# Holly and Llew's house of insanity



## maxysmummy (Jan 3, 2011)

So i decided it is time for me to make a blog. I think my rabbit related life is probably interesting enough now, haha.

Let me start from the beginning.

hi, my name is Holly. I am a 20 year old student, studying Law and Psychology. I used to hate animals... I mean, really hate. they used to scare me and gross me out. I think it was the trauma of losing pets as a kid? that was untill Llew suggested we get a rabbit. I became obsessed with the idea and eventually we bought our lovely Buster. Buster only lived with us 2 weeks, he died suddenly and horribly from terrible diarrhea. RIP.

ever since then I wanted another rabbit, but Llew was far too traumatised to let another one in. Buster was Llew's heart bunny.

eventually my nagging got the better of him and along came the rabbits:





Here is max, the love of my life, my 'heart bunny'. Llew often jokes that max was my husband in a past life. max is about 6 months old now and such a spoilt little brat. 





this is wolfgang. wolfgang hates human beings... and rabbits. he'd much prefer to run amok around outside than be anywhere near us. wolfgang is only a few days younger than max.





this is the love of my life, Llew. he is what started me onto this bunny obsession... i think he might regret that one a little, lol!

for the past 4 months that was my family.

happily pottering along with little to no excitement or drama





a few weeks ago i was looking on the website of an organisation that did rabbit rescues. They had a section on there for "rabbits on death row" (the organisation didn't have a shelter facility, just fostered animals out). I noticed that the two gorgeous rabbits were set to be executed at 4pm. I looked at the clock and i was only 3 hours late. I felt sick. it was honestly a feeling that haunts me to this day. When the website put the "new" bunnies up i seriously couldn't let it happen again. I didn't plan to have them forever, even if i could just save a few, take them home and find them NEW homes, i'd be happy.

The website had advertised 
Rabbit - Gray with white feet - sex: (blank) Picture to come
Huge Rabbit - Brown and white - sex: Male Picture to come

if both werent sold by "tender" (silent auction) 4pm New years eve 2010 they would be executed.

I called up a few times and asked them to call me back if they weren't sold and I would take them. Every time i received the same answer - call back at 4pm on the 31st of December 2010. 

finally new years eve came around. Llew and I were going to 2 separate parties and i left very early in the day (about 12pm). 

I'd spent the afternoon drinking by my friends pool, and by the time 4pm came around I'd become too nervous to call myself. I made Llew call up, and from what he recalls here is how the conversation went.
"Hi, we called a few times about rescuing the rabbits if no-one bought them, we were just wondering if they've been sold yet"
"no, neither of them have been sold"
"oh fantastic, well we will happily take them off your hands"
"not unless you put in a tender..."
(at this, llew was shocked. he told them we were going to be fostering them through sydney pet rescue and we thought they'd be happy we would take them off their hands so they didn't have to KILL THEM)
Llew decided to put in a tender of $5 per rabbit.
They told us the rabbits could be picked up on sunday and hung up.

slowly sunday pulled around and I was working from home so Llew went to pick up the rabbits.
to my delight, he bought home these 2 amazing specimins at around 1pm. (the relevance of the time will be made clear when you read further, haha)




The mini lop who Llew named Jemima. (i added the suffix of Puddleducks because i thought it suited her quite aptly). Llew fell into insta-obsession with Jemima. although he wont admit it, she is his heart bunny.

Llew also brought home a HUGE Flemmy (or some sort of heavily flemmish mix) who I named Barry Manilow. 




pictures don't do him justice... he is HUGGGGGE and has beautiful blue eyes.


So llew introduced me to the rabbits and i gave them a quick health check. As I was feeling around Jemimas stomach, something felt not right. I've never owned a female rabbit before, but as soon as i felt her belly i just KNEW. She was pregnant. I told llew and I'm not sure if he believed me fully, i'm massively obsessive and turn mountains into molehills.

