Fiver has one of those fancy UK pet store mattresses in his pen at all times. His problem is he’s had cecal dysbiosis for so long that sometimes we get under control and sometimes not. He tends to squish this all over his feet and bum, hence why I had to give him a submersion bath the other week…it was really nasty. That’s when I discovered the heel was so worn.
His ears seem to be better today. We are very dry here again and I wonder if he scratched in there a little too hard and that’s why he was holding it down.
At any rate, if I don’t see improvement in the foot, he’s going to have to go in because I don’t want him to get a systemic infection. My poor bub.

Pam! How did you know I was one of those helicopter moms? lmao….

Well after a few days’ treatment, his ears seem fine. He’s actually doing much better about me handling him, but I hate having to catch him and have him all stressed out. I just wanted to be sure it wasn’t a foreign object, really. I recently saw a diagram of the rabbit inner ear, have you guys ever seen how huge their timpanic chamber is?? 0_o Something like a seedhead could rattle around in there for a few days before getting lodged in something vital, I would think. No wonder loud sounds spook them, it must echo something terrible!
Yeah, I really don’t want to have to do more than a mild cleaning on his ears, I am always scared I will force wax or other stuff farther in and that would make both of us feel awful. >.<
His heels are now doing a little better, but last night as I was tending him I noticed a few other things that I thought I’d just air here:

1) His poor toes…they also seemed really red and sore, so I put HealRx on them too. Realizing that, although those UK 40 Winks mattresses were nice when I first got them, they’ve kind of been beaten to death by our dryers/laundry machines and hard water here. They just aren’t as nice and fluffy as they used to be. So, having discussed this question in other threads, I decided to test my theory that Fiver will not eat fabric. I put a small, super cushy blankie in his beddy with him last night. HE LOVED IT. I don’t think I’m getting that one back. lolz
So his feet are taking some punishment and need softer stuff. I tried to find more of these blankets at Petco today, but they seem to be out of them.

2) His teeth are going to need trimming again before too long. He has a terrible overbite and his lower incisors curl backwards a bit instead of meet with his upper ones. So I would guess that’s why his bowels haven’t been 100% and why he was having some difficulty chewing an apple twig last night. Also this is probably why he’s been preferring the hay without seedheads, but currently he’s eating the Blue Bunny Blend from BB.com and seems to be digesting it well. So I won’t mess with it. When I can, he’ll go in to have his teeth looked at again.
We’ve moved his Benebac and pumpkin to every other night and that seems to be more than enough to keep him regular. I don’t want another gas/stasis episode with him.
So we’re working with what we’ve got, doing my best not to make his stress worse than it is. I can probably forgo any further ear treatment, but want to keep an eye on his widdle feets. It was cute though, to hold him and cuddle him, (he enjoys a full bunny body massage almost as much as Mimzy does), and then hover him near Mimzy and Pip’s pens and watch them all touch noses. Fiver must think he’s boss, because he lowers his head for grooms from both of them. ^_^
Not really looking forward to the ordeal of bonding, but at the same time, I can’t wait to see them all together, supporting one another (hopefully!) and having a happier life than being single bunnies.

Oh zipties…yikes! Pip has a tie on her pen where I hang her freeze bottle from at night, so it doesn’t slip down and clonk her on the head. But I haven’t really had to use the bottles lately, so the tie was just sitting there on the pen bars. For the longest time she didn’t seem to notice it, then one day I’m suddenly hearing nomnomnom on plastic…0_o…she had it in her mouth and would not leave it alone, so I had to cut it off. (Hubby hates when I do that, says I’m ‘wasting’ them…lol.)

No worries, Pam, I know you are the voice of reason. Saw some ear whipping from Fiver a bit this morning, but that may have just been his happy greeting, he is happily snuggling in his blankie now. I have two white ones and one brown one that, although it’s nice, it’s harder to tell if he ‘smears’ it, so, I’d like to find more of the white ones.

LPT, I’ll think about trying those tea bags…although I think if Fiver even gets a scent of herbs, he’s going to try to eat it out of my hand…lol. ^_^
I thought faux fur/fake sheep fleece too, but I’m pretty sure he’d think his flooring needed grooming in that case, so I think I’ll stick with fleece blankets. I just always have to make sure the stitches on the sides of these blankets are all intact each time I look at them.

I once tried putting a terrycloth towel on top of Pip’s pen to give her a bit of ‘ceiling’ so she wouldn’t feel so exposed (she likes being covered in some cases) and I remember going out of the room and coming back less than 30 seconds later and she was trying to swallow a bunch of the towel’s threads she pulled through the roof. I about had a heart attack and yanked the towel back out of her mouth…at least a foot of thread came with it! 0_o

Poor thing almost choked herself. So I learned my lesson and only clean cardboard goes up there once in awhile now. She still chews on it, but not as much and she doesn’t swallow the pieces either…just drops them on the floor. Mad bun! >.<