Ren's WILDlife 2011

[RandomWiktor]

Hey folks.

I've been away from RO for some time now, and I suppose it demands an explanation.

The simplest way to explain is this: I currently live with three rabbits - Wendy, Thanator, and Lucy.

Notice anything missing?

I posted towards the end of 2010 about the surprising loss of our rabbit Leon, who was young and healthy and died very abruptly mid-meal one morning after no particular symptoms aside from drinking slightly less water than usual the day before. Well, I'm sad to say that wasn't our only loss. Brindam, my oldest rabbit whom I loved very dearly, succumbed to reproductive cancer. This makes two rabbits in my household with a cancer diagnosis, the other being Wendy who is still hanging on.

I am not proud of this. I obtained both of these rabbits when I was a good deal younger, and perhaps more importantly, living with my parents who paid all of my bills at the time. We had lost a wonderful rabbit due to complications of a spay surgery, and because of this, my mom was rigidly opposed to having our rabbits spayed/neutered. When you live under another's roof, what they say tends to go. So Wendy and Brindam were never spayed.

I finally moved out of home in July of last year, and was actually investigating the possibility of spays for at least Wendy or maybeboth of them despite their age (Brindam was pushing 10, Wendy's age is unknown but at least 5-6 as far as I can tell) as I've heard that anesthesiology for rabbits has come a long way. I never had the chance; in screening they both turned out to have cancers, progressed beyond the point of a simple spay being corrective. You wouldn't know it from looking at them; they seemed fine aside from Brindam being on the slim side (which I thought was due to teeth, also checked - turned out to be fine).

Weight loss eventually plauged both rabbits. Brindam in particular had a large, distended abdomen from the cancer despite being ribby and hippy. Wendy has managed to maintain a lower weight but acceptable body conditionso far eating 1 cup of food, unlimited hay, and ample greens - four times what she used to need in pellets to keep weight on. Brindam died at home in relative peace after about half a day of acting "off." We hope this will be the case for Wendy as well.

I was afraid to post this because the cancers these rabbits suffer(ed)are directly the result of irresponsible husbandry. But I felt it was important regardless of what judgement I may face for it because I really want to emphasize just how important it is to please, PLEASE get your bunnies spayed. The risks are well worth it to avoid watching their beautiful little lives waste away too soon from something that could have been prevented.

RIP Brindam. I don't have words for how losing you made me feel, so all I can say is... I'm sorry.



Not starting this off on a high note, are we? I'll make the next post more positive, I promise.

 

[Happi Bun]

My heart goes out to you, Ren. That is really tough to go through emotionally.
I know what excellent care you take of your animal companions though and if you had a choice you would have gotten them spayed.
I'm happy to see you back and with a new blog!

 

[JadeIcing]

Sometimes even when we know what is right, we can not change the minds of our parents. *hugs*

 

[RandomWiktor]

Thanks, guys. I can honestly say this is something that is going to haunt me for a long time. But I can't really do much but look forward and not let it happen again.

Now, to try and counteract the overwhelming negative of my first post...

Let's Recap 2010
When we left off in 2010, I had recently gotten married and moved to Alabama with my husband and our respective menageries. We purchased a reptile farm, Steve's dream job, and I was hoping to take my rescue 501(c). A lot has happened since then. I don't want to get into the particulars because a lot of it isn't overly cheerful, and I said I'd keep this positive. Suffice it to say that things have been a big, complicated, eye-opening education in the school of hard knocks, but at the end of the day, the following is true: after six of the hardest months in my life, things are settling down and we're getting into the swing of our new life. The farm has offered some unique opportunities for us and our animals, as well as some unique challenges. Ultimately though, I love my house, my husband, and my new home state.

Where Things Stand Now
Currently, it is winter on the Farm, which is both a little easier in terms of work load, and a little harder in terms of the intensity of the existing work to be done. We have been doing a tremendous ammount of maintenence and repair on our facilities, hopefully for the better, as well as stepping up to some of the very real challenges of buying a business and property that ultimately was not in its prime.

