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I got my girlfriend a bunny for our anniversary... introducing Pickle! Sitting on the sofa  Having a poo  Chillin in da sun Pickle is pretty cool, she likes being held and eating anything and everything. She hasn't quite got the hang of using the litter tray yet, which is a shame because the rug can't take much more punishment  I don't suppose any can tell me what is wrong with her ear from those pictures... one of Pickles ears will stand upright almost constantly and looks as though it is broken because it doesn't rest naturally like the other.
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Jul 23, 2007 19:53
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Deceptor101 posted:Oh and she had a bit of a run in with a cat today while in the yard =(. The cat must have hopped our fence and I just saw her bolting towards me with the cat close behind. Needless to say, I scared the hell out of that cat, but she broke a nail getting away and it was bleeding a bit. Going to the vet tomorrow to make sure everything is ok. She was a bit shocked but she seems to be getting back to normal. Two things to help prevent this: 1) Always check the yard before putting bun down for play and 2) if your yard is too large to really keep a good eye while she's out, block some of it off and let her just explore a safe area. You could whip something up pretty inexpensively that is also collapsible so you can put it off to the side when not in use if you like.  Plus if you do this, it's easier to catch her again.  Another thing you can try when you need to catch her is to have her favorite treat ready and bribe her to come to you. :P
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Jul 23, 2007 20:28
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Hanpan posted:I got my girlfriend a bunny for our anniversary... introducing Pickle! That is SUCH a gorgeous bunbun!  drat that makes me want one again!As to the ear, she very well may have broken cartilage that is causing the ear issues. You need to find a vet near you that can properly deal with buns anyway, so call around and, when you find one, take her in for a wellness check (to make sure she doesn't have a heart murmur or other oddities) and to check that ear. You may have to pay a little closer attention to it and clean it out from time to time depending on how it lays. Otherwise, some buns just have floppy ears, some are straight and some have one of each. If you got her from a *boo hiss* pet store, some rotten kid or idiot adult might have grabbed her ear and broken the cartilage, but a vet check will tell you if it's anything to be concerned about.
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Jul 23, 2007 20:33
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Moraine Sedai posted:Two things to help prevent this: 1) Always check the yard before putting bun down for play and 2) if your yard is too large to really keep a good eye while she's out, block some of it off and let her just explore a safe area. You could whip something up pretty inexpensively that is also collapsible so you can put it off to the side when not in use if you like. You can build a circle pen out of the wire cubes and put that out in the yard. I have about a 15 ft circle I let mine run around in. Or you can use stakes and chicken wire. The wire cube pen you can fold up easily though.
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Jul 23, 2007 22:53
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Hanpan posted:
She is beautiful!! I wouldn't worry too much about the ear. Some bunnies are just "unicorn" bunnies. I think it's adorable. If she's really young the ear might fix itself, that's how a friend of mines was. I guess the cartilage strengthened itself as she grew. She shouldn't be in any pain though. Go see a vet if you're very worried about that. As for the litter training, she looks young. Young bunnies have a harder time being litter trained. Is she spayed? If not, as soon as she's old enough (4 months or so) make sure you do it. If female bunnies aren't able to reproduce constantly they most likely will develop cervical cancer. Also, this will help with the litter training 10 fold. Good luck! Bunnies are such great pets.
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Jul 23, 2007 22:58
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Moraine Sedai posted:Two things to help prevent this: 1) Always check the yard before putting bun down for play and 2) if your yard is too large to really keep a good eye while she's out, block some of it off and let her just explore a safe area. You could whip something up pretty inexpensively that is also collapsible so you can put it off to the side when not in use if you like. Well, I have all routes of escape blocked off in the yard with patches of chicken wire, and I really had checked out the yard, but cats can climb 6 ft fences . I was thinking about a pen, but she seems to really enjoy the different levels and hiding places that the whole yard gives her. I've taken her out about 40 times and this is the first cat, so we'll see. Or I can just kill the cat, I mean, umm.... pet it.... yeah :-p. I've actually got a small pen, but it's only 6 feet in diameter and she really loves sprinting.
