Please help me :(

[Sam]

Please please don’t judge me or be harsh.

So I have a friend who’s mom took on 4 “outdoor” bunnies in hutches. They ended up having a rat prOblem and couldn’t keep the bunnies. They get rid of three and had one left and they were going to let it loose. I took it and the hutch and set it up right at our back door in our fenced in back yard. (I didn’t know at the time bunnies aren’t suppose to be outside, here it is very very common for people to keep them in hutches year round). Anywho a few times a week we’d let the bunny in and give it roam of our HUGE living room for exercise. He had the greatest personality and was actuallly for interested in our dog.

Anyways the past few days I’ve been really busy with midterms so I’ve been feeding the bunny in the morning but haven’t really been watching it’s behavior to see if it was acting strange. I fed him this morning and usually when I open the hutch he comes running to the top but today he didn’t. He was just sitting at the bottom hanging out. I pushed a piece of lettuce through the bottom and he hopped over and ate it so I figured all was well. I filled up his bowl and took my kids to a local Halloween festival.

We got home around 10pm and let our dogs out and noticed that “bandit” was laying on his side with his head cocked up towards his spine. He seemed more dirty than usual (just a strange observation) like he mad mud on his feet/chest. Now I don’t know much about rabbits but something was very clearly wrong. I could see him breathing still and his feet were twitching. I wrapped him up in a towel and placed him in a box. I grabbed my phone to look for a local vet and before I could pull up a number I looked down and the breathing had stopped (dead in about 10 minutes from discovering him).

I’ve sat hours and hours on google trying to figure out what wrong. I came across tang bunnies scare easily and possibly a stray cat/raccoon could have scared him to death? Or possibly he was sick and hiding it and just passed from something we were unaware from? Has this happened to anyone else? My kids are going to be devastated when the wake up tomorrow.

The bunnies she was supposedly around 18 months (no idea how true that was), we had him (again assuming gender) for about 6 weeks in our home. Prior to that I know nothing about his history.

Does anyone know how much a necropsy would be? Here’s my only concern. We do live in the woods and the bunny was kept outdoors. About 5 days ago after playtime I was picking the bunny up after exercise time to put back in his cage and kicked me pretty hard with back feet (he was always good about being picked up usually) I was shirtless and he left some prettt nasty scratches on my chest (some that bled). Now 5 days later he’s randomly dead, should I be worried about rabies?

[jerseygirl]

Hi Sam

Im very sorry for your loss. You are correct, keeping rabbits outdoors is common and provided habitats are really secure and other risks minimised, rabbits can live long, content lives this way. This is a house rabbit community and we do advocate bringing them indoors, but it isn’t practical for everyone. Im glad you did get to know the little guy a bit, bringing him in to interact with the family. : )
I really do not think he would have survived even 6 weeks had his previous owner released him like they planned.

Does anyone know how much a necropsy would be? Here’s my only concern. We do live in the woods and the bunny was kept outdoors. About 5 days ago after playtime I was picking the bunny up after exercise time to put back in his cage and kicked me pretty hard with back feet (he was always good about being picked up usually) I was shirtless and he left some prettt nasty scratches on my chest (some that bled). Now 5 days later he’s randomly dead, should I be worried about rabies?

I cannot answer that but some other members may have an idea of cost. It’s rabies you want to test for in him? Im not sure how they go about this exactly. Perhaps testing a tissue sample.
It would be extrememly rare to contract rabies via a rabbit. He would have to have been bitten by another animal carrying it to have contracted it. Then you would have to been bitten or had contact with his saliva. So I highly doubt you are at risk. For peace of mind, maybe chat with your GP about it too? There may be a simple test they do before giving prophylactic treatments.

He seemed more dirty than usual (just a strange observation) like he mad mud on his feet/chest.

When I read this, I thought maybe he had choked on something. Was his chest and paws wet? What around his nose, was it dirty here too?

There are a lot of things that can cause neurological type symptoms in rabbits and during dying, they do have seizures also. 

[Sam]

He seemed wet all over (it was raining previously so the bottom potion of his cage was slightly wet). His chest was wet. His feet were wet and muddy and his chest was wet and looked like it had mud on it. The hutch is set up and the bottom has no floor so when he’s on the bottom portion he stands directly on our back porch floor. Sorry hard to explain I’m so sad

I know I’m probably insane about worrying about rabies since I’ve never found any wounds on our bunny and the fact that he scratched me and didn’t bite me… but I suffer from severe anxiety so anything small freaks me out and makes me worrry big time.

[Bam]

I’m very sorry you lost your rabbit. It was so good of you to take him in, and as Jersey says, he probably wouldn’t have survived 6 weeks on his own if he’d been let loose.

As for the rabies, I think you should call a human doctor’s office and ask. There are vaccines that can be given after the fact. Local doctors would know about the risk of rabies in your area. It’s not insane to be prone to worrying, some of us just have that tendency, but I must still say the risk is very low. The incubation period is 2-3 weeks after exposure, and that means your rabbit would’ve had to get bit by a rabid animal while he was in your care. Then you would have to be bitten or get saliva from your bun into a wound in order to be affected. It doesn’t seem like a very real risk to me.

Many people that have lost pet bunnies come to the Rainbow Bridge section of these forums, and we get many stories about quick, unexpected deaths of rabbits. It’s not at all unheard of for rabbits to go like that, and the cocked up head you describe is sadly not very rare either, because rabbits very often seize in their dying moments. The muscles on the backside are stronger than the muscles front side of the body, so when all the muscles contract at the same time, the spine and head get bent backwards. That’s not at all a sign of rabies only, it’s seen in seizing regardless of cause.

Rabbits are extremely good at hiding illness, because in nature, appearing ill means you’ll be targeted by predators. That’s an instinct domestic rabbits have kept. It’s very impractical for us owners, because it greatly reduces our chances of getting our rabbits to a vet in good time. But if your bun had a weak heart or another internal problem, you’d not have noticed it, because that’s how rabbits are.

[LBJ10]

It’s virtually unheard of for a rabbit to be carrying rabies. Yes, it’s technically possible (e.g. they are mammals). But they would have to be bitten by a rabid animal and somehow survived the attack. Typically, the rabbit does not survive such an attack and therefore does not live long enough for them to become rabid. So rabies is EXTREMELY rare in rodents and lagomorphs.

I agree with Bam. Rabbits can die suddenly for unknown reasons. Honestly though, the description you gave sounds like it could have been a case of extreme fear and then shock. We have no way of knowing that though, unfortunately.

[Author]

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