We still have our menagerie, including some wonderful new faces and some very sad losses. I am not currently doing rescue work on any scale right now due to financial constraints. That doesn't mean animals don't come my way. I simply need to turn down most of them, which is hard but ultimately the right thing for my family. I still have hopes - especially when the government gets its software out there - of going 501(c), but at the moment I am glad that the only thing I need to focus on is my animals.... well that and my husband... and my job... and the farm... and filing corporate taxes... and maintaining a household... and... oh, I need to sit down

As far as our bunnies go, I think you have the story from above. But in case you didn't know who my bunnies were from the last blog, I'll avoid the sad stuff and go straight to re-introducing them. And what better way to do that than... CHRISTMAS PHOTOS!

We had a shoestring budget this year, but I still insisted upon Christmas for Critters, so the bunnies each got a basket stuffed with marigold hay, alfalfa cubes, a ball stuffed with veggies, a willow ball, a wicker wreath, and some kind of weird little bunny toy that I think is made out of corn husks or something. This, basically:

Here's our bunnies, using their Christmas photos. Forgive the bad quality, they were pretty excited so they aren't very good shots.

Wendy is a female mini-lop I've had for the past 5-6 years. She was found as a roaming stray with evidence of possibly having had a recent litter; I suspect the cute babies found homes and she was dumped off. Wendy has always been a spunky, rambunctious rabbit. Being completely deaf and having cancer has not changed that. She is not as "pleasantly plump" as she used to be, but seems to still be loving life... and Christmas toys.

Thanator is the baby bunny that one of my pet sitting clients' dogs plucked out of the brush. He and another (deceased when found) domesticated rabbit must have been dumped off as unwanted pets. He's a very sweet, affectionate, ADORABLE bunny - so it's no surprise that my husband called 'dibs' on him when I found him and put him up for adoption. I'm glad he did, because with all of the sad things that have happened as of late, having a little wild-child dwarf bunny has been very uplifting.

Lucy, last but not least, is our exceptionally awesome Flemish Giant. She is the most mellow, sweet natured, affectionate rabbit you could ask for. She's also BIG and makes for big food bills, but we love her all the same. You may notice she's not being photographed indoors on hay like the others; we set up a nice big outdoor enclosure for her to enjoy in nice weather (pics soon) and she just loves to run and play out there. Since Alabama is much warmer than NY and we had a decidedly NOT white Christmas, she enjoyed her gifts outside. I will get a better pic of her soon because this one is awful.

That will be all for now, but I'll try to check in tomorrow (or if I get bored enough, later ) with some photos of the house, animals, etc. as well as some additional pet updates. In the mean time, I'm going to leave you with THIS:

More on this sweet baby later

 

[RandomWiktor]

We left off yesterday with a photo of a cute little baby tortoise. This red footed tortoise hatchling is precisely one month old, and was purchased by Steve from a really wonderful local breeder to get an idea what caring for red foots and species from similar climates would be like at our facility.

The previous owners of our facility bred Russain tortoises, which can winter outdoors here, but he has been thinking of converting one of our barns to possible winter tortoise quarters to expand what species could be bred here - there are some rare species he is considering. Though, I suspect his decision wasn't totally business motived - and I bet you can tell why looking at that sweet little baby's face!

On my side of things, the farm has (somewhat unfortunately) resulted in some new resident sanctuary animals. One thing I made very clear to Steve here was that if he is going to have a breeding program, we are going to treat any "cull" animals with dignity and respect - and if they have a sufficient quality of life, they will NOT be killed for being unbreedable. Such animals will either be adopted to qualified homes via the rescue, or integrated into the sanctuary program rather than being treated as refuse.

So who are the new faces? Well, I'll need to upload and post photos later for a few, but here's the rundown:

(I need a nicer pic - this is during a treatment and he looks so unhappy!)
Sprite is a Morrocan Uromastyx, a species that used to be bred at Agama. However, they did not cope well with the humidity, and we decided that it would be most ethical for us to sell the remaining stock to someone with facilities better suited for them. Sprite could not be sold because a fungal infection of his cloaca that resulted in a painful infection and build-up of scar tissue. I medicated his cloaca until it was healed, and the scar tissue's irritation can be minimized by applying hemroid cream daily, which reduces swelling and irritation.

