Need advice on my newly-adopted bun

[kirstyol]

So I went and picked up Bramble’s new brother tonight (I have a post in the lounge if anyone is interested) and the poor bloke is in some state.

His former human actually seemed to know his stuff when I spoke to him and he told me he once took him to the emergency vet because he stopped eating but it turned out to be just gas, so he seemed like he cared for him well. I wonder if he is one of those humans who cares too much because Ron (the name his former human’s former flatmate gave him) appears to me to be quite overweight from looking at him and picking him up to put him in Bramble’s old cage (he couldn’t stay in his own it was awful). From picking him up i would say he is a good bit heavier than Bramble, but probably not much bigger. Bramble is a little over 2kgs so maybe Ron is somewhere around 3-3.5kgs, i was going to weigh him but didn’t want to distress him any more than necessary.

He has been fed on cheap, supermarket own brand multi coloured (but not quite muesli style) food and what appears to be as much kale and spinach as he can eat, his former human told me that’s all the veg he eats. When i got to the house he had a massive Tupperware dish full of kale and one full of this awful rabbit food, he did at least have a massive tub of what looked to be decent enough hay.

He was free roaming when i got there which is good, but the place wasn’t bunny-proofed at all, in fact the human told me he had chewed through the tv wire and that’s why it wasn’t on! He seemed happy enough hopping about the place and even hopped up on a chair.

The place was covered, and i mean covered in piles of fur. He looks like he hasn’t been brushed ever, his fur at his bum is all sort of like loose hair hanging on to the normal hair. I tried to brush him and he freaked out so that’s perhaps something to leave till he is a bit more settled. Just to emphasise how bad the hair is, my car is covered in it and that was him in the car for half an hour inside a carrier!

On the other hand, he is certainly not scared of humans and let me pick him up no problem and came over for sniffs when i was in the flat. I think his human has loved him a lot, but just not known how to properly care for a bunny. he seemed genuinely sad to be having to give him up and asked if it was ok for him to keep in touch of course i said yes and passed on my email address.

He was neutered in march of this year and had no issues post-surgery. i asked about dental issues and was told he had none and the only other thing he had been to the vet was the time at the emergency vet and for a check up. His nails seem fine although i didn’t want to poke and prod him too much so i cant be totally sure on that but i think they have been clipped.

I will register him with my vet on Monday and get an appointment, hopefully on Tuesday or wednesday my vet is good that way you can usually get an appointment within a day or two and i am off work till Friday anyway. I will get him a full check up and ask advice on his weight etc.

I guess i am just looking for general advice on where to go from here. So far i have just set him up in Bramble’s old cage in the hall with some of that awful food, hay and water. I don’t want to distress him anymore today so i will probably leave him pretty much alone for the rest of the night and wont start switching his food for a few days. I am thinking of switching the rabbit food over slowly first before starting on veggies, i will give him a small amount of kale since that’s what he is used to but don’t want to introduce to many new things at once and i figure the top priority is getting rid of that awful rabbit food.

Sorry for the essay length post guys, i am just so sad for this poor guy but happy he is here with us where humans will look after him properly. We are his third set of humans in his 2 and a half years.

I took this picture from above so you can sort of see what i mean about his weight, although its not the best picture. The toy rabbit in the picture is the only toy he had.

[Maddie Rae]

I think you’re on a good track with switching his food if it’s unhealthy to better food. Kale/leafy greens, small amount of pellets, good quality hay all that. As for brushing if he didn’t like when you tried to brush him the first time you might just have to do it little by little until he’s used to it (although some buns never really like it) and also if he continues to dislike brushing you could try a different type of shedding brush.

As for the weight, he could be a different breed than your bun because some rabbit breeds’ average healthy weight can be 6 or 7 lbs, some giant breeds even 9-11 lbs! My bun is 5 pounds something ounces and our vet said that a fine weight considering his diet (leafy greens, pellets, unlimited hay) But since you’re taking him to the vet soon they should be able to tell you, and with you changing his diet that should help him health-wise at least.

I would also recommend maybe getting him a bigger cage, one where he could roam more and where you could fit in some chewing toys (wood, plastic baby toys, pet store rabbit toys) and perhaps a litter box too since they truly make having rabbits cleaner and easier!

But I’m so happy you got him now and know how to take care of him well!

[kirstyol]

Sorry I forget that so many people on here don’t use the metric system, 3kgs is a little over 6 and a half pounds, Bramble is a little over 4lbs and they are similar size wise although Ron is maybe a tiny bit bigger than Bramble.

That cage is temporary, its Bramble’s baby cage (we had dreams of him being free roam full time back then) he will move into Brambles massive dog crate/playpen once they are fully bonded and I will pick up another pen in the short term for Ron.

I definitely think switching his food first is the right way to go

[JackRabbit]

Honestly, I’d go ahead with the food transition. If you know the store brand he’s been eating and can look it up, check to see just how bad it is. If its absolutely horrible (corn, etc.), I’d just switch food. That’s normally not the way to go, but sometimes desperate measures are necessary. If he’s a big hay eater, even a fast transition shouldn’t be too upsetting.

On the shed, as long as he doesn’t mind pets and being handled, you could do the wet hands method of grooming and get most of that loose fur off — may even help in bonding with him.

