Leaving for 48 hours...

[hokankai]

I go home to my parents' house every weekend and packing/unpacking the rabbits to go and come back is getting very tiresome. I was wondering if leaving them at my apartment would be feasible? Two of them share a cage, but I think I'd divide the cage in half so that they each get their own food/water source. Is this a good idea? I don't want to stress them out, but I also don't want Theodore eating Ariadne's food (she gets twice as much as he does and eats it in little spurts), or vice vera.

I leave this afternoon and come back Sunday evening, so that would be 48 hours unsupervised. I'd put a heaping pile of veggies in each half of the cage, fill their bowls with more than normal food, and put a large amount of hay in there. Would this work? The only thing I worry about is Theodore eating all of his veggies first and then stuffing himself with pellets and not having any left halfway through the weekend. He's a HOG and will eat until he can't eat any more, haha.

 

[lexoli]

Do you not have a friend or neighbour who could pop in and feed them?

 

[missyscove]

My concern with leaving them alone isn't necessarily that he'd run out of food but that he'd have one of his occasional bouts of stasis while I was gone. They're so much easier to stop when I catch them early. I'd rather know someone was going to check in on him if I were to leave my rabbit.

 

[hokankai]

I have nobody here to check in on them, unfortunately :/. My housemate is on vacation and I don't know anyone in the area on a personal basis.

They would get fed on Sunday evening, so there are really only the two meals on Saturday that would be questionable if he ended up eating all of his pellets tonight.

I have never had any stasis problems in my rabbits. Theo is 2.5 and Ariadne is almost 1

 

[lexoli]

I notice you are in America. Round here we have a few professional pet care companies - Pet Pals, Paw Pals, etc - who will go in and sort out your animals (they do dog walking, etc too). I know it will cost, but could you see if there was anything local to you? I'm sure one call on a saturday to refresh food and water wouldn't be a huge cost? Or maybe use this as an opportunity to meet a neighbour?

 

[hokankai]

Haha, I'm not going to pay to have someone come in and throw food in their cage. I'd rather just pack them up and take them with me.

My question is can they be left unsupervised for 48 hours? Without having someone come in and care for them. If not, I'll just keep taking them with me even though they hate it.

 

[agnesthelion]

I actually think they would be okay. Although it's not IDEAL, I see what you are saying with packing them up and moving them every weekend, that could actually be more of a stress for them.

I think if you have bowls that they can't dump their food, water source won't run out and maybe a noise source for anxiety (ie radio or tv) and maybe put new toys in each time you leave, they will be okay.

There are plenty of rabbits who, sadly, go for periods of time with less than that. again, not saying it's ideal but buns are so comfortable in their own surroundings AND even a stranger coming in could be MORE stressful for them, vs a couple lonely days at home.

 

[hokankai]

That's what I was thinking. Not only is it super obnoxious breaking down the cage and setting up their xpen cage at my parents' house, but they spend 1.5 hours each way in the car, a couple hours in their little travel cage once we get there because I don't feel like setting it up right away, and then poop allllll over the floor of the cage every weekend. Plus they go from being in my room where it's nice and quiet to living in a house in the main area where there's a ton of noise (tv, brother, dogs barking), and a cat who likes to stalk them from outside the cage. That and Ariadne has chronic white snot issues, and I don't want the stress of moving her to cause flare ups.

They hate it and I hate it, so why do I keep doing it? Haha

On a normal weekend my housemate can pop in and feed them, this weekend just isn't one of those.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

If they aren't hogs that eat all their food at once, they would probably be alright.

 

[hokankai]

Well it's too late now, haha. I gave them pellets to last them several days, enough hay for a week, and a couple days worth of veggies. I'm sure they'll eat a lot of the pellets by tomorrow, if not all of them. If they do manage to eat all of their pellets and all of the veggies, then they'll be left with hay and water and plenty of calories in their system to carry them the other 24 hours.

 

[hokankai]

I just wanted to update that they SURVIVED!

They made it 52 hours without any supervision. Their water was close to empty (I brought they're huge water bottle home for next time) and they made a HUGE mess, but that was expected since I left a big bowl of hay fines for them to rummage through.

They had plenty of hay left, and were excited to have their pellets and veggies tonight, but I think the excitement of seeing me is way better than the looks of contempt as I toted them around with me.

This is going to make my life SO much easier!

 

[JBun]

They probably thought it was great to have an all you can eat food party. They just might start looking forward to these unsupervised weekends It's always nice when they're glad to see you again though

 

[LakeCondo]

My only suggestion for the future is to give them only 1 meal's worth of greens, or double that at the most. You don't want them to go bad before they're eaten.

I'm glad it worked well. I recently was away for about 45 hours, but Honey eats her pellets graudualy & I'd been away 36 hours a could of times & knew that had worked. My only concern was that she was shedding this time.

 

[Blue eyes]

I'm curious. Did you divide the cage like you first said you might? I thought that one isn't supposed to separate a bonded pair...even if just by dividers. :dunno

 

[hokankai]

Nope, I decided against it. And the veggies were probably finished within the evening since Theodore is a pig, haha.

 

[Blue eyes]

Glad it all worked out!