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Jul 24, 2007 01:14
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Deceptor101 posted:Well, I have all routes of escape blocked off in the yard with patches of chicken wire, and I really had checked out the yard, but cats can climb 6 ft fences Oh! I didn't mean to imply you don't check your yard. I just know sometimes we all get a little lazy or in a hurry and don't always double check things. As to ridding yourself of the darling feline who only wanted to be fwiends wif your bunbun (yeah right) instead of "petting" him, you can look into some deterrents. Someone mentioned mothballs in a thread a while back to keep strays away from their house. Since I'm assuming your yard is fenced in, perhaps if you drop some mothballs around the outside of your fence (where bun can't get to them, but the smell should deter the cat) and see if that does the trick. That or put a lawn chair out in the middle of the yard and have a squirt gun or even a garden hose ready and if the little sneak pops a head over the fence, hose it down. :P
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Jul 24, 2007 01:49
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Hanpan posted:I don't suppose any can tell me what is wrong with her ear from those pictures... one of Pickles ears will stand upright almost constantly and looks as though it is broken because it doesn't rest naturally like the other. Murphy had ears like that as a baby, but after a couple weeks it remained flopped over like the other. I think it had more to do with his ears being relatively short as a baby, so when he perked them to listen to surrounding noises, one would stand up like Pickels'. First day home  Week or two later 
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Jul 24, 2007 03:17
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Moraine Sedai posted:Oh! I didn't mean to imply you don't check your yard. I just know sometimes we all get a little lazy or in a hurry and don't always double check things. Those are some pretty good ideas, I generally keep a closer eye on her, but it's a pretty sizeable yeard, and the more familiar she's gotten with it, the more hiding places she knows about and the faster she moves through it. Oh and her run in with the cat cost me a sizable amount of dough. It was also her first trip to the vet so I had other stuff done but General Health Checkup+Fecal Centrifuge exam(supposedly once a year)+Bandage+antibacterial medicine= Me feeling like I dropped the soap in prison (~140$). I'll have to take her in a few more times to get the bandage redone until the nail grows back too. *sigh* Also I remember somebody expressing a wish that they were handy enough to make a cube cage for their bun, so while I was making mine the other day, I took pictures of each step and hopefully it'll help those that aren't inheirently as handy. Check it out: http://playingwithmadness.com/blog/?p=49 Deceptor101 fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 24, 2007 |
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Jul 24, 2007 06:22
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My website is nearly complete. Go check it out! https://www.therabbitresource.com
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Jul 24, 2007 15:44
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Deceptor101 posted:Oh and her run in with the cat cost me a sizable amount of dough. It was also her first trip to the vet so I had other stuff done but General Health Checkup+Fecal Centrifuge exam(supposedly once a year)+Bandage+antibacterial medicine= Me feeling like I dropped the soap in prison (~140$). I'll have to take her in a few more times to get the bandage redone until the nail grows back too. *sigh* That's actually not too bad a price for all that work. But, yeah, if you're not expecting it, it hurts. My mom's Mr. Bunn had a unicorn ear for about a year until his ears got too heavy to stand up. In his prime, his ears were so long they would drag on the ground.
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Jul 24, 2007 17:04
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girlscoutdropout posted:My website is nearly complete. Go check it out! very very nice, simple, to the point, bravo! mine is just simple blogframework I HAVE BEEN UPSTAGED~! Seriously though, I read some things that I really needed to know, such as water bowl vs bottle, never read that anywhere else before. Out of curiosity, whats the specific reason to not use the drop treats? I used them when I had rats and naturally thought "why not?" for the bun.
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Jul 24, 2007 17:43
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Deceptor101 posted:very very nice, simple, to the point, bravo! mine is just simple blogframework Honestly, I don't know why you're not suppose to feed the yogurt treats. I've just been told not to. It can't be good for them because it's all artificial flavors and refined sugars. Definitely not something they would find in a natural habitat. I'm going to look further into that and try to find the real reason. I'm glad you like it!
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Jul 24, 2007 18:32
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girlscoutdropout posted:Honestly, I don't know why you're not suppose to feed the yogurt treats. I've just been told not to. It can't be good for them because it's all artificial flavors and refined sugars. Definitely not something they would find in a natural habitat. I'm going to look further into that and try to find the real reason. I'm glad you like it! This is sad because my bun adores them and I've been spoiling her a bit with them. I'll have to find new treats to bribe her with.
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Jul 24, 2007 18:55
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angelicism posted:This is sad because my bun adores them and I've been spoiling her a bit with them. It's the sugar content, as my vet has told me. Try cut up pieces of fresh fruit like strawberries, bananas, or pineapples as treats! If your bun is still pretty young, the breeder that we got our first Holland Lop from would give a little bit of a hard and crunchy heel of bread for them to gnaw on.
