Bunny Profile: Herman!

Name: Herman
Nickname: ‘Shmellow, ‘Shmel (short for Marshmellow)
Gender: male (neutered of course!)
Color: Albino, white with pink eyes
Size: Medium, 7lb range
Identifying characteristics: Scar on right ear, tiny scar on nose
Behavior: Super friendly, active and curious
Other info: He’s a biter! Some people confuse all biting with aggression, but super friendly and intelligent bunnies like Herman actually use it as a form of communication. Herman has bitten me to tell me all sorts of things: scratch my head, clean my pen, hurry up with that parsley! Bunny communication bites are quick little nips, and rarely break the skin. Doesn’t mean they don’t hurt though! We are working with Herman to teach him better ways to communicate.

Herman’s story:
This guy is, I have to admit, one of my favorites. Of course Dave says they are all my favorites. But Herman is special, even among favorites. He’s a truly dominant animal, which can be both a thrilling and a frightening thing to see. When he first arrived with the first group of Bunny Bunch buns, his demeanor was different from all the little buns hunched terrified in their carriers. He was stretched out, so chilled I had to keep checking to make sure he was alive! Unlike the other buns, he was unflappable from the start. Didn’t mind being handled, and would always be the first to come greet me when I entered the rabbitat, even if I was carrying something scaaaary like a bale of hay. The control he had over the other rabbits from the start was impressive to watch. If one was out of line or fighting with another bunny, a quick nip from Herman would put a stop to it. He was a calm and benevolent leader.

However, someone, I never did find out who, decided he wasn’t comfortable with Herman in that role. I came out one day and Herman didn’t greet me, so I knew something was wrong. I found him sitting forlornly in a corner facing the wall, with a bloody ear and a few other bites. He went right to the vets and it was determined that he’d be fine, but he had to stay inside while his injuries healed, and when he was brought back out to the rabbitat he was not received as warmly as I’d hoped. He spent most of his time alone and eventually got chomped again and brought back in. He’s still inside today, but I’m thinking of trying him out there one more time, along with a large group of other buns who’ve been sick recently and need to go back out. (I’ve had tons more success moving larger groups out there at once, especially when the move coincides with layout changes and lots of new goodies in the rabbitat, which will be happening when we finish winterizing the rabbitat on the next nice day.)

I’m hopeful and optimistic that Herman will be allowed back in. No bunny has stepped up to really replace him. They have their head buns, but not one true leader as far as I can tell. And he is bored inside. The dynamic in the rabbitat has changed as well, since we discovered the boys who missed being neutered and had them done. So Herman may get his chance to lead again. I hope he will!

Back to blogging!

As you can see, I’ve sadly neglected this blog, but the bunny rescue is still going strong! We’re getting to the point now where we’ll be ready to start doing adoptions, so I figured I should bring you all up to date. As of now, we have 63 bunnies at Serenity Now Ranch. We had quite a bit of illness and injury this fall, more than I’ve seen yet, so a larger-than-ever-before number of bunnies are living inside. I hope to introduce many of them back into the rabbitat later this week if the weather is as nice as they’re predicting.

Of the original 59 Bunny Bunch rabbits, we have sadly lost two. Teddy, who was my adventurous little hero, broke his back and was paralyzed. I have no idea how it happened; I found him like that one morning shortly after he was reintroduced to the group following his neuter. He may have been fighting, though he was never much of a fighter even in the months before we discovered he’d been missed for neuter surgery. Or he may have been climbing, as he loved to do, and slipped. Once I’d discovered how adventurous he was (this was the little man who climbed out of a three-and-a-half foot pen…the sight of those ears under the red heat lamp when he jumped out of the pen as I was approaching the rabbitat is one of my strongest memories of him, and of the early days in the rabbitat) I’d made sure to remove anything that seemed like it would be a danger to him. But bunnies, like kids, can hurt themselves in ways you’d never anticipate. The vet determined his spine was irreparably severed, and suggested immediate euthanasia. I wanted to give him a chance…I know disabled bunnies can live fulfilling lives, and in fact have two who are right now. But Teddy was not one to be confined, and his inability to move on his own absolutely destroyed his little spirit. I decided I was only keeping him alive for me…it was selfish…and Dave and I made the hard choice to let him go. I still miss him every day, but I know I did the right thing for him.

The other little one who we lost was Bumble. Like Teddy, he was an adventurer, but that was not what caused his death. Bumble was a little more of an independent bun, so I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing him as well as I knew Teddy, but it was always such a joy to see him sitting on the ledge in the rabbitat. I could see him from the house. I haven’t seen a bunny up there since his death. I found Bumble on Thanksgiving morning last year. It was horrible. We ended up canceling all of our plans for the day and just sitting around crying. I felt like it must have been my fault that he died. I’d hit my head badly the day before, and so Dave did evening bunny chores for me. I’m still not sure that I wouldn’t have noticed something that Dave didn’t, (he’s awesome with the buns but doesn’t know them as well as I do, so isn’t as likely to notice if someone is slightly “off”) and possibly been able to help little Bumble. We had a necropsy done, and it showed two large internal abscesses which caused his death. The chances of me being able to save him even if I’d known would probably be fairly poor, but I still wish I’d had the chance, and that if he had to go it wouldn’t have been alone in the rain.

Wow, I meant this as a happy update, and it’s turned into a really sad post. I’ll be posting daily from now on though, keeping you updated on how everyone is doing. By far the happy news has outweighed the sad. These two losses from the Bunny Bunch rabbits, plus our little Almond who died during spay surgery shortly after the first of the Bunny Bunch crew arrived (I’ll do a separate post on her at a later date…I just can’t talk about this stuff anymore right now) are really a small proportion of the bunnies who have been helped and treated. But of course there are times when it’s hard not to focus on the ones who have gone.

Happier news tomorrow!