Look what we found running through traffic...

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Kipcha

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Location
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
So in the middle of the city, there is a big cemetary right next to a busy road (One of the busiest in the city with three lanes of traffic on both sides) that a lot of people dump their rabbits off at. Not so surprisingly, the population has "mysteriously" gotten larger right after Easter, we're seeing more rabbits there then even. We have stopped by there occasionally to see if anybunny was possibly friendly enough that we could catch before, but we never were able to even get close to one before.

So we're driving home and see these rabbits and a baby appears right by the road. We decide to pull off and see if we could get it, since it seemed to be young enough to have been an easter baby, which might mean it was recently left there and easy to catch. My Dad and I went off to try and get it, but unfortuanatly it got under someones deck and we could to get it.

We came back and Mom was talking about a cute black rabbit that came over and actually nose bonked her hand, but he got chased off by a brown rabbit that came at him from down the street. They got entangled in the road and were running towards busy traffic so Mom tried herding them towards a safer place. By the time Dad and I got back the brown rabbit had run off and the black rabbit was now grazing on a lawn with a brown doe (We're assuming she was a doe, she looked very feminine and had a decent dewlap).

Originally we were going to try and catch the doe then, she looked awful with missing hair and an open wound, but she wouldn't let us near her. Made me wish we really had something else to try and trap her, but this was literally an impulse 'stop and try' moment.

Little black guy was still hanging around though and he led us on a bit of a merry chase, nose bonking our hands before spraying (We're wondering if that's why he was dumped because he sprayed a lot!) and bouncing off, seemed to be quite amused by it all. After about fifteen minutes he settled down to graze a bit. I had my one shot and quickly got him by the shoulders.

Needless to say, he wasn't so amused anymore.

He struggled until I managed to get a football hold on him and we got him in the car as quick as we could. He was undertstandably confused and stressed, but seemed to settle down surprisingly fast, to the point where he actually flopped on the seat between us and seemed to relax a bit.

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We had to do some cleaning when we got him home, I was petting him and my hand came away filthy with dirt and motor oil mixed up. He looks quite good now.

He didn't want to poop the first day we had him and we were really concerned because he was eating, drinking and acting perfectly normal, he chowed down on anything that we put in front of him and he was peeing, but there was no poop, until I witnessed him pooping and then eating it as soon as it came out! Not cecotropes, but actual poop. And it was quite a pile he ate. Has anyone seen anything like that? Is he feeling threatened and trying to hid his presence?

Anyways, we're getting his neuter scheduled and hopefully little Macleod (Named after the street we got him on) can get adopted out into his forever home!

Some more pics of him now, he's so beautiful and so sweet!

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I have, on occasion, seen my rabbits eat a normal poop, but not a whole pile. I wonder if he could be undernourished and if that would be contributing to it?
 
Aww I love his little personality. He should get scooped up pretty quickly. Thank you for taking the time to catch him. Best of luck Macleod!
 
I know that horses that are starved, may start eating their own poop. Maybe this has happened to him and so it's a learned behavior now. If he keeps doing it, you may have to use a wire bottom cage temporarily, to help him relearn not to do it.
 
Aww poor buns! Glad you got to him. I have never seen a stray domesticated rabbit where I love so it always stuns me when I hear of it.
Good for you for rescuing him!
 
I was wondering after I posted this if that was possible to, for him to be trying to gain nutrition by eating his own poops. Where he was there is almost no grass, it's almost all under snow and there are so many rabbits there that they must be grazing anything nutritious down fairly quickly. That would certainly explain why so many of them look so scroungy, it makes me feel awful that they're out there and possibly starving :( I doubt many starve to death though, it seems like the traffic and our fairly high coyote population probably take care of them before that. Hopefully we don't need to resort to a wire bottom, but if he doesn't stop we'll have to do something for sure...

He is super sweet and despite all that I put him through getting him and having him adjust, he never once has tried to bite or even gotten moody with me. I cannot believe someone would just dump him like that, and there is no doubt in my mind that he must have been a dump. There is a huge difference between him and out other rescue boy Dixon, who is a lot more wild. He just comes over and is always nose-bonking everything.
 
wow, poor bunnies! I'm so glad you were able to save at least one of them! I'd say there's a good chance the spraying is what got him dumped - FAR too many people get rid of rabbits by dumping or rehoming them once the hormones kick in because they're too lazy to do some freaking research and find out that all they have to do to make their bunny sweet again/get rid of pesky habits like spraying is spay/neuter :(

you mentioned he had motor oil on him... if you have any trouble getting the last of it off, you can mix up a bowl of warm water and dawn and dip a washcloth in it and "sponge bathe" the areas where the motor oil is - that's what my vet told me to do to get the cooking oil off of Nala after the terrifying "head stuck in a NIC grid" incident when she was a baby that I stupidly first tried to remedy with oil.
 
wow, poor bunnies! I'm so glad you were able to save at least one of them! I'd say there's a good chance the spraying is what got him dumped - FAR too many people get rid of rabbits by dumping or rehoming them once the hormones kick in because they're too lazy to do some freaking research and find out that all they have to do to make their bunny sweet again/get rid of pesky habits like spraying is spay/neuter :(

you mentioned he had motor oil on him... if you have any trouble getting the last of it off, you can mix up a bowl of warm water and dawn and dip a washcloth in it and "sponge bathe" the areas where the motor oil is - that's what my vet told me to do to get the cooking oil off of Nala after the terrifying "head stuck in a NIC grid" incident when she was a baby that I stupidly first tried to remedy with oil.

Agreed, we see it all the time here. Even looking on Kijiji there are so many rabbits being dumped between 6-7 months, so you know their hormones are starting to kick in and people don't want to deal with it.

The Dawn soap was what we did, it was the first thing that came to mind since that was what they use for the ducks in the oil slicks.Seemed to do the trick, although I don't think he was too impressed with me after his sponge bath was over. Thanks for posting it though, it's good for people to know what works in case someone else is in the situation and I forgot to mention it.
 
So cool. I came home form the vet one day and there was a little black bunny on my front lawn. I called her and she came right over and let me pick her up with no problem or struggle, so, it was back to the vet. I guess you know you're doing things right when they find you instead of having to look for them.
 
Great of you to stop and he looks like a lovely little fella....hope he finds a lovely home where they´ll care for him. Yes, the problems when hormones kick in are there but I hate it when people just dump them knowing that they probably have very little chance of survival...breaks my heart.
 
For anyone curious, here is the doe that we saw, we went back out and found her but still could not get her. This time she was hanging around another rabbit that seemed to have an eye infection and looked like he'd been through some pretty big scraps :( Still could not get her or him...

Macleod, on the other hand, is doing fantastic. He doesn't have his poop eating habits anymore and will be going in for his neuter very soon. He's a very sweet boy, I don't think we'll have trouble rehoming him.

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