MMA Training Routine

Hoppin' Circle - March Wrap up

At Home Pets tackles the tough topic of spaying/neutering rabbits.

The Kelfla Project explains how she values a group effort in her goal of beating the standard.

Fuzzibutt's Rabbitry makes her wrap up debut with a post about how her rabbitry was in the news!

The Nature Trail plays 'Hide and Seek' with a pair of Polish babies.

Who Says Rabbits Lack Personality and Spunk?

an interesting article you may like to read.

who says rabbits lack personality and spunk?

Clips from the article follow

One of the biggest general misconceptions about rabbits is that they just sit there in the cage gnawing on stuff — like great, big hamsters — and don’t do anything interesting all day.

“Admittedly, I was one of those people who thought rabbits were bereft of personality,” says Shaun T. Gorman, an engineering consultant who’s been living with house rabbits for about seven years. “I figured that as animals of prey, their short life spans short-circuited any hereditary ‘personality’ traits and left them with a pretty basic eat-sleep-poop-survive life structure.” He continues, “Ahh, I know differently now — they are little people, with huge ears and lots of body hair.”
NOTE: I would NEVER characterize bunnies as being people..little or otherwise. It diminishes what they are. Rabbits are very individualistic and have their own way of looking at the world. Calling them people removes what they in actuality are. BUT the fact that they are quite different I thought was worth pointing out in this article.

She notes that many people try to play with a rabbit too quickly after the animal arrives, which can often frighten a rabbit even more. “This is a prey species that takes a while to settle down and learn that you are not a predator,” she says. “The best way you can convince the animal that you are not a predator is to stop acting like one — you want to be laid-back and let your rabbit come to you.”
I have learned that with MOST rabbits, give them about three weeks to settle down and the bunny is yours. BUT do play with your bunny. Get it used to your scent, your mannerisms, and your household noises. DO NOT just wait for the bunny as that's giving a lot of power to a bunny with a very small brain :) but do take into account that calm, quiet people de-stress rabbits quicker than boisterous noisy ones. :)

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Yesterday I planted

my rabbit garden.

Complete with dandelions, greater plantain, lesser plantain, chicory, chickweed, and queen anne's lace.   i also planted some wild lettuce out front.

I transplanted all the parsley into the rabbit garden as well. We can eat from it, but most of it goes to the rabbits simply because we have too much of it. :)   It's an excellent standby for the rabbits.   So hopefully that will get going soon.

Last fall I had taken some prickly lettuce seed and planted that, as well as moving a couple of mature plants I had.    This will serve the bunnies well I think. Particularly if I can get it growing well by say July when we take our holidays. This will make it easier for my bunny people to give the rabbits greens every other day. (at least thats my hope!). :)

When it's growing well I'll need to put a picture in. :)

For now it is looking something like this only bigger.

A few growing plants and mostly dirt.

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Malocclusion in Rabbits

pic of a jersey woolie, that with two teeth clippings

the tooth issue went away.

pic from Fuzzy Patch rabbitry.

Rabbit teeth keep growing throughout its whole life. It takes a lot of daily chewing and gnawing to keep them worn down to usable lengths

Malocclusion in Rabbits is something to be concerned about

Causes of Malocclusion

There are several main causes of Malocclusion in rabbits.

· Hereditary/Genetic. Malocclusion is a hereditary disease that is passed on to the young from adult rabbits that also have the disorder. Malocclusion is due to an autosomal recessive trait with incomplete penetrance. Rabbits with malocclusion should not be bred and spaying or neutering is highly recommended for any rabbit that has been diagnosed with malocclusion.

· Face or head trauma. Trauma to the mouth can also cause the teeth to become misaligned which will result in the teeth not grinding down correctly. This is often caused by bunnies pulling on the wire of their cages and so pulling their teeth out of alignment. Most breeders know if they have a ‘wire puller’ in the shed and take precautions to stop them doing it!

· Poor breeding or malnourishment of the doe or young babies. It can occur as a result of calcium deficiency which leads to osteomalacia of the jaw which allows the tooth to move in it’s socket.

