# Ren's WILDlife 2011



## RandomWiktor (Feb 20, 2011)

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.


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## Happi Bun (Feb 20, 2011)

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!


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## JadeIcing (Feb 20, 2011)

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


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 20, 2011)

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


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 21, 2011)

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.


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## JadeIcing (Feb 21, 2011)

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


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 22, 2011)

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.


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 22, 2011)

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!


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## JadeIcing (Feb 22, 2011)

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


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## Dragonrain (Feb 22, 2011)

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.


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## Myia09 (Feb 22, 2011)

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.


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 22, 2011)

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.


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## JadeIcing (Feb 22, 2011)

Hes cute.


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## Nela (Feb 23, 2011)

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!


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 23, 2011)

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.


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 23, 2011)

XD He's so sweet.


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## JadeIcing (Feb 23, 2011)

That is awesome news.


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## Nela (Feb 24, 2011)

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


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## Dragonrain (Feb 24, 2011)

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


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## Myia09 (Feb 24, 2011)

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


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 25, 2011)

It isn't just grumpy old men who will tell you this: no good deed goes unpunished. Ok, my husband says that I *am* a grumpy old man, but that's beside the point.

Things with the rescued dog, Hotch, have been going great. He's sweet, he's friendly, he's pretty mannerly for an unsocialized dog, and I'm really enjoying caring for and working with him. The catch? The other dogs are not loving an un-neutered male in the house. We are keeping the dogs seperated, but yesterday our little devil dog Toki managed to _jump a 6ft fence_ to attack Hotch while I walked him out front. The poor guy didn't know what hit him; he was instantly reduced to a spinning, cowering, screaming heap of pathetic.  Thankfully, he was unhurt and didn't fight back so Toki wasn't either.

I'm impressed that a tiny dog like her can jump that high but _[email protected]!_ Now that she knows she can get over the fence, she is making it a point to do so because she gets some kind of bizzare joy out of jumping over things. Which means we need to, at the very least, put an extra foot or so of something along the top of the fence. My vote is razor wire at this point; she drives me NUTS! Ok, frustrated Ren speaking, but seriously... this stinks. It is not going to be cheap to "enhance" an entire acre worth of fencing. Training would be cheaper, but if her other training is any indication: she will behave while you're standing there and misbehave the moment you turn your back. We can't risk her getting out when we're not home to supervise.

The joys of having pets, huh?

Speaking of which... it is presently 6am. I have been up since 4:30. Why, you ask? Well, now that he's on de-wormer, Hotch is passing a lot of gross wormy poop. And that is making him need to go out more often. So at 4:30 this morning I heard a very eerie howling, which is apparently the sound of a hound who is about to let loose all over his cage. Of course, him howling set off the other three dogs in the house in a frenzy of territorial barking. Goody!


My life isn't all a series of canine conundrums, however. Today is "muck-out" day in Lucy's outdoor digs. Lucy, being a flemmie, is a big bunny who makes a lot of BIG POOP. This is somewhat to our advantage. Her outdoor playspace is an old Tegu pen, and like most old Tegu pens, it is void of any vegetation from the burrowing proclivities of the species. I am trying to get grass growing in there, and one thing that is helping? Well, once or twice a week I go out and simply till under all of Lucy's feces. It's starting to make for really rich, nice looking soil. I'm encouraged!

I will post more small critter updates later. Right now I might hazard sneaking back into bed. This is one of my few days off, and dangit, I shouldn't have to get up at my typical 4am workday time!


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## Myia09 (Feb 25, 2011)

Wow! Crap I think I would consider the barbed wire too lol! 
Can you make it slant? Or do you think she would just use it to slide off? There are those noise "Fences" too that let out the high pitch sound as well? Those might be costly though.

At least he is barking to be let out right?! Haha.


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## RandomWiktor (Feb 25, 2011)

I got the 'ol camera out today and took a few photos of the critters  So this is going to be an unsubstantial but hopefully cute post.






First, this is Stargazer, the special needs crag lizard baby I mentioned earlier. I'm happy to say that with coaxing he can be hand fed, which is great for his prospects. He's also learning to navigate his enclosure, albiet with some spinning and getting stuck in corners. I'm planning to tile it soon so it holds heat better for him.





