Sorrel is a very small black wild rabbit who came to us from the RSPCA when it became clear that she wasn’t suitable for a pet home. She was born in 2018 and was with the RSPCA for about nine months after having been found in a hotel lift injured, having been pecked by magpies:(
She is extremely nervous and prone to accelerating from nought to light speed in an instant and can climb walls in her anxiety to escape. We tried to bond her into a calm group of rabbits but if anything she was more scared of them than she is of us. We then had her in a combination hutch by herself. It is the largest space we can give her that she shouldn’t be able to escape from. We are hoping that she will become used to us over time. She eats well, which we know because all the food disappears and the poo pile grows but we simply don’t see her unless we go digging which she finds traumatic so we mostly leave her be for now. With the covers off the huches she has a better view of the other rabbits which may be helping her to get more used to them as well as to us moving about and we may find a suitable companion for her at some point, hopefully soon.
Nutbrown disappeared every time a human appeared for the first few years he was here but is now resigned to us and has had a good quality of life. So there is hope for her.
We decided to try a different approach and Caroline took her home to try interacting with more but she became very distressed living in a shed and having Caroline enter her space. She was literally climbing the walls and squeezing herself through incredibly small gaps in her desperation so she came back to her old hutch/run combo. At least in there she freezes when we interact with her instead of flinging herself around. So we learned a valuable lesson about what suits her and what doesn’t. What we need to do is extend her space to improve her quality of life without increasing the level of threat she experiences. Unfortunately this won’t be possible until we have fewer groups of rabbits as we don’t have any free space. Nor can we take in a potential partner for her as we wouldn’t have anywhere to put him if it failed. Unfortunately none of our singles are suitable for her. Ideally she needs a small confident nice tempered buck, a Nethie a mini rex or a Dutch perhaps.
Update: We found her a friend! She has been with Sparrow a little minilop buck with no front teeth. He is so sweet with her! We couldn’t have found a better one. He is sweet and friendly both with her and with people and is setting her such a good example that hopefully he will teach her how to become a happy rabbit.
Sorrel lost her partner Sparrow when he managed to squeeze out of her pop hole and so could no longer be caught. Because he had various health issues it was too important for him to be accessible to allow him to continue to live with Sorrel in her free range environment. Instead we put him next to her so that they could continue to interact but where we could give Sparrow the treatment he needed and ensure that he was safely locked up at night. Unlike hypervigilant Sorrel he was likely to be a sitting duck for any lurking predator being a deaf lop with poor peripheral vision due to his ears blocking his view of his surroundings.
When the sanctuary had to close we made the decision to release Sorrel rather than subject her to the stress of being caught and confined. At that point we hadn’t laid hands on her for two years, and had rarely even seen her as she vanished whenever she heard footsteps. So we let her into the bottom enclosure and cut a hole in the fence leading to the field. We continued to provide pellets and veg to her up until the time we had to leave giving her an adequate transaction period. Fortunately the sanctuary backed onto woods and fields with a stream where she could access water. We were concerned about it being winter but the weather was with us and given it was the warmest February on record the grass began to grow early so she won’t have gone hungry. There are already existing rabbit burrows out there too for her to hide in. We also continue to provide veg to her in the field as often as we can although we have no way of being certain that it she who is eating it. Hopefully she will make the most of her freedom and live out her life the way it should have gone the first time.