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Jul 24, 2007 20:17
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Deceptor101 posted:
HRS posted:There is research to suggest these items may contribute to fatal cases of enterotoxemia, a toxic overgrowth of "bad" bacteria in the intestinal tract. girlscoutdropout, a couple of notes on your site: *You have a photo of the cavy pellets under KayTee Timothy Complete. Try to replace this with a photo of the rabbit pellets. Rabbits should not eat cavy pellets and vice versa, and you may not be intending to imply that they should. *Purina rabbit chow is actually not a good recommendation for young adult rabbits. It contains alfalfa as a source of roughage rather than timothy. It's only recommended by HRS as a feed for adult rabbits who need the increased calories. Ingredient information here. *"Many times, if a female rabbit isn't spayed, and isn't able to have babies she will get cervical cancer." - this seems to imply that breeding a female will prevent cervical cancer. It won't. Breeding or not, an unspayed female is likely to get cancer, and breeding certainly isn't the solution. You may want to rephrase this if this is not your intended message. *"Rabbit's teeth continuously grow, they always need stuff to chew on!" - You may want to clarify this. Many rabbits won't use commercially available chew toys, and in fact these toys don't address the real problem, which are spurs and malocclusion on the rear molars. The best way to keep a rabbit's teeth worn down is to feed long strand hay as the primary component of the diet. The primary use of chew toys is to alleviate boredom, which you addressed elsewhere. All in all, very nice work.
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Jul 24, 2007 20:35
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Do rabbits really need water bowls vs water bottles? because I know that if I put a bowl in there my rabbit with flip it over no matter what. and the website needs work design/code wise, it was like a blast from the past but fun! SpaceMonkey fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Jul 24, 2007 |
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Jul 24, 2007 21:23
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alucinor posted:Rabbits are obligate herbivores (unlike rats) and are naturally lactose intolerant: ingestion of lactose by someone who can't digest it can have bad effects on the natural flora of the gut: Thank you, I'll fix those things.
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Jul 24, 2007 22:42
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SpaceMonkey posted:Do rabbits really need water bowls vs water bottles? It's not a life or death matter if they have a water bowl, my bunnies do like to dip their paws in it and clean their face. My bunny tipped every water bowl I had and I eventually bought a large ceramic dog crock. It's about 7-8" round so it's too big for her to turn over. There are some large rabbits that will tip over everything, and for those, you will have you use a water bottle. Maybe if your bunny has access to a place with tile or linoleum you could put the water bowl there so they have access during playtime. Then, if they spill, it will be easy to clean. Just a suggestion. Of course with alot of things, if you ask 100 different pet owners one thing, you'll get 100 different answers. These are just things I have learned, mostly from the lady I adopted my buns from who has been doing rescue for years and years. What's it not doing? Everything's working on my browser. girlscoutdropout fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jul 24, 2007 |
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Jul 24, 2007 22:43
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girlscoutdropout posted:It's not a life or death matter if they have a water bowl, my bunnies do like to dip their paws in it and clean their face. My bunny tipped every water bowl I had and I eventually bought a large ceramic dog crock. It's about 7-8" round so it's too big for her to turn over. There are some large rabbits that will tip over everything, and for those, you will have you use a water bottle. Maybe if your bunny has access to a place with tile or linoleum you could put the water bowl there so they have access during playtime. Then, if they spill, it will be easy to clean. Just a suggestion. no the website works fine it can just be done with allot less code/work. And I'll have to keep an eye out for large bowls
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Jul 25, 2007 02:58
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SpaceMonkey posted:no the website works fine it can just be done with allot less code/work. Ahh yeah, it's pretty heavy right now. I'm still pretty new to all of it, I'll work on it. Thanks.
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Jul 25, 2007 03:19
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Deceptor101 posted:Those are some pretty good ideas, I generally keep a closer eye on her, but it's a pretty sizeable yeard, and the more familiar she's gotten with it, the more hiding places she knows about and the faster she moves through it. Oh and her run in with the cat cost me a sizable amount of dough. It was also her first trip to the vet so I had other stuff done but General Health Checkup+Fecal Centrifuge exam(supposedly once a year)+Bandage+antibacterial medicine= Me feeling like I dropped the soap in prison (~140$). I'll have to take her in a few more times to get the bandage redone until the nail grows back too. *sigh* You mentioned using dowels to support the second and third story of the cage. How are the dowels going to be placed?
