A hectic day!

[gentle giants]

Well, as most of you know, I am trying to get everything together to officially start my rabbit rescue. So today I got this call from our local animal shelter, which doesn't do rabbits, BTW. Anyway, they had a bad situation come up over the weekend, someone called in a case of serious neglect of a bunch of rabbits. The shelter went and took the rabbits, and got them vet checked also thankfully.
The rabbits had such severe cases of ear mites that one of them actually had to be sedated and have her ears flushed. Apparently, there was a big cage that had several dead rabbits in it, along with a couple of live ones. I wound up with three does and buck, who, other than the ear mites, were actually in much better condition than I was expecting considering the situation. They are all very obese, but the buck is fairly friendly, the does a little more shy.
The shelter people told me that one of the does had a litter after they took her from the owners, but as she was very stressed and had no nestbox, she cannibalized them all.
It gets better, though. One of the ladies at the shelter said, " I think there is something you should know. In all the confusion, the rabbits all got mixed together, so one or more could be pregnant." When I kind of groaned, she was like, "I'm sorry, but we didn't know who was what, and it was on a Sunday," and all this.
So now I have these four all waiting for neuter and spay, plus the four that were already waiting here. I am going to get together some collection cans and put them around this weekend, I think. Mabye that will help a little.

 

[polly]

Wow you really have had a hectic day. Have you got everything set up then for your new arrivals. and poor doe no wonder she cannibalised that has been really stressful for them.

Poor rabbits though imagine leaving dead rabbits thats disgusting. Are they all the same breed or different?

Hope you get some money to help

 

[naturestee]

Ack! Thank goodness the shelter knows about you! Those poor bunnies.

Let me check with the other mods. Maybe we can do a fundraiser for you or something.

 

[gentle giants]

Well, they are basically all the same, I believe they are mixed breeds. I will have to get pics up, but I don't want to mess with them a lot right now. The buck is black, and all three does are sandy colored, reminds me of a sandy flemish. I think there might be some Flemish in there somewhere, they have pretty heavy bone structure, and it would explain the coloring. Very tense atmosphere in my barn last night, one of the does kept thumping, which of course makes all of the other rabbits get nervous too.
They told me at the shelter that the owner/s had no problem signing the rabbits over to them, as a matter of fact the owner was like, "You can just put them to sleep if you want." Thankfully, the director of the shelter wasn't willing to do that.
They are shy right now, of course, but actually not as frightened and wild as I expected them to be. The buck is really friendly, comes right to me and wants to sniff my hands. He will make someone a great pet.

 

[gentle giants]

Ok, here are the pics of the new rabbits. The shelter people told me that they are all four together in a big dog crate for about 15 minutes while they were being driven from the owner's house to the shelter, hopefully the buck was too nervous and distracted to cover them all. As you can see, the buck (black one) was so friendly I was having trouble taking a pic of him! LOL He kept following me. BTW, Naturstee, I sen t you a pm a few days ago, just wanted to check if you go it.

 

[naturestee]

Aw, cuties!

And shoot! Let me get back to you on that pm!

 

[gentle giants]

No problem, Naturstee. :biggrin2:

 

[missyscove]

They are cute! The girls look kind of like my Timmy.

 

[ThatsMySimi]

So cute, I agree, they kinda look like theres some giant in there somewhere...



Bravo for you for saving them all! I wish I could do something like that!

 

[Luvmyzoocrew]

they are cute :biggrin2: are you getting ready for the arrival of babies if that is the case :shock::biggrin2:

 

[gentle giants]

Yeah, I'm crossing my fingers we don't have any litters, but I am going to do my best to be ready just in case. I am trying to figure out what to do for nestboxes though, I only have three that are big enough, two are going to have to use a Flemish box, the other one gets an oversized Mini Rex box. I never kept that many boxes around, though, because even as a breeder I only ever had a couple of litters a year, so I didn't need but a couple of boxes.


Oh, BTW, I have named two of them, the buck is Gabriel, Gabe for short, and the darkest doe is Sophie. I am thinking Marie for one of the other does.

 

[TreasuredFriend]

Be prepared for babies. My husband and I devote more than 4-5 hours each day to our rescued clan. Who says they need nestboxes?!?Just a quiet undisturbed place with a surround towel and some newspaper, shredded bits of paper or cloth to make a nest. I'll try and get you a digital picture.

From our experience with the Two UNSPAYED females people had **DUMPED** on the streets, thebabies did fine.They keep us really busy and we are still searching for forever permanent homes for more than a dozen. HTH,

 

[Haley]

Wow, how overwhelming! I really hope you'll get lucky and none are pregnant.

Poor babies. Bless you for taking them.

 

[TreasuredFriend]

These pictures are to help those rescue grammie's who wonder what to do about a nestbox?

From our experiences, theabandoned three we rescued brought us 16 babies.

In the second photo, Marietta began pulling fur from her chest Saturday March 25 in the afternoon (while my hubby and I vacuumed the foster area in the basement). I said, 'something's up. ... Let's leave her alone so she can deliver undisturbed.'

I gathered small thin cloth pieces - and cut newspaper into strips - so Marietta would have more to decorate her maternity ward. In addition to the chunks of fur she was pulling out in front of us!