Wartortle (sigh, why do I let Steve name things??) is settling in well. The first two days he mostly hid and didn't want to eat so we were worried, but I put some mango and strawberry in his meal one afternoon and he's been VERY happy to come out since then!





Our Iguana zule is getting very big and we've modified one of the enclosures on the property for him. It's HUGE. He's going to love it  





Hotch out on a walk today. He is being a very good boy so far, though he seems to have some seperation anxiety about me according to Steve; every time I went out back to work on things today, he apparently got very antsy and started whining.





Bad photo but, this is my knight anole's enclosure. I got him a couple of months ago; a really REALLY bad local exotics place was going out of business and was trying to sell off the animals. Though I loathed to give them any money at all, I got him and a schneider's skink for $10 - I figure they're out of business and the money won't be going towards buying more animals at least. The skink sadly was SO badly parasitized that he didn't survive. The anole was equally emaciated and parasitized, but responded well to treatment and is thriving in his new digs.





Another bad photo. This is Mrs. Weebles, a rescued mouse with a neurological disorder. She was cleared for any infection or inner ear causes of her persistent head wobble and occasional spinning; vet suspects an injury or congenital defect.

Finally... silly dog photo time!





















You'll have to forgive Sophie's coat - she is blowing her winter coat right now. Being part chow means that she sheds enough fur to make a new dog twice a year, and no matter how much I brush it, there's always more odd tufts and loose hair five minutes later.


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## JadeIcing (Feb 25, 2011)

Aww I want to steal half your critters.


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## Myia09 (Feb 25, 2011)

Haha Sophie's picture cracked me up!!!


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## RandomWiktor (Mar 1, 2011)

Number one thing I'm liking about Alabama right now: for the past two weeks, it hasn't been less than 70 degrees out. Yeah, in February! There's flowers blooming all over our property, birds singing, and yesterday I saw the first frog of the season! It's also a little daunting/terrifying though, because it means we soon need to go about uncovering all of our brumating business animals. I'm totally panicked that something horrible will have happened and they all died over the winter, even though it's totally irrational to think so with Bert having raised them this way for the past 30 years.

I'm just hoping it doesn't hit 85 degrees too soon, as we're still not 100% restored, feeder-colony wise. I'm ordering more roaches today. We HAD a huge colony going but freaking mice got into it and ate most of them. SO frustrating. We've moved the colonies out of the barn and into the basement where we can monitor better, but I'm totally tearing my hair out about this. Last year we ran out of feeders because the people previously running the place were planning to sell off all stock seperate from the business, so they hadn't been keeping up their colonies. It was SO EXPENSIVE to buy food for this many lizards, even ordering bulk, so I don't want another year like that. As it is, we're going through about 8,000 crickets and 1,000 superworms a month for the few business animals that aren't brumating.

Having an animal related business when you love animals is truly a double edged sword. And I'm not even anything official in the company as I do not really like being involved in the selling of animals. However, I am in charge of the healthcare and nutrition, and those are probably two of the hardest parts; I need to fret over feeding everyone, and take care of the ones that are sickly. It is emotionally taxing and anxiety producing on an astronomical scale.

On the brighter side of things, the warmer weather means our local grocery has more produce available, which means more FREE produce for us. For a while all we were really getting was cabbage leaves, so I had to do a lot of buying for our own animals. Lately, however, there have been plenty of nice collared greens, mustard greens, peaches, plums, etc. and even the occasional canteloupe. Also, tomatoes, which the monkey tailed skinks love. So at the very least my produce bill is steadily declining, and that's always good.

The bunnies benefit from all of this free produce, for certain. Before I had to somewhat limit their leafy greens because it was just so expensive. Now, I can divy up a whole bunch of greens between the three of them, and they LOVE it. The occasional nibble of peach isn't turned down either. And soon, there will be tons of dandelion greens outside for the picking. If only bunnies could eat Daffodils; our yard is COVERED in them.

I think I'll be going on a toy making spree soon. We need to clean out our back room, where all the toy making materials are presently stored, because we need to move out the old washing machine and get Steve's up and running (no offense, rickety old barely functional washer that came with the house). Doing so will require moving a lot of heavy stacking bins full of toy supplies, so I plan to lighten the load and celebrate the good weather by making a bunch of fun things for the bunnies, birds, and rodents. I'm sure you'll see pictures. 