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Jul 25, 2007 05:09
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SpaceMonkey posted:Do rabbits really need water bowls vs water bottles? Murphy never learned to use a water bottle, and will not drink from one at all. I have a bowl that clamps onto the side of the cage so he can't tip it over or dip his ears in it on accident. It also stays clean since it is off the floor of the cage. As for the website, The picture of the gray rabbit blocks part of the text on some pages for me. Also, alfalfa hay is ok for young rabbits to eat. My vets have actually scolded me for not providing more alfalfa to Debbie when she was a "kid". Windy fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Jul 25, 2007 |
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Jul 25, 2007 05:26
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I got my rabbit from a pet store so he knew what a watter bottle was, not a litter box though.
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Jul 25, 2007 05:37
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vagina rodeo posted:You mentioned using dowels to support the second and third story of the cage. How are the dowels going to be placed? Check it out, I just put my dowels in today and updated the guide on my site: http://playingwithmadness.com/blog/?p=49 The carpet will go in tomorrow, as will the bun (hopefully!) I'll update it with pictures then too. My email is in the post if you have any more questions. =) By the way Girlscoutdropout, feel free to link to my page for your cube cage thing until you get your own pictures up. Deceptor101 fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Jul 25, 2007 |
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Jul 25, 2007 07:14
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Whats a good place to buy those Wire storage cubes from in Canada?
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Jul 25, 2007 07:49
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SpaceMonkey posted:Whats a good place to buy those Wire storage cubes from in Canada? I don't know what stores are both in the US in Canada, but http://www.guineapigcages.com/cubes.htm names lots of different stores that carry them, including some online locations, and they have some specific Canada locations mentioned in their forums.
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Jul 25, 2007 14:53
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Windy posted:Murphy never learned to use a water bottle, and will not drink from one at all. I have a bowl that clamps onto the side of the cage so he can't tip it over or dip his ears in it on accident. It also stays clean since it is off the floor of the cage. Hmm I'll have to fix try to fix that. Thanks for all the feedback! It's a work in progress. About the alfalfa hay, really? Wow, all I've heard is negative things up and down about it.
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Jul 25, 2007 16:26
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girlscoutdropout posted:About the alfalfa hay, really? Wow, all I've heard is negative things up and down about it. http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/diet.html details the change in diet that is needed as a rabbit grows up and ages. It gives very specific time points for the switchover from alfalfa to timothy. This page explains the differences between various types of hays. The hard thing about providing this sort of educational information is that either you come up with a bullet point that 99% of people can understand, or you have to give a long-winded lecture on every subtopic. If you mention that alfalfa is OK in certain circumstances, many people fail to read anything but the first three words, and then wonder why their rabbit dies of bladder stones from too much calcium-rich alfalfa. You have to choose what audience you want to share this information with, and tailor your information to them. Think of it this way: Why should someone go to your site instead of direct to rabbit.org? Well, maybe because you provide simple bullet points instead of 300 pages of documentation, and that makes your visitors more likely to know the MOST important basics even if they can't tell you all the details. OK, in that case you may want to keep the timothy-only information and not mention alfalfa, instead saying "for information on feeding baby rabbits go here: rabbit.org". Don't confuse people who are easily confused, so to speak. On the other hand, you may want to focus on user-submitted information and less on information which is already available elsewhere. In that case, you can just list some really basic outlines, and make more links to the exhaustive resources. Then focus on details from users that rabbit.org doesn't really mention - like "my bunny really likes to tear up phone books" or "my bunny was sick and wouldn't eat, and the vet didn't know what to do, so I mixed some fresh dill with her hay and she started eating!" You could also divide up your information into Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. So in Basic you say: Timothy only, alfalfa is bad. Intermediate says: Alfalfa for young rabbits under 1 year, and for older rabbits (6+) who need additional calories. Advanced you say: A diet of mixed timothy, bluegrass, orchard grass, and alfalfa is advisable, but the phosphorus to calcium ratio and fat/protein ratio levels in the diet should be constrained to the following proportions.... Etc. Once you decide what type of information you are trying to provide and to whom, you can also make a disclaimer page that you can point to whenever someone says "Why didn't you mention X". You may also consider bibliographies for each page, so people know where you got your information and where to go for more in depth information on each topic. If you want to see some other resources for more advanced topics, especially medical resouces, this and this both have some very good, very advanced articles. And don't overlook the value of the search box on rabbit.org, if you want to know what the "official" stance is on a particular subject. They have many more articles available for searching than are linked from their main menus.
