Last weekend, Furlock Holmes took over custody of almost 30 rabbits from just one home. A lady had quickly become vastly overwhelmed with the responsibility of so many little lives due to her vulnerabilities and was in urgent need of support. Despite starting with just a small number, the poor lady soon ended up being overrun due to an inability to sex rabbits and a lack of understanding of the requirements that come with rabbit-ownership. Upon inspection, we found the rabbits to be in very poor health and malnourished. Our task now is to vaccinate and neuter all the rabbits with some also requiring additional veterinary treatment. The majority of these rabbits are female, and therefore highly likely to be pregnant. This means our 30 rabbits could soon multiply and lead to even more vet trips and mouths to feed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Full Story...

Just one week ago, we received an email from a lady concerned about her sister, a woman with vulnerabilities, having gained a large number of rabbits over the previous year of lockdown. The lady had only become aware from the local pet shop contacting her with a concern about the amount her sister was spending on rabbit supplies. We were instantly alarmed by the suggestion that around 30 rabbits were living un-neutered and un-vaccinated in a small area so arranged to visit as soon as we could. The woman, who deeply cared for her rabbits, was understandably unwilling to surrender any rabbits to us, but appreciated our offer to assist with sorting our her situation. Our priority was to sex the rabbits and implement a plan in order to prevent breeding, illness and disease amongst the rabbits.

After loading up the car with pet carriers in the hopeful event of her surrendering the rabbits over to rescue, we set off on our mission. On arrival, we were soon overwhelmed by the number of rabbits in such few hutches. Each hutch contained at least five rabbits, with the smallest hutch housing a total of 8 mixed-sex young bunnies. The garden was deep in rabbit faeces, dirty bedding and piled with black-sacks full of more. There was not a strand of hay or piece of food in sight, with the hutches mostly being broken, chewed and the rabbits left exposed to the elements. Despite the lady trying her hardest, the requirements of so many rabbits had become too much for a single person to handle.

The lady kindly introduced us to her rabbits and clearly had a love for them all considering them her family. We soon identified multiple rabbits with worrying health issues and persuaded her to sign them over to our care, warning her that the cost of their treatment would not be cheap.

We quickly realised the number of rabbits we wanted to take was increasing and the lady, very reluctantly, eventually agreed to let us take the majority, on the basis we would get them health-checked and returned to her once healthy. We loaded up the car with a total of 21 adult rabbits and 2 babies that must have been just hours old, leaving the lady with 7 rabbits in her care. These rabbits had been sorted into same-sex pairs/singles and were not at risk of pregnancy. They were in the best-condition hutches and had no apparent health issues. There was sadly no way we could have taken these 7 as well.

Over the next few days, we examined all the rabbits and sorted them into same-sex pairs and groups. Six of the healthiest, strongest rabbits were transferred to another local rescue for extra space and we quarantined the remaining rabbits from our current residents. Every single rabbit was severely underweight and malnourished. Some have teeth issues, some have eye issues and some are generally weak from the lack of space and inability to build or maintain muscle. The weakest of the rabbits received through-the-night care and, we are pleased to say, all are making a good, albeit slow, recovery.

These rabbits, however, have a long road ahead of them! With vaccinations and neutering, each rabbit will cost us more than £120, leading to a total of around £3,000 and that is without the cost of food, bedding and additional veterinary costs. If you are able to spare a few pennies to help us care for these rabbits, it would be greatly appreciated! Many of these bunnies are young, scared and in need of a lot of TLC.

After much conversation with both the owner of the rabbits and her sister who notified us of the situation, we have managed to take over ownership of 18 of the rabbits and so they will not be returning to the home. We hope to increase this number and reduce the ladys numbers to perhaps two or three. We feel that, due to her vulnerabilties, she became unintentionally overwhelmed by all the rabbits and, due to the lack of suitable support through the course of lockdown, had found herself with rabbits breeding like rabbits! She clearly cares deeply for her rabbits and, with help and ongoing support, we are confident we can help her build a suitable set-up and afford the needed care for a pair of rabbits.

These pasts events have brought to our attention the possibility that these situations could be going un-noticed all over the place. It also made us question who is responsible? The owner of these rabbits was in her 60s, yet, due to her vulnerabilities was not able to take responsibility of the rabbits. She was clearly kind, caring and very devoted to the rabbits. The family of this lady were unable to see her much due to lockdown and so were unaware of how out-of-hand the situation had become. We feel pets are very valuable family members as much so to people with disabilities as they are to everyone else. Yet, there needs to be more support available to avoid these situations starting and escalating.