If I remember later, I'll post some of the nice flowers growing all over our property.


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## JadeIcing (Mar 1, 2011)

GAH! I wish I was closer would so love to go help out.


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## RandomWiktor (Mar 14, 2011)

Wow, it's been a busy few weeks. I feel like I haven't updated in ages!

I have some big news to start with: Steve's sister Courtney had her babies! This is kindof a huge deal, because a few months ago we didn't think EITHER baby was going to survive - and instead we have two beautiful, healthy nieces!

Courtney, for those who didn't see my other posts on this matter, got pregnant with twins via in vitro fertilization after months of hormone shots and egg harvesting and failures at AI. She has very few eggs and the expenses of successfully getting pregnant quickly became astronomical, so we all knew that if these two didn't survive, she probably wouldn't be able to try again. So we were obviously devastated when early in the pregnancy, one baby's amniotic sac ruptured. The majority of the time, you lose the baby and in the case of twins possibly both. However, Courtney was the rare case where the sac healed enough that the baby's lung development was not hindered. Despite this, there was still a huge risk of infection and miscarriage. She had to see a doctor every few days to monitor her and the babies.

If that wasn't bad enough, she developed a dangerous and potentially damaging liver condition as the scheduled c-section date (they wanted to remove them early, but as late as possible - kindof a balance between their development and the safety of the pregnancy) that can cause miscarriage and hemmorage. And just ten days before the c-section date, her bloodpressure shot up and couldn't be controlled - emergency c-section time!

The girls are tiny, one a scootch over 4lbs and one a scootch under. However, they are doing AWESOME so far and one might even be able to go home at the end of the week. Allow me to introduce Caroline and Lilly, my nieces!





Caroline @ 3 days old





Lilly @ 3 days old

I didn't post newborn pics because they were all covered with IVs and breathing tubes and such.

And here's the proud moms!





Courtney with Lilly





Marie with Caroline.


In addition to babies entering our family, Hotch's (the stray) ability to have babies is now gone. He had the big snip on the 8th and is recovering beautifully. Once he gets his stitches out on the 18th, I'm going to start taking him out among the public as well as getting him used to our dogs. He is going to need a lot of work; he's a VERY skittish dog, and the tiniest thing can throw him into a wild panic. But, he is pretty happy in the house with us:







... I have a lot of other updates but I want to wait until I have some photos for the rest of it


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## JadeIcing (Mar 14, 2011)

Pure perfection with those girls.


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## RandomWiktor (Apr 2, 2011)

Sorry that it's been a while since my last update, folks. Things have been very busy as always here, and frankly I've been a touch depressed over some family issues that I'm not going to sully the otherwise upbeat nature of this entry with.

First, bunny updates! I am happy to report that I have found a simple solution to Wendy's absolutel refusal to eat hay. I'll preface this by reminding everyone that Wendy has cancer and it has been very hard to keep weight on her. So hard that I had to feed her about a cup of pellets a day, which with her refusal to eat hay was causing her to have potty problems. Not to mention it was racking up an unreasonable food bill for yours truly - what I feed isn't cheap! Hoping to find a more reasonable solution, I stumbled upon 100% compressed timothy pellets intended for feeding horses. Timothy hay is the ONLY ingredient, and they're just like the little compressed timothy pellets you can buy as bunny treats but they're 40# for $10 instead of a little 2.5# bag for about $5. I tried them out and - hooray! - Wendy LOVES them. This has improved her feces AND allowed me to cut back her feed to a healthier level for a bunny of her size, and she's not only keeping weight on but gained a tiny bit! And Lucy & Thanator like them as well for a treat, though they're both great little hay eaters.

Part of her improved body condition may also be that the spring weather here has resulted in a massive abundance of weeds and edible flowers, and since our lawnmower is presently broken, our property overfloweth. I've been giving the bunnies a ton of fresh grasses and greens from outside, and they are just on cloud 9 about it. In fact, everyone is benefitting; the tortoises, uromastyx, and other herbivorous pets are loving the nutrient rich fresh greens as well. I wish it was this weedy year 'round!