We stopped the cleaning, and came upstairs for supper. Approximately 7 pm when we came back to check on her,she had delivered. Mari's nesting area was a cardboard boxbig enough for her bodyframe, and it had a 2-3 inch lip on the sides. To help the infants from wandering.

Hope this helps as you prepare for the rescue activities. I don't think I gave Cuddles a cardboard box, just the surround towel with the NOEL kitchen towel. ... Cuddles was gathering hay and pulling it into her hidey box. Very onery. I Moved her to our upstairs bedroom so she could deliver quietly. And she did.

http://www.linedgroundsquirrels.com/CardboardAndTowels.html

 

[Pipp]

I'm sorry, I'm really slammed, no time to do much searching, but were you looking to get the girls emergency spays?

Can it be done? Were you looking at fundraising options?



sas

 

[gentle giants]

Well, I could definatly do with some funds, LOL, but I don't know about the emergency spays. Even as bad as it would be for me to have babies right now, that would really kill me if they did turn out to be pregnant, you know? I would have to really pray hard about that one.
I have made some bunny toys to sell, if anyone would like pics/info on what I have, or to request something made, pm me and I will get back to you. I am still debating over whether to Ebay them, it's just so hard to get anything to sell for more than fifty cents on there.

Treasured Friend, would a cardbaord box hold up? I don't think that making a towel/paper nest would be practical in my situation. One of the does is in a giant dog crate right now, babies would fall through the sides.

 

[naturestee]

GG, you can do a quick fix on the dog crate by attaching wire cloth to it with zip ties. You can get that at hardware stores and it's cheap and easy. That should keep any babies from getting out.

I would think a cardboard box would be fine. Do you not have nest boxes available?

 

[TreasuredFriend]

GG, The cardboard box we fashioned for Marietta's litter held up fine. The sides were much taller than 2-3 inches, which I originally wrote. You can see the box behind Mari's blue litter pan, in photo #5. Getting heavy duty cardboard panels and zip tying them to the sides of the dog crate will buy you some time, before youngens begin to scamper, climb or jump. Naturestee's suggestion of the hardware cloth is exactly what my hubby did for Marietta. Viewable in the link http://www.linedgroundsquirrels.com/MariPhotoPage.html

If you get overwhelmed with needing extra housing units, a local shelter may have extras - and we have extra collapsable dog kennel crates.

Please Consider spays if you are ethically alright with this decision. We shoulda considered this for Marietta when she came in off the streets.

She probably just delivered so we didn't think she'd be immediately pregnant again.(sigh). If the spay was done at week 1 or 2 inMari's gestation termour conscience would be soothed or amenable. It's difficult to detect a pregnant female whenin uterobabes are so tiny. We did have Mari xrayed for a pregnancy when she first arrived. After 3 weeks gestation when the babies grow the fastest, our vet advised the spay becomes morerisky due to blood vessels and size of growing babes, and we didn't want torisk losing Mari. We wanted to at leastgive her a 2ndsurvival chance -- after the life she had ditched on the streets.

Check out the pics of the rescued Dutch rabbit who was attacked by the dog at: www.therabbithaven.org -- She's really lucky too!

FYI. Our rescue expenses are thousands of dollars each year. My thoughts are with you and maybe somehow we can be of help from our location.-?- Rescue and rehoming angels make an Incredible Difference!!

 

[gentle giants]

I didn't know the risk was greater late in pregnancy. It may be too late already, they would be due the 24th of this month. I actually thought of a solution to the dog crate after I posted that. Gabe, the buck that came in with the foursome, is in a good sized regular rabit cage, they can make a trade in housing.

Treasured Friend, if there is any way you could help, I would really appreciate it. I'm not even an "official" rescue yet, at the moment my guys are living in my barn and with the addition of the last four, I am now pretty crowded. My goal was/is to have them in a temp controlled building by the end of this year, but I don't know if it's going to happen or not. The estimated cost for everything I would have to do to pass inspection would be about $3,000. I also need top get rid of my hard to clean wood cages and get some more sanitary wire ones to replace them.

I'm still waiting for Petfinder to get back to me, I am going to call them tomorow. They should have gotten my papers by the middle of last week.

 

[TreasuredFriend]

GG,

the little girl in the top photo looks !Young! Her body hasn't caught up to the size of her ears yet. That's the way ours were. Ears out-paced their bodies until they got older.

TF advice: If a reputable rabbit savvy vet can schedule the girls for spays, do it NOW! As soon as possible.Even if you decide to take one or two of the girls in, not all three. Three girls times 7 to 9 healthy babiesmay introduce 24innocentbabes. We have some extra wire housing units. With our busy schedule we'd have to come up with a plan WRT getting them to you.

Petfinder requested a recommendation letter from our veterinarian. We are not a 501(c). We established the rescue as a Labor of Love, not a LLC business with an Employer Identification Number. Some rescue organizations choose this route, and rely on the goodwill and contributions of those who support their efforts.Any widely advertised rescue is subject to animals being dumped on their property. I hope you'll hear from Petfinder shortly because they are a great internet avenue. Will keep in touch as to helping from across the miles,