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The Bunny Camp Newsletter is brought to you by Leeds & Bradford Hopper Group in support of The Bunny Camp Sanctuary, who kindy let it feature on Rabbit Rehome. If you have any queries regarding the newsletter, appeals or rabbits in it please contact them directly not Rabbit Rehome.
Bunny Camp NewsVolume 2 Number 5 May 2004Contents:-
Ø Bunny Camp News is produced by the Leeds & Bradford Hopper Group Ø In support of The Bunny Camp Sanctuary. All The Latest from The Bunny CampThis month’s featured buns looking for homes...
Of course there are lot’s of other bunnies at Bunny Camp looking for homes, so please contact us if you think you can help! The Barbara Peters PageAN OBSESSION WITH A LITTER TRAY?All good bunny carers do. The contents of your litter tray can reflect the health of your rabbit. Runny “currents” can be a sign of an overindulgence of grass particularly in early spring when the new growth is very rich or too many rich vegetables. Providing bun is bright eyed and bushy tailed then a good handful of bramble/blackberry leaves and hay for 24 hours should solve the problem for you. However if this is a new or especially a baby rabbit then still give the bramble leaves but also make an urgent vet appointment, as it could be something serious. A slowing down in the “current” production or leaving smaller ones than normal could mean the beginnings of GI Stasis and heading for a blockage. If spotted early enough and your rabbit is still eating then syringing 20mls of pineapple juice 3 times a day helps by increasing the mucus in the digestive tract, softening up the contents of the stomach and helping them pass through. Feed leafy green vegetables, blackberry leaves and hay. Hay and blackberry leaf are high in fibre and help the rabbit digest his food quicker. Also make sure that your rabbit is drinking well and perhaps syringe feed water as a safety measure. However, if your rabbit looks depressed and is not eating then an immediate vet appointment is necessary, the bun will need motility drugs, pain relief and fluids. Currents strung together like a bracelet isn’t a problem, you usually find these during a moult. Providing bun is eating well, then a treat of some pineapple juice and a good brushing once a day will ensure that the loose hair quickly passes through the system. Last but not least – wee! A rabbit secretes excess calcium through his wee, white traces is acceptable, too much calcium leaving a dense white stain needs to be thought about. Look at his diet, too many rich vegetables like spinach, dandelions, kale, or watercress on top of pellets is too much. You need to seriously cut down if not cut them out altogether from his diet before cystitis or kidney stones occur. Add yarrow and sticky weeds to his daily diet as a precaution. Too many small wees with perhaps droplets of red means your rabbit probably has cystitis. If caught soon enough you may get away with feeding plenty of yarrow. If after 48hrs of using yarrow there has been no improvement then a course of antibiotics is necessary. Still use yarrow, as this is a urinary antiseptic and will help his treatment. Red wee…Bun does a slightly orange wee, leaving a reddish stain? This is normal for a rabbit eating plenty of carrot or a few other plants and vegetation, in effect it’s the dye coming out. HERBS AND WILD PLANTS FOR THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEMA rabbit has a very large stomach for its size and it should always be full!! With what, comes after the technical bit: Food and nutrients flow from its acidic stomach through to the small intestine to the large intestine which is where life becomes interesting. For the large intestine is made up of the colon and the caecum. The colon separates the large and small fibre particles. The large particles of indigestible fibre are moved straight through the colon to form the hard droppings (see “an obsession with a litter tray”) and the good stuff moves to the caecum. The Caecum (re-produced verbatim from Rabbit Lopaedia) “The Caecum is the fermenting vat of the digestive system. To enable this fermentation to take place, it contains several species of “helpful” bacteria (mostly Bacteroides). The Caecum also contains small amounts of potentially harmful bacteria (Clostridia and E.Coli). In order that the balance of bacteria in the colon is such that the “helpful” bacteria predominate, the diet must contain plenty of fibre and not too much protein and carbohydrate (i.e. not too much dry food and no sugary or starchy treats). The end products of this fermentation are volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and caecotrophs. The VFAs are absorbed through the walls of the Caecum and colon. The caecotrophs contain the fermented foodstuff, and are rich in Vitamins B and K and high in protein. The caecal wall