My Fury is gone... :(

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Preitler

Loony bunny guy
Joined
Jul 19, 2015
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Location
Austria
On Monday, May 5th, my little black Fury passed away.

Fury alt.jpg

She was the very first rabbit I got, 11 years ago. After my mental issues got worse back then I needed something in my life, to have a reason to get up every day, something to care for. So I decided to start breeding rabbits, as my grandfather did, this was the most I could envision to being capable, no pet, and definitly no dog. I got her from a farmers/small animals market, along with a checkered buck.

I got other rabbits too since she was too young to breed this year, and there was offspring, but all of them died in a Myxo outbreak that summer. A quite dense wild rabbit popoulation had built up where I lived, and the disease spread like wildfire.
Once I noticed what was going on I tried to put all remaining rabbits into quarentine, one rabbit in every room and hutch, but it was too late, only Fury, living in my kitchen, made it. I took her indoor late summer so she had to stay there through winter since she didn't have a chance to grow winter fur, and because it would take months for the disease to burn itself out.

Well, now I had an indoor bunny, a very active, smart and pigheaded one :).

Schwarze jung.jpgSchwarze krank3.JPG


She stayed indoors until it got warm again, for 8 months.
She pretty much wrecked the apartment, turned all plinth - PVC and wood alike - to flakes and splinters, made me an expert in repairing USB cables, almost succeeded twice in killing me by removing the insulation from the power cords of the radio and the stick blender (second one was spectacular. it shorted in the sink with a big flash and the house went dark).
Then spring aproached, and she started a tunnel. Straight into the wall, after 2" of plaster the bricks stopped her.
I got another "doe" early spring, they jumped the barrier and I was amazed how well they got along - Fury had her first litter in my kitchen.
She left her mark, literally, when I moved out I found pee spots in every nook, cabinet and corner she could possible fit into.
Thank god I'll never have to rent again.

I learned so much about rabbits in that time, and gave up the notion of keeping rabbits the way my grandparents did, in small hutches without ever getting out, inconceivable.
With spending time in the garden she met the neighbours cat and dog, it was never a question who is in charge there :D. I loved that dog, Gina.

Gina Schwarze2.jpg

after 2 years I kept a doeling with her, Red, because I saw that they are more happy when not alone. Red is now 9yo, and alone, I have a litter of 6 week old kits and made holes in the fence so that they can get to her, to get her used to other rabbits around. I'll see if I try to introduce her to my other pair of does, Chantal and Ruth. We'll see.

Fury was a very dedicated mother with strong instincts, and I guess about half of her litters were planned by her, not me. Her record at getting pregnant was less than 30 seconds when I took her out of the hutch to inspect the new nest and had not noticed that my buck had escaped his hutch too. She had her last litter at 7, also not planned by me. It was hard work to keep her away from bucks.

Haystache Schwarze 3 30-4-2017.jpgSchwarze mit jungem.jpg

She got calmer the last years, but did still start a fight whenever she accidentially came across one of the other does, and most times it was not her fur I found after such incidents. Those two old ladies were great diggers, every year they built tunnels with about 5-8m total lenght, across the dormant half of my fenced in vegetable plot and under the Topinambur plots. Now and then my leg disappeared up to the knee in the ground, and an winter when I harvest the topinambur I filled up the tunnels again. I made them a garden house, with a porch, they really liked that. But always went back to the hutch in the evening, it had become a perfect routine.

Schwarze und Rote.JPG

Now there is a fourth grave under my walnut tree, next to "Dicker"(died of shock after a fox attack in 2015), Magda (2019, 7yo), and Herrn Hase (2021, still need to make a thread for my poor boy :( )

I can hardly understand how attached I grew to her, can't really put it into words. She spent continuously 11 years with me, in one go, that's more than any other living being (I was at a boarding school at 11, and had spent many summers at my grandparents and summer camps...), I did chose rabbits because my crippling fear of loss didn't allow anything more likely to get close, like a dog, well, so much for that. That's also one reason why I keep emotionally away from people.


Goodbye Fury, my little wild one...


Goodbye Fury.jpg
 

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Oh no, I'm so sorry, what an amazing life she had with you, and what a wonderful tribute to her.
She looks so peaceful there, what a pretty box with all the flowers and an apple!
She's binkying free now, over the Rainbow Bridge. RIP Fury 🌈❤️
 
Sorry for your loss. Fury lived an awesome long life and filled yours with surprises.
I've never seen a bun be buried with flowes and apples before, what a sweet thing to do. And adorable.
The pictures often refer to Fury as Schwarze, (Black?) how's that work? Do you have non-english names for them?
 
Well, yes, kind of, "Schwarze" just means black one, and it always takes me many years to settle on a real name, by that time it almost becomes a title of honor. And although Fury did fit perfectly, it doesn't roll of german tongues easily.
I'm getting better at naming though, Red will remain Red ("Rote"), but Ruth and Chantal got their names before I got used to a descriptive term. Actually, I called Ruth "Mausi", which is just a generic pet name like "Honey" or "Sweetie", but there is a very nice retired teacher in my village everyone calls Mausi, I'm sure most even don't know her real first name - which is Ruth. Name found.

I must thank @JBun for all the info on Meloxicam, the last weeks I gave Fury 5x the dose my vet recommended, and that was just enough. She couldn't get up anymore the last week, had to feed and water her, and soon I would have needed to bath her rear, which sure would have caused pain.

When I came home from work on Monday (8th, not 5th) I gave her some hogweed, half an hour later I noticed her head drooping, and she died on my lap.
 
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I'm glad you were able to ease her discomfort in those last weeks. There's not a whole lot we can do as bunny carers, to help with those inevitable old age problems in the last period of their life, except easing some of that pain and discomfort. She sounds like she was a wonderful and precious bun for you, that kept you on your toes ♥️
 
So sorry to hear you lost your sweet bun. I loved reading her story. It's obvious you loved her very much and she had a very happy life with you.
 

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