I also took a leap of faith and completely changed the downstairs set-up for Wendy and Thanator. I have traditionally always bedded by bunnies on feed hay. Hay isn't cheap to buy week by week and in the very damp south, I've been having trouble storing it in a way that it doesn't go moldy. What's more, when my schedule being pretty much ridiculous, it is hard to find the time for the time and labor intensive weekly major cleaning of the bunnies, which resulted in either waking up at unreasonable hours of the morning to get the job done, or it having to be put off a day or two until a day off from work which I HATED. So... my bunnies are now on fleece with litter boxes and I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner! It's SO much easier and both of them took to the litter boxes like champs right away. I just do a quick sweep for stray poos, empty the litter box every other day, and wash the fleece as needed. Awesome!

Sorry for the crappy picture, my basement's lighting is less than spectacular.






I need to get them new hide boxes though, hopefully today. They both decided to have pee pee parties on them at some point, so when I did my big overhaul I chucked them. Hopefully they don't take to going potty in their houses though - maybe I'll put the houses in the center of the cage so they are less tempted.

In non-bunny news, my stray pup Hotchner is neutered, up to date on his shots, a good weight... and still waiting for a chance to be put up for adoption via the rescue in my area. They are very overloaded so it's taking longer than anticipated. He's currently enjoying the company of our other dogs, who took to him immediately. I need to do more training work with him though, as he's got a jumping and mouthiness issue (often simultaneously, haha)that needs to be corrected. But overall he's a great dog.

I wound up taking in two chicks from Tractor Supply Co recently. I went in to buyhardware cloth to build a new chicken coop for my birds (long story), and one of the first things I saw upon entering a store was a chick flipped on her back totally submerged in a waterer! It looked like she was dead but I pulled her out just in case, only to have her weakly struggle. I flipped her over and held her at an angle so her lungs could drain, patting her back. She coughed up a massive ammount of water and was weak and cold, so I asked the employee there if I could take her home as she would doubtless need to be on antibiotics for aspiration pneumonia. He agreed and asked if I wanted a second chick, a bantam with a bad case of spraddle leg, and I agreed figuring they could be buddies. Unfortunately it didn't quite turn out that way - aspiration chick is a MAJOR bully. But, they are both recovering well and yesterday the spraddle chick had her leg bindings removed and seems able to walk normally.

Photos:





Primula Brandycluck, the chick who nearly drowned. 





Eglantine Chook, the spraddle chick.





Her corrective braces





After removal yesterday. I'm leaving the little "cuffs" on for now, until I'm sure they won't need to be re-bound, as they were a pain to get to a safe tightness.

I probably have more news/updates but that's all for now folks


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## JadeIcing (Apr 2, 2011)

Nice update. You ever need to chat I'm here.


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## RandomWiktor (Apr 3, 2011)

I've been mulling over what to get for the bunnies for hiding boxes. I don't really have time to build a wooden one, and the cardboard ones tend to attract urination and chewing - which means a lot of replacing and eventually resorting to buying boxes if you can't FIND them. Most commercial rabbit hiding boxes are either on the small side, or on the very expensive side. I was starting to feel hopeless then remembered something I used to use back home when I brought the buns out to play in the kitchen - kitty play cubes! 






At about $3 it's no huge loss if it has to be tossed out, but it can be cleaned with soap and water if need be. It is spacious, has multiple exit holes, and the flexible top tends to discourage the rabbits from standing on it and using it to jump out of their pens. 

I put them in last night and the bunnies are LOVING it. Especially Wendy, who has always preferred having a hiding place (Thanator could honestly care less). I need to get a picture of them in their cubes - it's so cute!


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## Myia09 (Apr 3, 2011)

Those braces! I feel bad for thinking it is so adorable! I hope she gets well! Love the new bunny set ups!

I have a tunnel for the bunnies made out of the same material they love!


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## JadeIcing (Apr 7, 2011)

I have several of those.


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## Ameliasaur (Aug 7, 2011)

You have a wonderful blog.
My boyfriend would be totally jealous of you & your husband if he knew the type of animals you guys have. He's a reptile guy.
I'll probably show him your blog later. 

Also, his grandma bought our cat a play cube, but I think the bunny likes it better.


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