secretes a mucoid substance, which coats the caecotrophs before they are passed through the colon. These soft faeces are often referred as “night pellets” as they are usually produced at night. The arrival of these caecotrophs at the anus triggers a special nerve reflex, which makes the rabbit lick his anus and ingest these mucus coated droppings as soon as they are passed. YUK! So that’s the technical stuff, what can we do to ensure that it all works ok? Feed him a good diet. An adult rabbit (6 months and over) should have no more than 60grams of pellets or mix per day and if you have a dwarf breed then feed even less, dry food spread evenly through the day is best. A rabbit’s stomach has a high acidic pH of 1-2 to allow it to sterilise its food before it hits the small intestine, if the stomach contains a large lump of pellets etc., then it may not sterilise the food completely and digestive upsets may follow. Fibre, we’ve mentioned fibre many times during the technical stuff. What is it, well hay of course, grass, spring greens, broccoli, blackberry leaf, raspberry leaf and strawberry leaf, plantain and Avens. Autumn you can feed most of the deciduous leaves from trees (Oak leaf being the exception) and shrubs. Dried off in a low oven and they really are a treat. My vet suggests that a rabbits diet should be at least 50% green so make sure he has plenty of “greens”. Vegetables you can freely feed are Celery leaf, carrot tops, radish tops, and pak choy. And not forgetting those weeds, you can add plantains, chickweed, sticky weed, milk thistles, dandelions, yarrow, mallow and vetch. Weeds are free of course and you can feed as much as you like. Weeds have medicinal properties too so not only are they getting a good mixed diet but you are building up immunities or preventing some common ailments too. Herbs to add are my three favourites, Fennel, Mint and Marjoram to ward off “wind”. Small amounts of Parsley (calcium yummy) and Thyme (good for worms, but too much will cause a runny bum), Lemon Balm, Sorrell, Coriander, Chervil, sage, chives and Tinker’s favourite Basil. NOTE: When to start young rabbits on a greed diet can be a bit of a bone of contention, however, today’s vets will agree that as soon as possible is best. However, because his gut is not so acidic as an adult you should start him off on small pieces of spring greens or carrot tops along with blackberry leaf which will stop any runny currents. Bunny HealthA bunny First Aid KitThere are certain essentials that every caring bunny owner should have on hand in case of problems. This is by no means a comprehensive list, nor is it intended to be a replacement for a visit to the vet, instead, it is intended as an emergency toolkit just to get you by until you can seek proper help.
The above is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a really good place to start. THE BUNNY CAMP SANCTUARY
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CLASS TWO...10 Entries |
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CLASS THREE...10 Entries |
CLASS FOUR...18 Entries |
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CLASS FIVE...9 Entries |
CLASS SIX...14 Entries |
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CLASS SEVEN...5 Entry |
CLASS EIGHT...3 Entries |
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CLASS NINE...12 Entries |
CLASS TEN...4 Entries |
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CLASS ELEVEN...9 Entries |
Best in Show
LULU
By
Lynn Brassington
THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN FOR YOUR EXCELLENT PHOTOS
UKPR Photo Competition Results
One of the very best internet bunny groups in UK-Pet-Rabbits. Every now & then, the members of this group organise a photo competition and choose a different sanctuary to benefit. This time around, it was the turn of Bunny Camp. We would like to give UKPR a huge thank you for raising £100 for Bunny Camp. These are the results:-
1st Place - Mr Munchkin
Mr Munchkin is a little Dutch boy of a very happy go lucky disposition. He adores cuddles and tooth purrs for England! He's about 12 weeks old now and very hormonal, spraying and circling anything and everything. He doesn't have a favourite food, will eat anything given to him. His favourite pastime is running in and out of my bedroom onto the patio, he will be constantly on the go from mid afternoon to evening and probably all night if he could. He is so full of energy. He has the most adorable blue eyes which gaze lovingly at me whenever he sees me. I am currently litter training him etc, he's pretty good in the kitchen which is "his room" but in my bedroom, he's a little lapsidaisy with it! He does use the litter box but will poop everywhere and I have to go round picking it up and while I am on my hands and knees picking it up, he is circling me dropping more as he goes, quite comical really.
