to conceive.  She was successfully bred around a year old, but had a miscarriage about two weeks before her due date.  From that point on, she was never able to successfully conceive again.

And back to reality, nothing in life is ever easy.  Especially with rabbits.  A week after Christmas, Jingles bloated up, and I quickly separated her from her sisters.  But it was too late, and Ginger Snap bloated as well.  I then had each sister in a separate cage.  When rabbits bloat, there's no known reason why it happens and it's almost always fatal.  The only thing that's ever saved a bloated rabbit for me was feeding them Lemon Balm.  But being winter, all our Lemon Balm was dead and no matter how had I searched, there was none to be found anywhere in our state.  

Jingles' stomach was huge and began to harden on the right side.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with bloat, it's basically the build up of gas, rabbits cannot throw up, so whatever odd object they might ingest that doesn't agree with them is stuck.  Rabbits don't have elastic stomachs like most creatures, so they cannot expand very much.  They'll quickly hit a point when their blown up stomachs will cause a lack of blood flow to the heart, ending in cardiac arrest.  Or, their stomachs will not be able to expand any further, erupting.  In both cases, it's fatal for the rabbit.  And with bloat, you have between 4-24 hours to realize they're bloated and try to stop it.  If taken to the vet, they'll have to operate, with which the stress of even an operation has extremely low survival rates. 

So here I was, with 2 bloated females.  Ginger Snap passed away, 18 days after I had first picked her up.  Her last few hours she spent in my arms as I comforted her, trying to hold her weak head in a position making it easier for her to breath.  Her bloated stomach was causing pressure against her lungs and she was clearly struggling.  It was very emotional, but I was just so thankful she was no longer suffering. 

Jingles was still alive, even though she bloated before Ginger Snap had.  I then noticed Snowflake had stopped eating and was looking slightly blown up as well.  Three days later, 21 days after I had first picked them up, Snowflake passed away.  

Still, Jingles was alive.  Even though she was the most bloated and her stomach was completely solid on the right side, she continued to eat and drink everything I gave her.  Without my Lemon Balm, I searched frantically to find something that might save her.  An entire week of eating and drinking, without passing any droppings.  From the first day I noticed she was bloated, I completely took her off pellets and supplied her with lots of fresh hay and water.  She would nibble the hay, but not drink. So I began syringe feeding her water to keep her hydrated, I also mixed up some milk formula and gave that to her as well for some calories.  Because while her stomach was bloated, the rest of her quickly thinned and she was extremely boney.  

Luckily we had dried dandelions.  We also had organic teas of chamomile and mint that I cut open the bags of, as chamomile acts like a pain killer for rabbits.  We also had an organic tea blend of different herbs from a pregnancy tonic.  Mixing all of these things together, I fed it to her every day.  I also fed her fresh, minced garlic.  She was the only female, out of the three, that would eat the garlic.  And after a week, she began passing normal droppings, and urinated regularly.  Her stomach got soft again and went down in size.  She was boney, but she was alive.  

To get her weight up, I continued feeding fresh hay.  I also continued giving her all those dried herbs mentioned above daily mixed in with some extra-high-in-protein pellets.  In her water I would add sugar and even up to today, I'm still bottle feeding her milk formula.  She is completely 100% healthy.  The fight with bloat has ended.  My sweet, little Jingles lost both her sisters, but was alive and thriving.  

I quickly got her weight up, to the point where you could rub your hand across her back and feel nothing but solid muscle.  She was finally in complete health.  Every day we would let her out for hours to run around, but she seemed lonely.  So I decided to give my English Lop adventure one last try.  So I went out and Bought a proven, two-year-old, fawn female and her son.  

This is Creamcicle (although I'm thinking of changing her name,) and she's a bit temperamental when it comes to her food.  But other than that, she's a completely sweet heart!

And look at those ears!

She's a very beautiful, healthy rabbit. 

And this is Creamcicle's son, Nemo. 

Nemo's a broken fawn colored male.  When I bought them, Nemo had already been separated from his mother, but was still used to living with his brother. 

And what's crazy, is that Nemo was born on October 22, 2016...the exact same day as Jingles and her sisters.

So Nemo and Jingles, while from completely different bloodlines, share the same birthday.

And well, since he had been used to living with his brother and Jingles missed her sisters, I let them both run around together.  They both behaved really well and immediately started to snuggle! So now I have them in the same cage together.  Where ever one goes, so does the other.  

And as you can see, Jingles is doing very well!

She's slightly smaller then Nemo, which is completely understandable since she had been sick during an important time of growth, however she's not far behind him.

And every day she's more adventurous and there's no stopping her ever-growing appetite! 

Here are some pictures of Jingles and Nemo, running out and about with each other.

They do everything together and completely inseparable :)

:)

Like I mentioned above, I still feed Jingles the milk formula daily.  I know she doesn't need it any longer, however she absolutely goes crazy for it! She knows once she gets picked up that she's going to get some formula, and if she doesn't, she completely freaks out :)  She knows how much she wants and we let her drink it until she's done.  I tried letting Nemo have some, but he wasn't interested.  

So to end this very long story, yes, this has been a very long struggle.  It was hard and it was sad.  But at the end of the day, I am beyond thankful that Jingles survived, that she continued to eat, and that she's now one of the healthiest and definitely most lively rabbits I've ever had!  While the journey getting to this point was very emotional, financially risky, and long, I would do it all over again in a heart beat, just to be able to spend more time with these sweet creatures who can show so much love and affection, and to them, you're their entire world.