Looking at Jemima it just felt all wrong. Her Dewlap was really large and her belly was HUGE but she was too skinny. you can feel her spine very easily. this further cemented into my mind that she was pregnant.

at about 3am I wake up with really really bad cramps. I went to the bathroom and Llew starts screaming at me from the other side of the house "HOLLY COME QUICK, SHE'S PULLING OUT FUR, YOU'RE RIGHT SHES GOING TO HAVE BABIES, THERE IS SO MUCH FUR IT LOOKS LIKE SHES GOT HER OWN TAIL IN HER MOUTH"

back from the bathroom i run and there is miss jemima making a nest. we tried to put a shoebox in there for her and she ignored it. we decided to just give her a buttload of hay and leave her too it.

We couldnt sleep all night and were watching her like a hawk. we covered her NIC pen in towels to give her some privacy but there was a small opening that we could see in.

at about 6.30 nothing had happened, just nestbuilding nest building nestbuilding. Llew convinces me to have a quick 1/2 hour kip. it's 6.45 and we set an alarm for 7.15.

surprise surprise 7.15 comes along and we wake up to miss Puddleducks sipping on her water and some little hairless sausages wiggling around in the nest.






arent they beautiful!

when we checked up on them last night we took this photo:




you can't see the markings very well from the picture, but it looks like there are 2 spotties, one charlie and one black one.

how very exciting!

I will keep you guys updated as their lives progress.


(the most amusing part of this for me is, in a 24 hour period we went from having 2 rabbits to 8...)


xoxo


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## maxysmummy (Jan 3, 2011)

ALSO: might i add, my hatred for "renbury farm" (the place where we got the buns) is overflowing.

firstly, the rabbits were absolutely COVERED in fleas. i'd never seen anything like it, it was heart breaking. surely after having them in your care for a few weeks you'd treat them for friggen fleas?!?!?

secondly, an animal rescue didn't even know what breeds the rabbits were. "rabbit" and "huge rabbit". It takes five minutes to use google to familliarise yourself with rabbit breeds available in aus. there are so few compared to the UK or the states its really not hard. especially such easily identifiable breeds as the FLEMISH GIANT and the MINI LOP...

thirdly, they didn't know Jemimas sex. not only that, they didn't know she was PREGNANT AND ABOUT TO GIVE BIRTH. i've never had a female rabbit and i could tell within 5 minutes. They were about to euthanize a heavily pregnant mother.

IT IS SICK.


I can't believe a place could actually HAVE such utter disregard for rabbits.

the rabbits were under the "stock" section. they sell stray cats and dogs for $250+ so obviously don't euthanise them because they are more profitable. heaven forbid a less profitable animal doesn't sell quickly, they kill it.


Llew is going to call them and abuse them at some point today.


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## Momto3boys (Jan 3, 2011)

Your blog is great! And I can't wait to see all the updated pics of the babies once they get bigger. How's the itty bitty one doing?


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## maxysmummy (Jan 3, 2011)

teensy baby looks ok, (as far as i can tell) all have been fed and are warm etc 

[flash=425,344]http://www.youtube.com/v/ALeSSXnNG1I&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]

here is one of them crawling on my hand! sooo adorable only about 25 hours old


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## Nancy McClelland (Jan 3, 2011)

Max looks just like our old man Ted and Wolfgang looks just like Charlene. The other bunnies are cute and the babies are adorable. Bunnies are definitely addictive--we used to do "rescue" and had 27 at one time. Shelter people are hit or miss with bunnies. We got Nik-Nik from the shelter where we used to live and the ad said, "mixed male mini"--she was sure one mixed male.


