Help! Rescued a baby bunny today- need urgent advice & opinions!

[beccabeau]

Hello all,

I'll keep this short as possible!
Basically I was nosing around on Gumtree, curiosity got the better of me, and I saw a baby rabbit for sale. I could not scroll past it. It was a picture of a bunny in a plastic pet store cage OUTSIDE with no hay, no food, no water, in summer!
I immediately contacted the poster of the listing and made arrangements to take the bunny of their hands.

To be fair to them, they were a nice family (of 4)- they just had absolutely no idea what this bunny needed. They said they'd had her (not sure if it's a girl?) for a month. They gave me a huge bag of what they were using for litter (but it's pine shavings- so I'm not chancing it.) The more they told me about 'what I should do to look after the rabbit' the more I wanted to cry. The bunny was being fed a mixture of biscuits, lettuce, plain popcorn and wheetabix. I was horrified and took the bunny away very quickly.

When I got her(?) home, I set up the little utility room at the end of my kitchen and let her settle in. I gave her some lettuce (seeing as she was being fed it before and I didn't want to give her anything too different)- I know it's not what she should be eating, but she was so hungry. She ate all of it, so I tried her with some pellets (they are adult- I know she needs junior, but keep in mind she hasn't ever had nuggets, but she was really really hungry) and I gave her lots of hay. She started rolling in it, digging her face in it and shoving it in her face as fast as she could. It was really amazing to watch, and she ate (and is still eating loads and loads of it, which is good.) She is drinking, which is also good, and pooping a lot. They're not as hard as they should be, but generally look healthy, and I guess that will improve with the intake of hay.

Now on to my questions-

a) what do I feed her long term? I have no problems getting alfalfa and junior nuggets tomorrow, and have experience looking after a baby bun (I had Pip from 9 weeks) the problem is, she's not had a proper diet at all! If I just start her on alfalfa and junior nuggets, is she going to be okay? Is she fine eating the adult pellets and timothy hay and carrying on with that, or does she need a lot more fibre/ protein?

b) can someone shed some light on what breed she is? I'm edging towards some sort of giant breed because the shape of her nose, but could she possibly be a dutch? I'm not sure because she's so young.






c) She's not peeing in corners. She's peeing straight up on the rug in front of the plastic base of the cage. How do I even start getting her to pee in the base? I put wooden litter in all of the corners, and a lot of hay in it, but she doesn't seem interested. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if she's just glad she doesn't have to be in the cage any more.

Upside is that she seems to be happy. She's doing mega flops- probably just happy to be out of bunny prison! She's alert and awake, curious and lively, which are also good signs. Her fur is soft and her teeth, claws, hocks and ears are fine. She's interested in Pip, but Pip for now is having none of it. He started lunging at her through the bars of the partition, so I put him away from her for now. Main thing to focus on is the new bunny being safe and healthy.

I'm not even sure I can take her forever, I just couldn't ignore the fact that she was being so badly treated. Even if I can't keep her (due to landlord etc- our contract only says we can have 1 rabbit) I am going to find her a crackin' forever home.

So basically, I need everyone's thoughts, comments and help.
I've taken care of a young bun before, but this isn't the same. The usual don't apply to this one, I'm afraid!

Thanks in advance,

Becca

 

[Azerane]

Wow, sounds like you've saved her from almost certain death there with a diet like that! She does look like a slightly larger breed.

You can feed her as much timothy hay as you want without problems. Definitely start introducing her to pellets, she looks old enough to be on adult pellets. Make sure you introduce them very slowly and start with a small amount (like a teaspoon) and slowly build up. I would remove the lettuce entirely, or switch to smaller amounts of a darker leaf variety.

As for how to get her to start peeing in the plastic base, I would be mopping up her pee messes with paper towel and putting that inside the base, along with stray poops, it should help her get the idea

 

[beccabeau]

Thanks for your help-

I've fed her some pellets and she seems to really like them. She's shoving as much food in her face as she can. Literally hoovering up hay like it's going out of fashion! She is very skinny, but I'll work on that gradually!

The problem with the litter training is that I put a carpety rug down to protect her hocks from my wood floors (and my wood floors from her scrabbling!) As she has only really been on concrete and plastic, I just wanted to make sure she was comfortable!

I did put a small fleecy dog bed on top of a box for her, and she peed all over it (nice!) so I put that in the place where I want her to pee, so hopefully she'll get the idea eventually. If she pees on that for now and then just associates that corner with peeing I guess? We'll see- it's only the first night and she's already settled in nicely!

She's very very friendly and sweet, and even managed a binky earlier! Still not entirely convinced she's a girl, but I'm able to pick her up easily, so I'll see if I can check tomorrow

Thanks again!
Becca