A final rabbit update

The last few weeks have had some pretty big ups and downs in terms of the rabbit project. Bad news first, I suppose.

We had two adult rabbits get extremely sick. The first was Barbie, who is undebatedly my favorite rabbit and our most productive doe. I noticed it one morning – she had diarrhea and was listless. She was so wean she couldn’t hold herself up; rabbits usually kind of perch on their hind legs. Barbie was slouched over, weight on her belly, unable to move herself away from where she was having diarrhea or clean herself up. She looked awful.

Even worse, she had 7 kits – 6 of her own, 1 of Bonnie’s she was fostering – that were 3 weeks old. Too young to wean, but we didn’t want them anywhere near her, fearful of contagion. We tried putting them with another mother but immediately learned mothers won’t foster kits after the first couple days after birth; the other mothers freaked out and tried to attack the new kits. We put them into the weaning hutch, feeling morose.

Diarrhea in a rabbit is serious. Usually fatal. I was already in tears about losing her, but Andrew suggested the Oral Rehydration Salts we have stocked in our own medical kits. I opened a pack and every hour or so would dampen a finger tip and rub the salts on the inside of her mouth. She hated that; her jerking her head away was the only sign there was any life left in her at all. It was a cold, rainy day and I wrapped her in one of my old shirts to keep her warm. We made her a bed of dried grass and changed it every couple hours so she could be at least a little bit cleaner. We also positioned her and her water so she could drink from it without moving.

Things were looking really bleak, but the hours passed with no change. Later that afternoon, I was doing yoga in the house and Andrew stuck his head in and announced Barbie was eating kale leaves. Her appetite increased first gradually, then rapidly, and her manure returned to normal within a day. And that was that. Seriously. She was fine.

I estimate she lost about 20% of her body weight during the brief illness; a major stress for a nursing mother. But after a couple days we felt confident she was okay, and probably not contagious, so we were actually able to put her back with the kits, who managed the separation well. We weaned them from there – they were totally weaned by 4 weeks which is really early, but they looked great and Barbie was really thin so we just let that happen.

Bonnie got sick five or six days later. Exact same symptoms so we jumped right into save-her mode. She also had kits but they were over 4 weeks old and were already being partially weaned. Although she just gave birth to a litter of 10 (although 2 died in the first couple days) we’ve had a suspicion she’s an older doe. Her coat is less glossy and she’s a bit ornery.  This illness didn’t go as well as Barbie’s. She was dead within an hour of us noticing she was sick.

I was sad, but practicality kicked in. We were going to butcher a rabbit that day with our neighbors anyway. We had 2 rabbits instead. When Andrew cleaned and gutted the piece of meat formerly known as Bonnie, the intestines were swollen to about 8 times their normal size, a clear sign of her illness. Also her lungs had dark gray spots all over them; I need to look that up but clearly a longer running disease that might have been impacting her health overall.

I’ll write in another post about our luncheon with the neighbors; I like a little bit of separation between the animal that has a name and the hunk of meat we put seasoning on. Bonnie was a breeding rabbit; one of the ones we allow ourselves to pet and name and get fond of. That was hard.

That day was hectic and busy. It was weird to finally settle down at night and try to process what had happened, allow myself to feel sad about the rabbit, and recognize the poor thing was already in my stomach.

Ah, carnivory. This is all part of the farming game. I have no desire to be a vegetarian (although I think meat should be eaten in small quantities of excellent quality only), and believe deeply in naturally and humanely grown meat. This whole project has been a projection of that; the belief of nourishment coming from an animal that was healthily raised and humanely slaughtered. But it was different with Bonnie. I felt badly she was sick. But what can you do? She was old and clearly unwell. The incident allowed us to have a feast with our neighbors and the chronically protein-deprived kids, who eat meat perhaps a couple times a month, got a large piece of meat each.

Anyway, onward to more bad news. We had fatalities with community members rabbits. The first was a female rabbit who chewed the fastening on her floorboards; a piece of bamboo got loose and she essentially got hanged. This happened to one of the guys with whom we’ve worked for the duration of our service. It was a failure of management on his part, but also a freak accident. We had an extra female baby rabbit, and we replaced the one that died. The other fatalities happened to a family who had just gotten their first two rabbits. Literally, a day and a half earlier. A dog managed to scratch its way into the bamboo hutch, eventually loostening the floorboards and getting into the hutch. Both babies were gone in the morning.

Okay, this is crazy. CRAZY. I mean, it’s awful. The poor little things. But I cannot fathom how nobody heard the dog going at it at night. It must have taken at least an hour of hard scratching  – a large, determined dog up on its back legs – to get anything loostenend at all. The hutch was right up against the family’s house. Homes here are open; there’s usually a 6-inch gap between the walls and the roof. You can hear anything.

To be frank, the guy whose rabbits they were has been a thorn in our side for the duration of our service. I didn’t really want to give him rabbits, but he did the necessary work and attended the necessary trainings so there wasn’t really anything we could do. We did not replace those rabbits. We couldn’t; we didn’t have any left. This happened the day before we left.

People are furious about the dog. If it’s identified, it’ll probably be taken out. I don’t like thinking about that. I love dogs, but they are large and I’d rather not have one roaming the village that knows those meter-tall bamboo houses have tasty, fuzzy nuggets inside.

Okay, that’s enough doom and gloom for now. On to the good news!

We chose to not confiscate the rabbits that we were thinking about taking away. We had a long discussion with the owner about her plan for management when she goes away to town for her training as a clinic worker. It helps that her brother just got rabbits, too. They live next to each other and can work out an arrangement. She had someone make her a new house and the rabbits already look much better.

Two families have welcomed their first round of kits! Marjorie, our closest friend and neighbor, had kits on April 7.  Three were born; one stillborn. The two remain are enormous and healthy.

 

The morning Marjorie’s rabbit kindled we check out the mama and kits. See the fur nest inside the box?

The next day, a family in the next village over welcomed 5 kits, all of whom are doing great. I wish we started this projet earlier so we could see people have more success, but getting to share in these family’s excitement was a treat nonetheless.

The other great rabbit news is that we managed to wean 19 kits with no mortality, despite Barbie getting sick and Bonnie dying. We have had mortality with literally every litter we’ve weaned. So to wean three litters of kits together with no death was a really nice suprise.

Wanda and Bonnie’s kits, 5 weeks

 

 

Barbie’s kits, 4 weeks

 

Hungry Barbie a week after her illness and me elated she’s okay.