Hare Force?

From IcanHazCheezburger

Rabbit Report

Bun, our rabbit, whom we raised from a tiny, severely injured ball of bunny fur, has been growing like a weed. Since Bun seems to like chewing wires in half with his (her? still aren't sure) side-cutter like teeth, Bun doesn't get to roam the house, and is watched carefully when out of the Bunny Hilton.

"You wouldn't mind if I go chew off the telephone cords, would you?"

Bun will sleep on my lap, but never for very long. When you are on the top of the dinner menu of just about every carnivore in North America, sleeping soundly is probably not a good idea survival-wise!

"The cell phone charger doesn't work? Would I do a thing like that?

Bun also loves to chew on stuff, and shredding newspaper is a particular delight. Bun's diet is primarily alfalfa, mixed rabbit pellet food with assorted seeds and grains, and fresh kale as a special treat every day. Rolled oats are also a favorite treat.

I had no idea a rabbit could have so much personality, though.................

Rabbit Report - Bun's First Video

Bun's first day at Castle Completely

For those of you following the saga of Bun, our long eared furry family member, here's the latest. As you remember, we found him, or actually, he came to us, as a very small baby bunny with a badly injured left eye. He was not in very good shape, and even after "doctoring" him up a bit, I really didn't expect he'd make it through the night. To our surprise, he did survive, and has now fully healed up and appears not the worse for the injury.

Bun, roughly five weeks later. Look at the size of those ears and feet! Gonna be a BIG bunny....

When we first got him, he was so small he fit in the palm of my hand, but now he's somewhere between two and a half and three pounds! It's hard to get a rabbit to stand still on a scale to weight him. He's (or she, we still don't know for sure) is eating like a horse, inhaling alfalfa, fresh veggies and rabbit mix at an amazing rate. Rolled oats are a special delicacy.

I've been letting Bun run around in our bathroom to get exercise and to become more familiar with being loose in the house. He's litter box trained (mostly!) so we may soon be able to let him roam the house a bit, under close supervision, of course.




Last night, while getting some exercise in the bathroom, Bun decided that the piece of plastic that had held replacement batteries for my camera would make a good toy. I've never seen a rabbit play with a toy like this before, and it was fun to watch how much fun he was having.

No doubt about it, rabbits are way more entertaining than television.....

KeeWee & Wabbit

If you haven't totally burned out on cute bunnies, go check out KeeWee's new wild bunny friend, "Wabbit" There's several pictures and the whole story of how a wild bunny "Adopted" KeeWee.

Cute Bunny Overload

It's amazing the extent to which people are following the progress of the bunny and my bunny wrangling efforts. His injured eye is almost completely healed and it looks pretty normal. He's eating almost constantly, grass, carrots, alfalfa, peas, lettuce, kale, and a bunch of other leafy vegetables that I don't even know what they are. He also likes leaves from the plum tree. He's almost doubled in size in three weeks. The tiny bunny that fit in the palm of my hand now fills both hands, and hangs over each end if he stretches out. His ears are also growing faster than the rest of his body.

Day before yesterday the temperature was approaching 90 degrees, even hotter in the house, and the bunny was not at all comfortable. In fact, I was getting worried about heat stroke so I took him downstairs where it was a lot cooler and he perked up a bit rather quickly. Since bunnies don't have wet noses, their only cooling is through their ears.

(All picture can be clicked for a larger view)

"Hot weather sucks...."

"Maybe if I stretch out it will be cooler"

"Maybe this position will be cooler?"

"OK, I've had it, turn down the $@&&**@!! temperature! Enough is enough!"

We've moved the bunny house to a cooler part of the house, and the temperature is cooler today, so he's a lot happier!

Yet Another Bunny Post

Bunny's injured eye looks almost healed up.

I'm sure some of you are sick of excessively cute bunny pictures, but you'd be surprised how many folks are following the bunny's recovery.

He's been eating like he's starving, and he's growing like crazy. He's clearly bigger and longer than he was a week ago. At first I figured he was a cottontail, but the way his ears are growing (scroll down a few posts and look at him a week ago) I think he's got some domestic rabbit somewhere in his background.

The above picture shows his injured eye, and it's amazing just how well it seems to have healed up. It looks like it still waters a bit, looking at the fur around and below his eye. There is also a small notch missing out of his upper eyelid, but that seems to have healed up pretty well, too.

When wild critters are injured and you try to help them to survive, the results are usually not good. So far we seem to have beaten the odds. We are still keeping our fingers crossed, however....

Baby Bunny Update Video

Considering the condition the little rabbit was in when we first saw him, his current condition borders on miraculous! I'm not sure how much vision he has in his left eye, but when you consider that I couldn't even find his eyeball in all the swollen and damaged tissue, any at all is amazing. His eyeball seems to be intact, and his eyelids now are normally open about 90 to 95%.

KeeWee filmed this short video this morning as a progress report.

Nothing's cuter than a baby bunny!

We are now on the lookout for a baby playpen to keep him in as the plastic tub from Wallyworld leaves a bit to be desired.......

Bunny Wrangler?

As if I didn't already have enough stuff to do, one more item has been added to my workload, but I'm not really complaining. Yesterday afternoon KeeWee hollered that I should come out by the garden and have a look at a baby bunny. I went out, and there was a little tiny cottontail rabbit, and he didn't look too well. It took a bit but I was finally able to pick him up, and I could see that the left side of his head was all swollen and you couldn't see his left eye at all. It was all covered with matted hair and dried matter of some sort. he was very tiny, barely filling the palm of my hand.

Using Q-Tips and hydrogen peroxide I managed to loosen up some of the matted fur and get a look. There was a thick white ooze coming from the poor little fella's eye socket. I kept swabbing and I was able to apply slight pressure to the area and work more of the white stuff out. Finally, after some time, I was able to actually get his eye lids separated and flush it out so I could see what the condition was of his eye. Sadly, the eye itself was pretty much gone. Not too much I could do except to clean out all the goo and disinfect it as much as I could. Once I had it cleaned out I applied some Neosporin to try and get some antibiotics in there to knock out any infection. Through all of this the little bunny was amazingly tough, putting up with what at times must have been incredibly painful.

We put him in a large plastic tub with some grass and lettuce and let him do a little post-op recovery. An hour or so later he looked a bit better, but was obviously totally exhausted. I gave him a little water from an eye dropper to keep him from getting dehydrated. He even nibbled a bit at some of the grass. Our biggest concern was that a lot of wild animals when injured will just shut down and die. The first hurdle to his recovery would be if he could survive the night. We'd have a better idea in the morning.

This morning he looked much better, and he'd eaten a couple of lettuce leaves. He's getting very comfortable around me, and he likes to stretch out and sleep in my hand. He's still a long ways from being out of the woods, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

UPDATE: The bunny made it through another night and day, and his appetite and energy level are much improved. It also looks like he may actually still have his left eye after all. It may have just been hidden behind swollen tissue around the eyeball. I can't tell if he has any eyesight in the eye yet as it's mostly still hidden, but his eyelids are starting to work and I can see a little of the eyeball. As the rest of the swelling goes away I'll have a better idea. I don't want to get too optimistic as there's still a long way to go before he's out of the woods, but it does look promising. He seems to recognize me now and when I reach into his box he wants to crawl up my arm so I'll hold him in my hand so he can go to sleep. So far, better than expected......