Here's Lucy's story....My husband, Craig, had been looking at these Flemish Giant bunnies online for a little while. They are known as the most gentle breed of bunnies, and grow to be upwards of 20 lbs.
He found a breeder in Wewahitchka, FL, about an hour and a half from here, past and north of Panama City...kinda like you're going to Appalachicola. He spoke with her over the phone and set up the sale.
We traveled there a little over two weeks ago, and I mean, it was out in the boonies!! If we didn't have a GPS, I don't know how we would have found it!
The lady also raises Alpacas...they are kind of like Llamas. She has them for their coats.
Anyway, we get there to their double wide, and the place is pretty nasty...she also raises some rare chickens. They tell us we are the first people who have been to their place in three weeks....????
The bunnies look healthy, but I feel sorry for them because of the size of the adults, and the cages they are in.
So she gives us our bunny, and we are ready to get her out of there, and to her new, wonderful home!
The next day, I name her Lucy, and I take her to meet some of my friends..all who loved her! She was so stinking cute!! This one place I take her there is a lady I don't know...who wants to see if her daughter can pet her. So I sit down on the floor with her and her daughter, and we are petting her. The lady asks what is the bump on her hind end, above her tail...around her haunches. Well, not knowing this large breed, I figure it's just how she is, or maybe she is sitting on one haunch, making it poke out.
In the meantime, I feed her twice a day, sitting in the large pen---not cage---we have for her outside. She comes and sits in my lap every day. So unlike any of the other three bunnies I have had in the past!
So Thursday evening, after we feed the dogs, Craig notices a bump on her right end, and tells me about it.
I pick her up, and see that it is an opening, with an excretion, kind of like toothpaste color and substance. Come to find out, it is an abscess that has burst. So we have surgery to remove the capsule that the abscess is in. But the infection has apparently moved into Lucy's blood stream, and that is what kills her.
She left the breeder with that abscess, though it hadn't burst. Had she felt the bunny over, she would have found it. I didn't know to do that. I had never seen the breed before. When I emailed the breeder, she said she had never seen a bunny have an abscess. The vet found that hard to believe!
We only had her two weeks, like I mentioned, but we loved her and she loved us, and the Newfoundlands really loved her...especially Zach, who would sit beside her fenced area, and whine to her, like he wanted to play with her.
Note to anyone who wants a bunny...especially a Flemish Giant...make sure you find a responsible breeder...one who is registered--like with the National Federation of Flemish Giant Rabbit Breeders and has purebred bunnies.
We are in talks now with such a breeder between Ocala and Gainesville. We are looking at a sandy color little girl, and hope to have her in a couple of weeks...because once you have a Flemish Giant, you will never have another breed of bunny.
No comments:
Post a Comment