Sigmoid is a red ackie monitor who was very sadly injured in a shipping accident. She was supposed to be part of a breeding program, but FedEx decided to manhandle the box so severely that she suffered a permenant spinal injury, and the other ackie in the box died from internal injuries. Her back now has a lasting "s" curve, but she's gotten FAR better; initially, she couldn't walk and was in too much pain to eat.

The Peanut is a box turtle that isn't technically "ours," but he was living in one of the big unused Tegu pens on the property when we bought the place. We were told that he was someone's pet, which explains why his shell is so deformed (I would need a shot from above to really illustrate it - he's literally shaped like a peanut, not to mention the weird "flared" bottom of his shell), as well as why he's so friendly. He lives outdoors year 'round and mostly takes care of himself since the pen is actually a very good environment for him. But I do make sure he has water, some supplemental food, and a safe place to brumate in the winter.

(Photo Soon)
Stargazer is an African crag lizard who somehow sustained some kind of brain injury. We still aren't quite sure what happened to him, but he now spins, "stargazes," has abnormal pupil responses, and does not have typical proprioceptive response. Despite this, he is still able to get around, feed from tongs, drink from a (very!) shallow bowl, and hide. So I guess we'll just see how he does.

I am working on setting up the front of the property for my various rescued reptiles plus any further "problem kids" from Steve's business; there are some older enclosures outside of the main fence up there that will make GREAT housing for these guys once the warmer weather starts - much bigger than what indoors can accomodate. Expect a ton of photos when I'm done cleaning them out and readying them for spring, because I'm oh-so-excited about it, especially after seeing how well many of my critters did outdoors last year.

 

[JadeIcing]

Well wow. Lots has happened. I would love to visit someday.

 

[RandomWiktor]

You should! I have a few friends who already want to come down to say "hi" at some point this summer.

Update from this morning:

I'm not sure what my dog situation was last time I posted in the blog. However, in addition to the two dogs who came with the business (who are GREAT by the way; I love them so much!) we also adopted a little terror of a puppy back in October or thereabouts. She is a border collie/schnauzer mix and it really shows; she is smart, agile, tenacious, and of course quite a pain in the behind! We love her to death but she has presented some unique challenges.

One of those is that she is a VERY good climber. As in too good. As in, she climbs all of the terraria outside, and also gets on top of my chickens' pen. They have a 12x24 pen and while it is very predator-proof, it isn't "annoying little dog yapping and scaring the heck out of the inhabitants" proof. She is smart enough to not do it while we're out there, and to not do it if we correct and redirect her. But she's also smart enough to know that it's a free for all if we're not looking.

We HAD put a plastic mesh barrier around the enclosure that worked for a while, and was also nice because it wasn't terribly visible. However, she discovered that she could rip holes in it, at which point she'd of course go right back to annoying our poor birds. So yesterday we finally put chicken wire around the whole thing. If she figures THIS out, I'm half thinking of muzzling and hog-tying her, then letting my rooster put a good fear of chickens in her! I'm absolutely kidding of course, but man - this has been frustrating! If nothing else, the multiple levels of defense should keep the chickens very safe from predators, though.

Here are some pics of said chickens as well as the pup.

There's Toki! She was a bit younger in this photo. She hasn't gotten to be a very big dog, but she is a lot of dog in a small package.

Here is a shot of the coop back when we put up the FIRST barrier around it. Such a false sense of triumph! (Hopefully the language is OK; she is a female dog, right?)

And here are my lovely chooks! I think Nuru is the only one familiar to my blog readers. I used to have a little red hen named Rosa living with him, but she was aged and very ill at the time of the move, so we waited for her to pass away before bringing Nuru down. I picked up three ladies from him from a woman who couldn't afford her hundreds of chickens any more. I wish I could have taken more of them; these girls were SO skinny and pathetic when I got them, weren't laying, had been fed only cracked corn for months etc. But chickens go through a lot of feed and I needed to make sure I could afford them, so four chickens total was about my reasonable limit.

