First thing you need to do with a tunnel … make a second exit.

I’ve been a bit busy with work and enjoying the warm weather in the garden. Scamp on the other hand is still busy trashing the kitchen. He’s perfected the art of jumping from floor to worktop and demonstrated by eating the electric wire to the microwave (cut out the power but didn’t zap himself – how do rabbits do that?). We are presently experimenting with nets, so far this has resulted in a net with even bigger holes and a rabbit napping on the bread board. Maybe the tunnel will distract him.

I got a call in the beginning of May in 2007. My vets had given my number to a lady whose husband was working on a building site and uncovered some baby rabbits and they needed someone to take them. They babies were supposedly 3-4 weeks old, so I agreed expecting they’d be ready to pass on to a wildlife rescue for release.

When she arrived with the babies, I opened the box to find five almost hairless bundles with their eyes still closed, closer to a week old than three. It transpired that a digger had scooped up a load of sand and along with it the nest.  There was 3″ of sand in the bottom of the box to corroborate the story. The whole site was being cleared so they couldn’t be left and the foreman had suggested disposing of the babies (!). The ladies husband had refused and taken them to keep safe.

That evening involved a mad call around to find somewhere still open with replacement milk in stock. Luckily a vet across town stayed late to let us pick some up and so began the endless feeding routine.

Baby rabbits being hand reared need feeding 3-4 times per day as the replacement milk is not as nutritious as a mummy rabbit’s milk. It needs to be done very slowly and carefully, as if too much goes in the mouth at once they can inhale it leading to respiratory infection. In between feedings everything needs to be sterilized.

A few days after arrival, and quite a lot of feeds later, they opened their eyes. By this point their fur was coming in a little more too and they look more like miniature bunnies than very plump sausages. To give you an idea of size, at this point they weighed just 80-100g each.

By two weeks old they were starting to explore and feeding time turned into a crazy bunny wrangling game. They were prone to jump in random directions with absolutely no consideration for the distance or landings.

At two and a half weeks the heart break began. One by one within hours they went from happily bouncing and feeding to passed away. The vet could offer no assistance, it’s likely they had a intestinal virus/infection or just that their gut couldn’t cope.  Substitutes are just not as good as what mum can offer.

By week three there was only a single bun left, the biggest of them all. At this point I was expecting to loose him too… there were a good few weeks before I had any certainty that he would make it. Despite my worries he started eating solids and drinking his milk from a bowl, and would snuggle up for a cuddle under my chin afterwards.

And he grew (4 weeks old) …

And grew (8 weeks old)…

And grew (12 weeks old)….

Now Scamp is a wild rabbit and I would normally agree that wild animals belong in the wild and that was my original intention. However by the time we knew he’d make it, he was much to tame having had too much human company after the lose of his siblings. Right or wrong there was no way he could be released. He wasn’t meant to be permanent here either, but obviously we couldn’t rehome him until we knew he whether he was a him or a her, and then not until he was neutered and by then he’d been here a year and we were all kind of smitten. Three years on, will still are.

And that is Scamp’s story.

Both bunnies got a clean bill of health. The little spur Gypsy had on one tooth a couple of months ago hasn’t reoccurred. She’s got a little extra padding but that’s normal this time of year as I feed a little extra to keep her warm outside over winter.

Scamp has decided it’s spring and is moulting like crazy. Instead of the usual ‘go faster’ stripes he gets along his sides he’s going for a top down approach. He’s moulted out a big saddle over his back. It feels like velvet at the moment, so soft, where his undercoat has come through but not his guard hairs (the thick rougher ones). It also means he’s chocolate on top and instead of brown speckles like normal.

“We got Roderick, known as “Rodney” or “Rodders”, from a pet shop in the  mid 60s. He was brought to be a magicians rabbit as my mum was a magicians assistant, but he grew to big to fit in the top hat, cutting his career short.

“He had a hutch under the kitchen sink when we first had him and freerange of the downstairs – quarry tile floors with a rug. He was partial to a cup of tea and frequently found with his head stuffed in visitors teacups when they left them on the floor. One of his favourite places to rest was on the rug in front of the real coal fire, stretched out with his ears folded flat. He often surprised visitors when he popped his ears up and they realised he was a rabbit, not a cat!

“He also liked to sit on the window sill and wait for me to come home from school. He knew what time I got home and would jump up to wait, if I was late he’d get bored waiting and nibble the plants. He was also partial to the television cable, which he ate on several occasions whilst the telly was on – he obviously thought he wasn’t getting enough attention. He did it so often the TV repairman would comment: “It’s that rabbit again” when he visited to fix it. That was the only thing he really chewed though apart from nibbling books a little.

“He was an uncastrated male but we didn’t have any problems. He was house trained – we trained him by putting a newspaper in his preferred corner then moving it closer to the back door. Once he was trained, he used to ask to go out like a cat when he needed the loo. On one occasion a medium sized dog broke into the back garden, I opened the door to let him out for the loo not realising  and he growled and launched himself  at it, grabbed it by it’s throat and kicked it with his back legs. I had to pull him off the dog and which ran off with its tail between its legs.

“He ate all the household vegetables, bran, crushed oats, and a few commercial rabbit pellets as a treat. He had free access to grass outside. We collected him dandelions and other weeds too. He used to visit neighbouring gardens for additional supplies, but he always came home again. Sometimes at high speed with the neighbours hot on his heels.

“In later life he lived with my German Sheppard, Sheba. They were good friends and Sheba used to wash his ears. He had a low pen which he could jump over, but the dog respected that was his space and didn’t intrude. When Rodney died (he must have been around eight by then) Sheba howled all night.”

After ignoring the sticks, the vet kindly gave him & Gypsy as a Christmas gift, for a whole month, Scamp has decided he will chew it if, and only if, you hold if for him. If you don’t he’ll eat the skirting or his litter tray instead. Yumm, stick…

And a video of stick eating. It’s not particularly riveting, but just be thankful you weren’t the one holding it for the other 20 minutes or so not on camera!

Anyone else draw/painted/created any bunnies this week?

Three little dutch bunnies:

That just leaves the actual content to tidy up and the odds and ends that are still broken to fix.

This is a bit of a boring post so have a cute bunny tummy picture to go with it…

He's eating a rabbit pellet and not my finger!

Happy New Year, I hope it’s a good un!