Blue R30/17

Blue R30/17

blue17
Blue with us 2017-2021

Blue was a black and white mini-lop doe born in 2017 who arrived at the end of October 2017. Her mother or grandmother or great grandmother had been bought with a buck by someone who was told the pair were the same sex. Because of this mistake Rosie had litter after litter with her sons fathering further litters after the original buck died. We took her and four of her variously aged offspring including Blue from one cage and another three from a different cage from a person who had been evicted. The rabbits indoor cages had been stuck into an outdoor bin cupboard with the doors against the back wall so they had to be dismantled to get them out. They had no food or water or bedding or shelter, just each other and the weather was very cold and they had no warm coats as they had been indoors previously.  The only reason there weren’t more babies was that there were no adult males left, by luck rather than design. Some having been given away, others having died. There were two young males in the cage, Skipper and Papillon, but they were too young to have impregnated Poppy or Rosie. Blue was too young to have become pregnant anyway. Skipper is probably from the same litter as Blue but Papillon appears to be a month or two older.

Blue and her mother and grandmother or her mother and sister or aunt or whatever relation they were to each other  livel in our nice big chicken shed with a lovely big attached run and greatly appreciated having the space to run around and play. Sadly in April 2018 first Poppy and the Rosie suddenly died. In hind sight we think a fox must have frightened them into dying of shock but at the time we suspected RHD and had a few nasty weeks while we isolated Blue and vaccinated as many rabbits as possible. After that threat was lifted we bonded Blue into a big group so she lived with five other rabbits in one of our biggest sheds and seemed extremely happy for a while. Unfortuneately her hormones seem to have a rather extreme effect on her and she became very agressive with the other rabbits, charging them and chasing them. She is only a little rabbit but she managed to intimidate all of them even the giant Minerva. I was afraid one of them would injure themselves running away from her and so removed her from the group. She has spent a week in the naughty corner in the barn hopefully seeing the error of her ways and I am now going to try bonding her with Iris who has been left alone after her partner died. Time will tell….

Well Blue didn’t ever get back with the group but we did manage to find her a new partner Black Currant. She is horrible to him if they can see other rabbits so we keep them up in the courtyard away from the others and they spend lots of time snuggling.

Blue sadly suffered from the terrible inbreeding from the horrific situation that she and her family cam ]e from. Her health deteriorated badly through 2021. She fought on bravely all through the summer and autumn despite attracting the attention of flies that could sense how unwell she was. We weren’t able to let her out when it was wet in case of fly strike and had to keep her coat trimmed very short around her bottom as she became incontinent and her back legs became very weak. By the end of the year her bladder had to be emptied for her so that she would not be constantly wet . Despite all this she remained an active and interested little rabbit  who clearly wasn’t ready to give up until finally an infection that we couldn’t clear carried her off quite suddenly.