2nd Place - Cassie
Cassie is about three and a half years old and came to live with me just before Christmas, along with her son Bart. Before she came to me she had been at the Mayhew Animal Home in London, and also had a spell at Bobtails rescue. This is her story... Cassie was abandoned in a box outside a pet shop in London. She was in the box with two other bunnies called Robson & Rosie (who may have been her daughter). The pet shop took the bunnies in and tried to sell them... this didn't work, and the bunnies ended up at Bobtails... and by this time Cassie had become pregnant. Apparently in her early days at Bobtails she was a very shy, quiet bunny. God knows what she had had to endure before she reached the safety and love of the sanctuary. She had her litter and was a very loving and attentive mum... she had four little girls and one son - Bart. Her daughters were re-homed in pairs and Cassie and Bart stayed together. After a while they moved house to the Mayhew Animal Home where they stayed for a whole year until one day I spotted them on the Rabbit Re-home website.. and fell in love! I couldn't understand why they had been there for so long because they are so beautiful. I remember the first time I met them - it was raining and they were in an outside run... I remember standing there in the drizzle looking at these two HUGE brown bunnies and my heart just melted. Now me, Cassie, Bart and new addition Humphrey live together in a little house in Pershore. Cassie and Bart live together in their bunny nursery - complete with baby play pen, baby blankets and lots and lots of toys! Over the last few days Cassie has been working very hard on putting together a little CV for you all to read all about her... and this is what she has come up with! Dear Linzi and all the nice people at the rabbit group, Thank you very much for my prize, I am very happy and excited and did lots of binkies when my mummy told me. AND we had a carrot tops tea party and lots of toast. And because I have won my prize mummy now does everything I ask because she is so proud of me.
3rd Place - Poppy
I got Poppy on St Valentine’s day 2003. My partner decided to get me a baby bunny for my Valentines present, to grow up and be a partner to my then only bun, Biccy. Off we went to the pet shop and there were 3 baby bunnies in the pen. While we were choosing, a lady with hundreds of kids came and brought the prettiest of the 3 bunnies. I decided on the most active of the 2 left. This was Millie. On the way home, I could not stop thinking about the bunny we left behind, and as soon as we got back I got in my car and drove straight back to buy her and stop another rag-tag family from taking her! This quiet little bunny who sat in the corner of the pen was Poppy. When i got them both home, i checked them over and found that they were covered in bites and scratches. Another bunny in the pen had been attacking them. It soon came clear to me that Poppy was a very intelligent inquisitive bun. If anything was going on, she was in the middle of it! She was forever escaping from her run and i could never work out how she got out. Unfortunately, Poppy and her sister have recently fallen out, so we will eventually be looking for a boy bunny to be Poppy's mate. This picture of her perfectly shows her personality - a cheeky but clever little madam!
Read all about Poppy and her friends at http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_furry_gang/
and see many more pics of her at http://community.webshots.com/user/linzi_4444
End column By Dandy
Thank you’s and information
First of all, I need to remind you all about the Bunny Camp Summer Party. It will be on Sunday 4th July at:-
The Bunny Camp Sanctuary,
4 Stoney Ridge Avenue,
Heaton, Bradford,
BD9 6PA.
I gave full details of what will be happening in the last issue, so I won’t repeat myself….
Secondly, I would like to give a big thank-you to my 2-foot friend Linzi who organised the UKPR photo competition. Why not have a look at the UKPR website at http://www.uk-pet-rabbits.4t.com/index.html Also, thanks ever so much to Auntie Barbara Peters who sat up burning the midnight oil to get her articles to me just in time for this edition.