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## maxysmummy (Jan 3, 2011)

this rescue is the absolute pits.

i called the woman up to talk to her and make a complain but she was really dismissive. she was like "they are strays, do you expect us to give them all health checks?" and i was like "well perhaps a flea treatment would be nice"

then i yelled at her about jemima being pregnant and she was like "well how is it our fault if she was pregnant? how could we tell?" and i informed them that i could tell within five minutes and they shouldn't have sold a pregnant doe because with someone inexperienced she could have died during childbirth or something could have gone wrong.

then she was like "well if that happened we would give the person who bought her a refund of their money"
... i was in shock... i said "it's not about the money, it's about treating animals with dignity and respect"

she said something along the lines of "whatever" and when i told her i would be kicking up a big stink about this with the RSPCA etc she backtracked heavily and started appologising profusely and saying she would make sure the people in charge of the rabbits would take better care next time


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## maxysmummy (Jan 4, 2011)

Hey guys, got some pics of the kits close up (this was them at exactly 36 hours old) and my attempt to decode their coloring (i was doing some research on rabbit coloring earlier so i want to sound ultra smart :biggrin2::biggrin2





Runty - looks like he's most probably a broken ?





what looks like a charlie 





solid





broken


cuuuuute hey?

so, we noticed runtus wasnt being fed. i dont think mama was ignoring him i just think it was hard for him to compete with his siblings cause hes sooo small... so we bought some baby animal formula and tried to bottle feed him - epic fail. (lol)

but thanks to the amazing advice of 'iluvdutchrabbits" we got mama rab out of her pen, put her on the bed and then placed Runty underneath her. runty seemed to suckle untill his belly was full  we tried to keep him under there longer but he waddled away a few times so we assumed he wanted no more milky. 

will try this again in a few more hours just to catch him up on what he missed in the first few feedings.


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## maxysmummy (Jan 4, 2011)

P.s here is Buster. sorry it took so long for me to post the picture. i hate talking about him it makes me feel really really upset.


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## Momto3boys (Jan 4, 2011)

I'm glad you got the runt to eat...hopefully he continues to do well and Buster was beautiful, I wish our pets could stay with us forever.


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## maxysmummy (Jan 4, 2011)

the lil chitlens are squawking in the nest 

does anyone know for how long i'll have to do private feeds for runty ?
*
Momto3boys wrote: *


> I'm glad you got the runt to eat...hopefully he continues to do well and Buster was beautiful, I wish our pets could stay with us forever.


it's so sad he was only with us for such a short time. 2 weeks i had that little boy for... without him though, i never would have found my greatest passion - animals


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## maxysmummy (Jan 4, 2011)

hey guys, a few new updates:

we have organised for Barry Manilow to be neutered on MONDAY! wooohooo! his sprays were becoming unbearable, we've been using sooo much glen 20 to mask the smell and it honestly smells like a rotten corpse or something. the woooorst smell ever. 

I might ask the vet who does the neuter to clean his scent glands as well, do you think he will?

The sydney pet rescue organisation are incredible, they have organised me to get "desexing certificates" so that i don't have to pay for the desexing at all. just any post operative care like pain releif etc 

we've been continuing to give runty some assisted feedings, but i think mum may be regecting him? she kept moving away from us when we put him on her nipples and at one point she even stomped on him! (not sure if it was intentional or not?) he was ok though and we finally managed to get him to latch on for long enough to fill up his belly. mum loves to lick our hands while we are feeding runty is that just an instinct (she thinks its a good idea to lick anything pink and wriggly like her babies?) or does she like us?

We were originally not going to keep any of the fosters but llew has fallen deep deep in love with Jemima. he will sit around with her for hours just staring into her eyes. it's pretty amazing actually. 

here is a photo of one of the kits today - starting to get so much fur!






unfortunately runty isn't so lucky, still relatively hairless... hopefully he will soon catch up.


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## Momto3boys (Jan 5, 2011)

I'm pulling for runty....I can't believe the change in the babies already, WOW.


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## MiniLopHop (Jan 5, 2011)

oh my goodness the are all so cute! It is a good thing you are half way around the world or I may have had to snatch one of the babies when they were older 
I hope you follow up with the SPCA about this place, it sounds horrible. Do they need some sort of lisence to operate? If so, their bunny portion needs to be revoked! It makes me so angry that people treat animals this way, particularly such sweet and sensitive animals. I understand there is a population issue with rabbits in AU but that is still not excuse. :X
Good luck with your tiny one, I hope he makes it. You are a great person taking care of these babies.