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Jul 25, 2007 18:44
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alucinor posted:http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/diet.html details the change in diet that is needed as a rabbit grows up and ages. It gives very specific time points for the switchover from alfalfa to timothy. This page explains the differences between various types of hays. Thank you for all your input. I'll put some thought into it. I did want just straight, to the point, information. I get intimidated by long paragraphs of information on websites and I can't be the only one. I am going to do the bibliography, just the information on there is stuff I already knew and don't remember where I learned it. But as I get new info, I will add it to a sources page. I'm just trying to keep it simple, I know I can't cater to the entire bunny-owner population and I'm not trying to. Thanks!
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Jul 25, 2007 23:08
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Hmm, I clicked on 'diet' in the side nav bar and the entire bar disappeared and now I can't do anything but look at the intro page. Or is the site not functioning, yet?
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Jul 26, 2007 03:26
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tokidoki posted:Hmm, I clicked on 'diet' in the side nav bar and the entire bar disappeared and now I can't do anything but look at the intro page. Or is the site not functioning, yet? Umm aggh! Obviously still alot of bugs to work out. It should work though. I guess I posted too soon. Sorry!
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Jul 26, 2007 06:04
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This is Belle. We got her yesterday. We're definitely new to the house bunny world. From what we've been told, she's a 5.5-week-old Holland Lop. She doesn't look as puffy as the pictures I've seen of Holland Lops. Right now, she's a unicorn. She has her initial shots. Should I take her in sometime soon just for a check-up?
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Jul 28, 2007 05:15
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ritjet posted:This is Belle. We got her yesterday. We're definitely new to the house bunny world. From what we've been told, she's a 5.5-week-old Holland Lop. She doesn't look as puffy as the pictures I've seen of Holland Lops. Right now, she's a unicorn. She has her initial shots. Should I take her in sometime soon just for a check-up? That is a CUTE bunny! From the looks of it, you'll need a larger cage soon. As far as the vet is concerned, it's always a good thing to find a vet and schedule an appointment to at least meet the doc and introduce him/her to your new bunny. Better to familiarize yourself now(to decide if you like the vet) than to wait until an emergency pops up.
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Jul 28, 2007 05:35
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Windy posted:As far as the vet is concerned, it's always a good thing to find a vet and schedule an appointment to at least meet the doc and introduce him/her to your new bunny. Better to familiarize yourself now(to decide if you like the vet) than to wait until an emergency pops up. I agree, I'm so glad I did that. I wanted to meet up with the new potential vet and get a nail trimming and when they took my bun back to trim I heard her scream. Now, at the time, I didn't know bunnies could scream; but they can and only when they are in severe pain or near death. They trimmer her nails so short that it's been about 15 weeks later and they're still not long enough. Granted, this doesn't really say anything about the vet because I think his vet techs did it, but needless to say I'll never be back. Poor Lucy!
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Jul 28, 2007 13:56
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Windy posted:That is a CUTE bunny! From the looks of it, you'll need a larger cage soon. As far as the vet is concerned, it's always a good thing to find a vet and schedule an appointment to at least meet the doc and introduce him/her to your new bunny. Better to familiarize yourself now(to decide if you like the vet) than to wait until an emergency pops up. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but she has a pen (made out of unassembled wire cubes) that surrounds that cage. We took the door off so she can go in and out. She has learned to use the litterbox, but only uses it intermittenly for pooping. Just now, she left me a nice little pile to clean up. I think she's a happy bunny. She lounges like that anywhere she can. She started binking yesterday once I got her pen up. It's probably because she likes to watch me clean up her messes.
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Jul 28, 2007 15:55
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ritjet posted:I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but she has a pen (made out of unassembled wire cubes) that surrounds that cage. We took the door off so she can go in and out. Ohhh, I do see it now that you mention it. Dunno how I missed that. 
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Jul 28, 2007 16:55
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Solar Jetman fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Mar 26, 2008 |
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Jul 28, 2007 21:05
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I don't really want to become known as just a link poster, but animals are important to me. Here is a really important petition to sign to show PetSmart that they shouldn't start selling house rabbits: http://network.bestfriends.org/truth/news/17169.html
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Jul 29, 2007 00:00
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SurprisingWoman posted:I don't really want to become known as just a link poster, but animals are important to me. Last I heard, rabbits had been removed from stores...are they thinking about putting them back in??
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Jul 29, 2007 07:41
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