While we are on the subject of websites, there is another great one that has just been launched. If you read the story of Smudge & Barley in last month’s Bunny Camp News, then you will remember that Barley left Bunny Camp to go live down at Ebony Eyes Rabbit Retirement Home, well Ebony Eyes now have a fantastic new website, which you can find at :-
http://tinyurl.com/2mslqThirdly, usually, we make the winner of the photo show the bun of the month, but as we have not one, but two photo competitions this month, I thought that the only fair thing to do was not to use either of them, so I have made an editorial decision to have another bun… Wait until you see who I’ve picked!
Finally, on the next page is a picture of somebun who claims to be a rabbit, personally, I think it’s a donkey…
Read Dandy’s live journal at http://www.livejournal.com/users/dandybun/
Just Saddle Me Up!
Bun of the month
ME!!! (Dandy)
Flopsy Girl’s Problem Page
Dear Flopsy Girl...
Should I have an affair? My mate Thai is a right Andy Capp the only time he ever stirs is to eat to rip up the new paper laid in our burrow, oh and occasionally he gets romantic, but basically he just wants to stay home on the couch all day. There is a nice bunny down the hall, and I quite often hear him binkying and doing bunny 500s in the hall outside, and I do so fancy a good run round. I've taken to sneaking out and chatting to him through his door. Oh what should I do. - Dizzy
Dear Dizzy. You must remember that you owe your mate Thai total loyalty, and that it’s only a floozy that would consider taking up with another bunny. So the answer to your question is, yes of course you should throw yourself at him at the very first opportunity!
Dear Flopsy Girl...
How do you keep a girly bun happy? - I need to know as Brambles been a bit moody with me! - Hawthorn
Hawthorn - Girly buns are very easy to keep happy. All you need to do is to groom Brambles for a minimum of 14 hours a day, make sure she gets all the best food, and basically wait upon her paw and claw giving her whatever she wants whenever she wants it – simple!
Dear Flopsy Girl...
The weathers gone cold and grey again. Does mean that spring and summer are over? They seemed longer last year. Do you know whether they will come back soon? - Hawthorn
Hawthorn have patience! We are only just at the end of May, there are at least another 3 sunny days to come this summer.
Dear Flopsy Girl...
Our two foots have been spending an inordinate amount of time with their 4 week old baby Degus (apparently related to chinchillas but look like giant gerbils). This means we are lacking attention. So far we have tried chewing at forbidden magazines and demanding extra treats at 9.30 pm when the babies seem to be most active. We need new tactics to remind our two foots that we are the number one animals in this house, any ideas?
Sootsie and Thumper (3yr old rescue house rabbits)
ps We've already chewed through speaker wires, destroyed various pieces of carpet, wee weed on the big two foots bed and eaten the bottom of the armchair whenever the two foot decided to sit on our "burrow" when we first moved in.
This is appalling behaviour from your 2-foots, they MUST be made to realise that they cannot continue to treat you like this. If you send me your address, I’ll pass it on to Violet from the Hairy Mob at Ebony Eyes, who will come round and mash them.
Dear Flopsy Girl...
can we eat tooooooooo many dandy leaves?
our mum thinks ‘cos we 'wee' red we need limiting! hope you can help - if she’s right whisper an answer so she don’t hear!!! - Benny and the jets Benny… You have to think of your health! If you eat too many Dandelion leaves it can be bad for you… Unless of course you can train your 2-foots to give you lots and lots of Yarrow and Sticky weed too to balance your diet, so tell that lazy 2-foot of yours to pull her finger out, and get collecting!
Dear Flopsy Girl...
Our 2 foot says she is worried about us though we think we are fine. We came from an animal sanctuary in March and are each about 14 or 15 months old (not related but good friends) and we live as house-bunnies in a flat. Our 2 foot has bought us toys but we don’t want to play with toys or play with anything, really. She has bought us a cardboard house but we aren’t very interested (though she was very excited when she bought it – it was quite sweet to see her!). In fact we prefer sitting under her bed (where she has made tunnels and runs for us) or under her bedroom table or behind the sofa.