First, Cyclone Aggie. She is a gamebird mix and it shows; she is smart, aggressive, fast, and frankly kindof a pain in the butt (heh). I really think she is gorgeous. This photo does no justice; I need to get a new one.

Grisaille, the eldest of the hens. The woman who gave these guys to me had raised and kept this one as a pet, so she's very gentle and sweet... to people at least! She definitely rules the roost and especially the food bowl.

Tank Girl, who is a very silly looking bird who also boasts some extra toes. She had a pretty bad URI when I got her but it cleared up nicely with a little TLC and some antibiotics. She is the bottom of the "pecking order" and tends to get picked on a bit, unfortunately, especially by Aggie.

Last but not least, the roo! This is an old picture from back in NY but I think Nuru looks so very handsome in it.

 

[RandomWiktor]

Hmm, I waited too long to edit BUT, I just wanted to add: if you hate food waste, chickens are the awesome feathered trash disposals of the bird world! They are voracious omnivores that rarely turn their noses up at any food item. So whenever I have produce or (appropriate) leftovers that are starting to turn, I give it to the chickens and they LOVE it. This morning they are getting, in addition to their regular feed, cabbage, canteloupe, banana, apple, brown rice, and lentils. It's good for them and good for me because it equals less trash and less wasted food!

 

[JadeIcing]

God I love chickens! Awesome pets! The puppy is a cutey.

 

[Dragonrain]

Hey! Nice to see you around here again!
Your puppy is adorable! If you ever get sick of her, you can send her to me! :biggrin2: I'm a glutton for punishment - I have a soft spot for the trouble makers. They keep my life interesting lol.

Loove all the reptile pictures! Wow I know it must be sooo much work, but you really are blessed to be able to be surrounded by so many beautiful creatures.

So sorry to hear of your losses. You take amazing care of your animals and I'm sure that despite their health problems, they had great lives with you.

 

[Myia09]

Great to hear from you! Glad everything settled down and getting on track. Love the new puppy! So adorable! But she does sem like a pain! love the chickens.

I love sprite. So beautiful! A very underrated lizard.

 

[RandomWiktor]

Wow, what a day. I drove out to a very hickish area of the countryside on an errand today... and came home with a starving stray dog. He was in the median on a stretch of highway I had to have seen at least a dozen other dead dogs on, eating the carcass of a less fortunate canine. I know that rescuing a dog is the LAST thing I need right now, but I couldn't leave him there like that, just waiting to become roadkill. I plan on getting him vetted (here's hoping he's not heartworm positive) and seeing if I can beg one of the local no-kill places to take him, or find a home for him myself.

 

[JadeIcing]

Hes cute.

 

[Nela]

Aww poor doggy. I'm glad you found him. Hehehe I don't mean to laugh at you, but your puppy stories had me laughing quite a bit. Awesome pictures!

 

[RandomWiktor]

Good news on all fronts, guys

I took the dog to the vet today and am happy to report that he is heartworm negative! He is also free of any major health conditions aside from just being LOADED with worms and quite underweight. We've got dewormer, heartworm meds, flea preventives, all his vaccinations, etc. squared away. Once he has more weight on him and isn't loaded with worms, he'll get snipped and will hopefully find a wonderful new home.

Speaking of which... the rescue I was hoping would accept him happily put him on their waiting list! So once he is healthy and socialized, he'll have the opportunity to find a wonderful home. Much better outcome than I could have ever imagined.

 

[RandomWiktor]

XD He's so sweet.

 

[JadeIcing]

That is awesome news.

 

[Nela]

Yay! That's great news all around! :biggrin2:He looks so sweet.

 

[Dragonrain]

Awesome news! What a lucky boy that you found him!

 

[Myia09]

Aw he does look so sweet! Great news to hear!