Sweetie, English Butterfly Bunny & Tour Guide

Sweetie, English Butterfly Bunny & Tour Guide
Hi and welcome to "Fairy Castle Farm" I hope you enjoy your stay! I should introduce myself, my name is Sweetie and I am a resident of Fairy Castle Farm. Well it's not actually a farm, but a suburban home in the southern suburbs of South Australia. I am a rare Old English Spot Bunny, and absolutely love life here with all my family and some good friends too... let me take you on a tour ....

Fairy Castle Farm : Global Visitors

Guests

Friday, September 23, 2011

Sweetie had us all worried!

Hi, it's Angel here. I'm taking over tonight!

My little girl is recovering from yesterday's ordeal, so I would like to take up the laptop so as to speak.....

I just want to share with everyone, how important it is to act quickly when your bunny seems out of sorts.

Yesterday, when Sweetie fell ill quite suddenly and unexpectedly, Yollie really did not have a lot to go on.

 The only thing that triggered alarm bells was that Sweetie did not come running out to greet her like usual.

 This one act made Yollie investigate further. 

It is when the slightest of signs are ignored that it can result in huge complications later. 

Sweetie was fine on Wednesday, you all saw this in her last post. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. She even featured in a short clip (Yollie didn't previously post it, here it is).

So as you can see - nothing really out of the ordinary there. Her usual alert, cheeky self...
The following morning however, it was quite a different story....
I'll tell you all about it.
Every morning Sweetie is usually right behind Patches, bulldozing chooks out of her path to get to Yollie for their morning cuddles and chat.... 
  Not yesterday morning however.
She stayed firmly tucked in her burrow... no amount of coaxing could get her to come out. Yollie was instantly worried.  Leaving Sweetie some thistles and carrot leaves she had to go and take Princess to school.  Yollie returned in a flash, hoping Sweetie would have come out and eaten her favourite treats.  Alas, she had not.  Yollie was beside herself now, with worry.

Not knowing what else to do, Yollie sang Sweetie's favourite song to her. Thankfully this did make her come out. Yollie took one look at my little kit and knew at once she was poorly.
Fearing the worst she rushed her inside - after a full body check and nothing obvious presenting itself, (She was free of wounds, immobility or obvious skeletal tenderness).  At this time all that was apparent was that Sweetie would not take food or water.  Yollie guessed gastric upset.  Sweetie flinched when light pressure was applied to her tummy, Yollie continued to monitor her, lightly massaging her tummy, encouraging her to eat and syringe feeding her water to flush her system.  

After 3hours had passed and Sweetie had not used the litter tray, Yollie was quite sure it was gastric.  She gave her pain medication and 2 &1/2 mls of apple and blackcurrant puree.  1hour later....  Sweetie (with much effort and strain and whimpering) passed the most awful, long and dry poop any of us had ever witnessed! 

So it seems her pooper tube was all blocked up.  Due to moulting and ingesting excess fur from all the grooming we bunnys do.

The next morning, a bright eyed and bushy tailed Sweetie once again!  And a red eyed, sleep deprived exhausted Yollie!
It is so important to act fast with us little bunnies.  This story has a happy ending, over a relatively short time line.  
That's not to say that Sweetie is completely out of the woods, but she is pooping normally and eagerly eating and drinking all her usual foods, so all signs are positive again.
We hope anyone reading this, understands how important it is to really understand and connect with your bunny. 
We will certainly tell you if something is wrong. Even though we don't have words or infact many sounds at all for that matter, it does not mean we won't let you know how we are feeling....  

So long as you are there to listen that is.
Take care and farewell from Angel Bun xoxoxox