She has made us a sort of run next to the sofa, with boxes and tubes and things, where we like sitting in one of the boxes. Katie Rabbit likes chewing the hay whilst sitting inside (Little Wilbur of course won’t touch the stuff at all, especially as it came from Wales and cost a fortune). But our 2 foot says she wants us to run around more like we did when we first came. She wants us to be happy and interested in things and she wouldn’t even mind if we chewed things because she wants us to have a hobby. Also only one of us will go out onto the balcony where she has put the cardboard house and filled it with hay as well as a dig box but we aren’t keen. We hop around from time to time but when she wants us to play and comes up to us, we just settle down for a stroke and a nuzzle with her. She wants us to be occupied but we would rather not. Actually, we possibly don’t know about play – is this possible?
She’s making plans to put us in her garden patch when she has rabbit proofed it but we won’t be able to be in it all the time. She’s tried cardboard tubes, almost every toy on the market, and even left a towel on the floor ( she leaves a lot of things on the floor so in a way she’s lucky we are so good!) because she read that some rabbits like playing with them.
Is she making a fuss about nothing or should we be busy doing something? Have you come across other bunnies like us? Actually she’s jolly lucky to have such snugly, calm bunnies but she doesn’t agree.
Thanks, Flopsy Girl,
Little Wilbur and Katie Rabbit,
Who have borrowed Norma’s laptop (she says this doesn’t count as “activity”!)
Well what a long question! The truth is, as you well know, everybun is different. I like to keep myself to myself. The only time I will let the 2-foots near me is if they are bringing me some food, plus, like you, I’m not really one for playing much. I do sit in our cardboard house, and in boxes, and generally lay about, but the only time I run around is when Dandy is chasing me! Dandy on the other hand loves to run around, loves to be picked up and fussed over, and can’t understand why I am just not like that. So the answer is, everybun is different. You need to do the things that you want to do, and not be at the 2-foots beck and call. Don’t try to please them, PLEASE YOURSELVES!!!
Flopsy girl regrets that she is unable to share any of her personal carrots or parsley with anybun, but she is always willing to give advice whether or not it is asked for.
If you have a question for Flopsy Girl, please send her an e-mail to :- bcnews@ntlworld.com Flopsy Girl will be happy to help 2-foots with their problems as well as rabbits, or any other animals.
Why not join us?
The Leeds & Bradford Hopper Group meet about once a month, usually in a child friendly pub (yes Sonya brings her kids!). We talk about Bunny Camp and plans for the future, but we do not just confine ourselves to that. We are a general talking shop for all things rabbit, and would love to welcome any Bunny Camp News readers to join us.
If you would like details of where and when we meet, then call Allison Girt on 0113 239 7408 (evenings), or e-mail her on : alison.girt@btinternet.com
Who we Are
Here at the Bunny Camp Sanctuary, we strive to provide a safe haven for rabbits who, through no fault of their own, end up here because they have been mistreated or neglected, or simply because their owners can no longer look after them.If you are interested in re-homing or sponsoring any of the gorgeous creatures that we have, or simply wish to make a donation to this worthwhile cause, please contact:
Sonya and Jim McDonough
4 Stoney Ridge Avenue,
Heaton,
BradfordWest Yorkshire
BD9 6PA
England
Tel: (0044) 01274 821665
Email: bunnycampsan@talk21.com
Useful Contacts
R.S.P.C.A. regional headquarters
P.O. Box BR29
LS13 2XL
Phone (24 hours) 08705 555 999
The Rabbit Welfare Association
PO Box 603,
Horsham,
West Sussex
RH13 5WL
Some Other Good Rabbit Sancturies
BUNNY BURROWS. RABBIT RESCUE
Gwen & John Butler
68 Whitefields Drive,
Richmond
North Yorkshire
DL10 7DL
Telephone: 01748 824788
Website:- http://www.communigate.co.uk/ne/bunnyburrows/index.phtml
E-Mail:- bunnyburrows@ne.communigate.co.uk
Society for Abandoned Animals
The Peggy Henderson Animal Sanctuary
Barfoot Bridge
Stretford
Manchester M32 9UP