Sorry LPT and JerseyGirl, I missed your replies until now!
LPT, Nelli turned 7 on March of this year. She had 10 days of Orabax for her ear infection as a precaution but the vet is pretty sure it’s just an outer ear infection. He swabbed her ears and the right one, the one that smells, had an overgrowth of bacteria- I can’t remember if they named the type. So I’m giving Nell eardrops as well. I started them before I was able to get to the vet, since the I had some left from BunBun and the chance of them harming her is pretty unlikely- the drops cleared up the smell right away but as soon as I stopped for 2 days, came right back. So now she is on them for 10 days- she gets a follow up at the vet next Monday.
Jersey, Nelli just finished a 28 day course of Panacur. I agree that the hind leg issue and cataracts are suspicious for EC. I have noticed some improvement of her legs so I’m hoping the cataracts don’t get worse! It seems weird that suddenly she has developed cataracts, at an extremely stressful time. Im gonna look for cataract patterns due to EC- thanks for that info ☺.
You’re right, I’m still upset about BunBun and I so badly wanted to “fix” any grief that Nelli was having, I was convinced that a new husbun was the answer. I’m glad I got Luke, he’s a wonderful little bunny who deserved a good home. but has I known that they wouldn’t be an extremely easy bond, I wouldn’t have taken on another rabbit. However, now that he’s here I love him, and would never send him back to the rescue. That would be terrible.
Thank you for sharing your experience with guilt over limiting the original rabbits space. I’m a big one for feeling guilty and blaming myself my everything. I did get an xpen and split the living room in half so be both bunnies would be close to me instead of one stuck out in the kitchen all night. Since then, the bunnies have been laying near each other on each side of the fence, sniffing and doing cute little nose touches through the mesh screening (I put that on the Xpen so they couldn’t nip each other. No sign of aggression from either, although after they sniff noses, Luke usually turns halfway away from Nell, as if remembering that she’s mean (conveniently forgetting that he gave her two bites!).
Also, my husband accidentally let Luke in with Nell last night while I was out. He said he could hear them running around but he showed me the fur that was scattered before he realised his mistake, and the fur was minimal compared to the time Nelli got those injuries from Luke- that time it looked like a mini Nelli had exploded in the living room ?.
So really, the only negative things that have happened is Nell chasing Luke the first day home and him growling and running from her, the tussle the first time Luke escaped his space, some nipping and bumping from Nelli in the Tupperware/bathtub bonding, and the chasing and minor fur flying last night. Not too bad when I really look at it. But I’ve decided to keep Luke enclosed when I’m,not home so my husband doesn’t need to open/close any gates, since Luke seems to be very good at Houdini-like moves ?.
. And no stress bonding either- the move to the new house in the next month or so will be stressful enough!
Oh yeah- the yawning thing, I saw somewhere online that yawning could be a sign of stress in bunnies. I think I did a search “yawning in rabbits”. I knew it can be a sign of stress in dogs, but they’re so different than rabbits! Also, thats interesting about your bunny flopping as a coping mechanism. That could be the reason for Luke’s flops but I took him in the car to the vet, and he was very stressed but never flopped. So maybe it’s a sign of contentment from being close to Nell! He did close his eyes and snuggle up to her in the bathtub too. I would have really enjoyed watching Lukey flop, except his front paw was dangerously near Nelli’s mouth, and she was eyeing it like a particularly delicious banana so I was on high alert the whole time.
Sorry for the novel, but I can never seem to write short posts!