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## maxysmummy (Jan 5, 2011)

to be honest i dont know if the RSPCA will do anything... i wish we had a more proactive less bureaucratic animal welfare group in australia... australian govt is so anti rabbit.*sigh*






this is runty having a snooze after one of his "special" feedings. tee hee










<3 


also, mamarabb has sore hocks. llew just noticed last night... probably from running around on concrete? *sigh*. i'm going to get some iodine tonight, any other suggestions for what i can use? would it be safe to use on a nursing mama? or should i just wait until she's done nursing?


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## Momto3boys (Jan 5, 2011)

Awwwww look at that runty cutie patootie :heartbeat: you can see his little fuzz....how sweet is that?!!

Mama is so beautiful...I wonder if she realizes how lucky she is. I don't know why but bag balm is coming to mind, I don't know why but I thought I remembered reading somewhere to put bag balm on sore hocks.


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## maxysmummy (Jan 6, 2011)

*Momto3boys wrote: *


> Awwwww look at that runty cutie patootie :heartbeat: you can see his little fuzz....how sweet is that?!!
> 
> Mama is so beautiful...I wonder if she realizes how lucky she is. I don't know why but bag balm is coming to mind, I don't know why but I thought I remembered reading somewhere to put bag balm on sore hocks.


hmm i can't seem to find any bag balm in australia? what is it? we have hemroid cream and betadine which i've read can help. 

how cute is runty, we've become so attatched! and his little whiskers are so thin and whispy he's like an old man <3

mama is very lucky, but i think we are probably luckier. i just have this eerie sense that it was "meant to be". everything just all seemed to fall into place and all seemed to happen just in the right moment. imagine if she gave birth the day before? bah i don't even want to think about what would have happened to the babies at that awful shelter. something about rabbit babies just makes you look at the world through rose tinted glasses.

I'm so ecstatic at the moment 

thanks everyone for reading by blog ray:


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## maxysmummy (Jan 15, 2011)

HEY guys, so a few updates, all the bunny eyes are now open!





llew fell asleep covered in bunnies





floppy eared rabby





first eyes open

and the piece de-resistance
[flash=425,344]http://www.youtube.com/v/bs9O2BW-GCQ&hl=en&fs=1[/flash]
SO CUTE


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## maxysmummy (Jan 15, 2011)

p.s





here is the awesome 4some


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## Momto3boys (Jan 15, 2011)

OMG OMG OMG they are freakin CUTE.....

I would have to keep them all, ohhhhh please send that chocolate my way :heartbeat:


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## MiniLopHop (Jan 16, 2011)

They are too cute!!! I wonder if I flew to AU if I could hide one in my pocket on the way home? LOL Are you happy to see me? No, it's just a rabbit in my pocket! 
inkelepht:


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## SOOOSKA (Jan 21, 2011)

Holly what a great blog. 

You and your boyfriend are angels. You can see the love for the bunnies in both of you when you are with the bunnies.

They are so cute.

I always wanted to have babes in the house, but that never happened.

I'll enjoy watching all the babies on here.

Looking forward to more pictures of the cuties.

Susan


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## Nancy McClelland (Jan 21, 2011)

Those babies are just way too cute.


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## maxysmummy (Jan 21, 2011)

GUYS! I have great news! 

A woman called called Cindy came in today to meet Barry and we could just TELL she was perfect - she worked for WIRES (a native animal rescue group in australia) and she was getting the rabbit for her son.... luckily her son is 22 years old 

they both just loved barry and even though they saw the little baby rabbits she was like "i much prefer to take the older large rabbit because I know he will be a lot harder to re-home than the tiny babies".

So sad to see barry go but so happy he will be part of a family


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## MiniLopHop (Jan 24, 2011)

Congratulations on finding a good home for Barry! It's hard to see them go, but it is wonderful when you know they will have a happy home.

Any new pictures of the babies?


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## mistyjr (Jan 27, 2011)

Looks like you have a Black Tort, A broken Black and 2 Blacks.


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## Nela (Feb 17, 2011)

Congrats on Barry finding a home! I hope all is well with you guys.


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