· Bacterial infections. Bacterial infections can cause teeth to grow in odd directions.

· Unsuitable diet. Many rabbit owners think that feeding the well promoted commercial mixes from leading food manufacturers is enough. They may be‘nutritionally balanced’, but they do not take into account a number of very important factors including the eating pattern of rabbits in the wild, the problems of selective eating, and the lack of abrasive material found naturally in grass.

Signs of a problem

The most obvious symptom is overgrown teeth but where this isn’t obvious or hasn’t been picked up the following symptoms can also point to malocclusion:

Abbesses in the mouth or jaw
Drooling – this can also lead to dermatitis on the chin and chest which becomes itchy and can lead to fur pulling (see below)
Fur pulling – this can also be a symptom of a number of other things as well but the most common cause (assuming your bun isn’t pregnant as does pull fur for their nesting boxes) is malocclusion.
A swollen jaw
Pawing at the mouth
Sudden drop in weight (due to bun not being able to eat)

Treatment
- The treatment for malocclusion is having the teeth trimmed every four to six weeks.
I have to admit, I don't understand the trimming every 4-6 weeks. Why? I rescued a rabbit once that apparently had just had it's teeth done the week before, and the person was told to come back in 3-4 weeks. In that week the rabbits teeth were so badly curled it could not eat. So in essence it would starve for the next three weeks until it's next appointment. Can't see that as being good for the rabbit can you?

some helpful articles;

Raising rabbits.com has this one on Rabbit teeth.
- adult onset due to dietary problems, juvenile, wire pullers, jaw breakage - these are all causes.

Rabbit Teeth Issue Survey.
- conclusion that not a lot of differences between rabbit breeds, tend to affect about 1.3% of the rabbit population.

Merck Manual - Dental Malocclusion.
- Malocclusion (mandibular prognathism, brachygnathism) probably is the most common inherited disease in rabbits and leads to overgrowth of incisors with resultant difficulty in eating and drinking.

Malocclusion. by the Australian National Rabbit Council.
- Malocclusion,also referred to as buck' teeth or wolf' teeth, is a dental disease that is common in domesticated rabbits. Typically the teeth do not align correctly resulting in such ailments as overgrowth of teeth, sharp spurs on the molars, and curling of the incisors. Immediate treatment is required to ensure the continued health and happiness of your pet rabbit.

This picture courtesy of www.firesmurf.webs.com

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Nail Trims and What Not

So yesterday I trimmed the nails of all the adult bunnies. I do this every 4-6 weeks. I find it interesting how some rabbits nails grow so very very fast, and others it seems like they don't need to be clipped. Makes me curious as to what makes the difference.

I train my babies from the time they are young that they sit for three feet to be done, and then I sit them on their bums for the last one. Training them takes the angst out of the nail trims for them. I started doing this after I purchased a variety of buns who would TOTALLY freak out when I would trim their nails and thought to myself.. I don't want other people thinking I've got nutty rabbits or that I never do nail trims so let's get them used to this idea. I HATE stressing rabbits out unnecessarily and nail trim stress is unnecessary in my opinion.

For some reason this time Vivian took extreme exception to me trimming her nails and I'm not sure why.... it was like she was some stranger rabbit. Usually Vive lets me do anything I want. She's a very goofy rabbit. So it rather surprised me. We both survived the experience with no damage. Perhaps it was because I used different clippers this time and she is a sensitive to noise rabbit. Silly beastie. :)

Everyone else was a trooper.

I managed to get German outside on the grass yesterday without him being this total nervous Nellie. he was such a good boy and so thoroughly enjoyed himself. Very nice to see this in him. Even German did well with nail trims...he's an easily stressed rabbit and all he did was moan at me. Must have been a relaxing day on the lawn for him. :)

Shade certainly seemed to like being outside too. :) I may put them both outside again today...might was well reward good solid behaviour right? Though it was funny.. normally when I put the rabbits out the girls will dig holes and the boys will just thump and look around and munch on grass. I put Shade out and he immediately started to dig a hole and it's like "HEY SHADE! girls dig boys don't!" Made my six year old son giggle at him. :)

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