[kirstyol]

Oh I have the bag of food and I know it to be junk, its not quite the muesli type but it does have bits in it which obviously it shouldn’t (no corn though). I was thinking of doing half and half tonight and maybe over a few days switch the rubbish stuff out, quicker than I would like to change foods but I think given how rubbish this stuff is the quicker he is off it the better. He also needs to get used to there being a limit to the amount of food he gets, he had huge tubs with his last human that were both full when I got there and he just topped them up as needed so he has basically had unlimited junk food, kale and spinach his whole life.

I have managed to get a whole lot of loose fur off his bum, it seems to be mainly concentrated there. There is hay and sawdust stuck in it and everything! There also looks to be dried in liquid – I don’t know if its pee or not but I assume it is. I gave him a small amount of hay so I could judge if he is eating it or not and he is picking at it but not eaten loads, mind you Bramble seems to do most of his hay eating when we are asleep so I am not worried about that in itself. I will fill the hay rack when I do the dinners later on but I just wanted to keep an eye on his intake to make sure he was eating some.

He has done lots of poops and some pee so all looking good in that department so far.

He appears very friendly so far, not bothered by me petting him and since I let him have a good sniff of the brush he has decided that its not the worst thing in the world. I am out shopping tomorrow so will try to pick up another playpen and some more toys, he only had that wee toy rabbit, nothing to chew on or anything. I have some willow stick chews he can have tonight and I will buy chewable toys tomorrow. I am off work till Friday so will spend as much time with him as possible and might even put both cages in the same room tomorrow, depending on how they both are, for tonight Ron is staying in the hall so he cant see Bramble.

Bramble clearly knows there is another bunny here, even if he hasn’t seen him, he can smell him on me. I got a wee pet from him earlier, he gave me a sniff and hopped off!

[kirstyol]

I got up this morning and remembered that my vets is open from 10-12 on a sunday for emergencies so I called, explained the situation and asked if there was any way he could be seen tomorrow and they gave me an appointment for late morning.

I picked up a carrier for him today so he doesn’t need to go back in that horrible falling apart one and a grooming set of his own, bramble wont go near the brush I used on ron last night so he can have the new brush and the other stuff can be for ron since bramble already has everything.

I picked up some treats for the two of them and some more toys, some I will give to ron and some I will keep by for when I start bonding them. I wasn’t able to get a playpen big enough. The ones pets at home had were tiny, maybe big enough for a dwarf rabbit but not for this big guy. He is actually a lot bigger than I realised, I didn’t notice it until I brought his cage through to the living room and I could see both him and Bramble at the same time. I have no idea what breed he is but people tell me Bramble is quite a big rabbit and Ron is actually a good bit bigger. I am going to order a pen tonight and until then Ron will just have to have some free roam time in the hall away from bramble and go in the small cage at night, it shouldn’t take too long for the pen to arrive, hopefully I will get it Tuesday.

Bramble did a bit of thumping when we brought Ron through here, they can see each other but are at opposite sides of the room, but he seems to have settled down now. Ron doesn’t seem like he could care less that there is another rabbit here and he hasn’t met Freddie the hamster yet. Bramble is a year old and we had Freddie first and Bramble still doesn’t know what to do with Freddie!

[kirstyol]

So we are back from the vet. I had it almost spot on about his weight, I thought he was about 3 – 3.5 kilos and it turns out he is around 3.3kgs which is around 7.5lbs according to google (he wouldn’t sit still on the scales so we didn’t get a 100% accurate weight) so he is a little overweight. The vet said that he probably isn’t too much overweight as she agrees with me that he is likely a palomino (although on the smaller size end of the breed apparently) and they are a chubby breed naturally, he is a little chubby around the chin but the vet said that this would be much worse if his weight was too bad so he only needs to lose a little. She suggested aiming for just under three kilos as a starting point and taking it from there.

She agrees with me that he probably cant reach to clean his bum properly so we have just to keep him well groomed as much as possible. OMG the amount of hair coming off him is ridiculous the vet table was covered in it, I am covered in it and the carrier looks like it has a carpet! I thought Bramble shed a lot but this is ten times worse. We just have to keep grooming him to try and get as much off as we can.

He is definitely male, definitely neutered and other than his weight seems to be in good health.

We spoke about switching and reducing his food which is a little difficult as we don’t know exactly how much he was actually eating since his previous human just let him eat what he wanted out of two massive dishes. The vet suggested working on switching him over to the nuggets Bramble gets first and not worrying as much about reducing the amount, she thinks he will naturally reduce his intake once he is switched to the nuggets as they will fill him up more than the rubbish food he was eating. We are just going to start with filling the food bowl half and half with nuggets and the rubbish and see how much he eats for today, then tomorrow we will use that to judge how much he is eating and start the switch over using that amount then reduce it from there while encouraging as much hay as possible.

She said to basically treat him like a baby bun with regard to veg, we know he eats kale and spinach so he can have small amounts of those no problem and we will just add a new veg every few days the way you would when a baby rabbit first starts on veggies. obviously we will do this in time with reducing the amount of nuggets he gets but the priority is switching the foods over and encouraging more hay. he does eat hay but definitely not the amount he should, I think he has seen hay more as litter than as food with his previous human.

Bramble is acting a little funny, he hasn’t eaten all his dinner from last night but I think he is just in a huff if I am honest because he has definitely eaten a good bit of it and seems to be pooping and peeing normally. I will let him out for his free roam time once I finish this post and put Ron in the hall so they cant get to each other.

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