The last time I posted here was back in the early spring, when after 3 months our two rabbits, Max and Nyla, were finally bonded and living together.
Last night, Max passed away 3 days after he started having trouble chewing his food and was getting some swelling on the right side of his jaw and face. He’d been on painkillers/anti inflammatory and antibiotics since Sunday morning, when I had him at the emergency vet, and he was eating Critical Care really well with a syringe, so home treatment was going well, and I had an appointment set up for him with the exotic vet at the end of the week. Throughout the day yesterday, though, I noticed he was kind of secluding himself in either one of a couple of smaller boxes in their play yard (the cage and x-pen yard are in our living room). Nyla would lay with him sometimes, but he had stopped grooming her, so they spent much of the day in different areas of the cage/yard.
By last night he stopped taking the food, and within about an hour his body was feeling cooler, he was becoming more lethargic, and the swelling was beginning to affect the left side of his face. We knew he was ready to go, so we sat in the play yard with him, and within ten minutes he was gone.
I left his body in the yard for a while so Nyla would see what was going on. She went to him a few times to sniff him and groom at him a little, then would move on to eat or drink or lay somewhere else, and finally laid next to him for a while.
Eventually she got up again, ate some more, and moved to another part of the cage, so I removed his body. I actually put him in with her one last time this morning, and she just sniffed him and moved on.
We’re going to be spending lots of time with Nyla and I’m going to set up the room so that we can let her come out of the play yard when we’re home and she can come to us when she wants attention, rather than having to wait for somebody to go in with her; Max had been a big chewer of wires and master at getting into small places, so we had them blocked off in their own area. My daughter, who is almost 9, also plans to take Nyla up to her room with her when she’s playing like she used to do before Nyla and Max were bonded.
My biggest question is, what are anyone’s experiences with a rabbit that has lost her mate? We won’t be getting another rabbit right now for several different reasons, so I’m doing things to make us more accessible to Nyla throughout the day (I’m a stay at home mom, so I actually do spend a lot of time interacting with our pets when I’m home).
Will that be enough for her? She had previously belonged to a teenager who surrendered her to the shelter when he had to leave for college and couldn’t take her with him, so she’d been a lone bunny for about a year and a half. She and Max were together for about 5 months.
Thanks so much for any input.