Ciela Bela

[Magisceris]

Hello! I’d like everyone to meet Ciela (Chell-uh) or else Ciela Bela Bun, or Cielly Bean. 

Where do I begin with this little mistress of darkness??

I got Ciela off of Craigslist on April 29 (bad bad, I know, it was a spur of the moment thing and my bf really wanted a Holland Lop. I would’ve much rather gone adoption, and it definitely bit me in the butt with this little girl)

So I found this seller on Craigslist with a bunch of Holland Lop bunnies, and upon messaging her she told me she had no more babies that were available. I could either wait for the newer bunnies to be old enough to go home, or I could pick one of two 9 month old sisters she was looking for homes for. We fell in love with Ciela (previously named Sweet Ruby) and chose her. They were selling her (and her sister) because her crown was incredibly small and her ears stick straight out, as opposed to a typical lop where they fall around their face. She was unable to be a show rabbit so they opted into selling.

We met up with this lady at some restaurant, and when my friends and I got there we knew something was messed up. We walked to the car we were supposed to look for, and nobody was there. This poor bunny was in a box in the car alone, and we hadn’t shown up late for our meet time. SO the lady comes out of the restaurant with her daughter (the supposed breeder of these bunnies) I get Ciela in a carrier, and they proceed to tell me that when I get home I should feed her right away and get her some water. THEY HAD LEFT HER IN THEIR CAR WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER SINCE PRIOR TO CHURCH THAT MORNING AT IT WAS 1230 IN THE AFTERNOON!

We got her home and she showed no issues, was very friendly and healthy. I’m still disgruntled about how I came into owning this rabbit, but I’m happy I’ve rescued her in my own way. This lady was absolutely clueless in owning rabbits. I was sent home with a bag of pellets that had CHEERIOS, OYSTER CRACKERS, as well as other nonsense mixed in. Looked it up and immediately discovered Ciela should be eating NONE of those things. I have since messaged her seller who has taken zero responsibility into handling things better.

ASIDE FROM ALL OF THIS I absolutely adore this rabbit. I got her randomly while my boyfriend was unemployed and we already owned two conures. (HOLY ZOO LEMME TELL YA) My boyfriend and I have since separated, and I have no more birds so it’s just me and this little bean. Her birthday is July 25, and she gets spayed July 11. I can’t wait for her to get spayed because she is a little horndog. If I go into her pen and attempt petting her, she gets super excited and runs around me for about 30 seconds before she gets too overwhelmed and looks for something to hump. It usually ends up being my leg or her bed, neither of which I’m cool with. I discourage it as much as I can but I’m really hoping getting her fixed stops a lot of this behavior. I would still accept her if she did once in a while, but shes like a toddler learning about her ‘area’ and just wants to touch herself all the time. Blegh. 

If anyone has any questions, comments, concerns I’m all for a discussion!

[DanaNM]

Welcome! Can’t wait to see pictures! I love helicopter lops!

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Poor Ciela, she must have come from a bad place!
Good luck on the spay, the humping should stop within 6 weeks after the spay. It’s typical hormonal behaviour. There’s a good reason that there’s an expression “going at it like rabbits”. Many people are shocked when bunny puberty kicks in at 12-20 weeks, that’s when many bunnies get abandoned. Their cute fuzzy baby suddenly turns into a destructive sex offender, often with poor litterbox habits and agression mixed in. It isn’t fun for the rabbits themselves as well, being so hormone-crazed. Good decision to have her spayed, also for her own health: unfixed does have a high chance of developing cancer in their lady bits (up to 80% by age 4).

Hoping for many cute stories and even cuter pics of helicopter ears ^_^

[Magisceris]

 

[Sirius&Luna]

She is just adorable!

You can try giving her a stuffed toy, it might help calm the humping arms down a bit

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Awww, she looks so cute! Maybe it’s just the way that she’s holding her head on the pic, but her face seems to say: “No treats…. unsatisfactory…”

[Gordo and Janice]

Hey welcome! So cool that you saved the little helicopter. Look forward to hearing more about Ceilly Bean! And wishing you a very smooth and uneventful spay.

[Magisceris]

She actually has a cat bed with raised sides that she humps in circles. Its super disturbing to watch ?

My biggest concern right now is her pooping. I had a rabbit about 5 years ago, and I never once saw a cecotrope come out of that rabbit. When I saw Ciela leaving little melted crunch bars all over the place I got worried. Ive researched it further and they’re supposed to be there, but how do I go about decreasing how many she produces??

[Wick & Fable]

Excessive cecotrope production isn’t an immediate cause for concern. Eating cecotropes is a way to get additional nutrients, so we sometimes see younger rabbits leaving cecotropes behind because of their nutrient-rich diet (they do not need to eat all their cecotropes). The occasional left over is fine, but “all over the place” warrants a closer examination.

1) Do you see her actually eating her cectropes directly from her bum? Another reason why some rabbit owners see them all over the place is because for some reason the rabbit is not eating it (unable to bend over for health reasons)
2) What is her diet currently? I suspect you are feeding her alfalfa-based pellets/hay (which is correct for a younger rabbit).
3) What color is her pee? Orange, yellow, cloudy, white…?

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Like Wick says: Breintje used to leave many cecals when he was too chubby. They’d fall on his hutch floor and he used to trample them during the night. Wasn’t pretty waking up every day to a freshly painted hutch floor. Turns out that he couldn’t reach his own bottom… Rabbits can get super chubby and you won’t notice a thing underneath all that fluff. A vet can help you out there. He turned out to be 1.6 kg while his optimum weight is about 1.25 kg. That’s like an adult who should weigh 75 kg but is packing a hefty 96 kg Whoops! We had no idea… he was put on a diet immediately.

We also got diet tips: many rabbit foods contain stuff that actually doesn’t belong in a rabbit’s diet. Rabbits are supposed to eat grass, hay and leafy greens: plants which contain complex carbs with very long molecular chains. Their stomach system is built to digest foods which take a long time to break down. These complex carbs are broken down by special bacteria in the gut.
Most pellets contain grains, shredded soy and lots of seeds, which would be excellent if he was a chicken… Grains contain short-chain carbs which are super easy to digest. This will upset their gut bacteria, and will create all kinds of problems in rabbits. From excess cecals to runny poops to gas pains. Same goes for excess fats in the food (also too easy to digest), and too much protein (soy) can cause kidney damage. Breintje is on grain-free pellets now, and he has fewer tummy upsets.

[Magisceris]

Ciela is currently eating Sprout pellets (1/4 cup a day) I originally didnt think too much on her pellets and would fill her bowl whenever it was empty. I then discovered that was a real bad idea for her and cut her back to her suggested ammount of pellets.
I haven’t been able to get her in for a physical so I dont know how much she actually weighs. Previous owner told me 4 lbs, but who knows. She gets unlimited Timothy hay which she ignores. She’ll eat it when she runs out of pellets, but she doesnt willingly go for her hay. I give her a lot of fresh greens (romaine, collards, kale, brocolli) as well as carrots and fruit.
Im working on getting her interested in a bigger variety of greens but the lady I got her from gave her absolute garbage to eat.
I dont ever see her pee (when its dried its like white-ish yellow-ish)

[Wick & Fable]

Hay consumption is most important for a rabbit’s health for a number of reasons. Is the pellet dish always out? Since hay is the least preferred food of most rabbits, the usually technique is to limit access to non-hay foods. So you can still present 1/4c of pellets, but maybe do it as 1/8c in the morning, then at night, so the entire day portion, there’s only hay available.

It sounds like the excess cecotropes may be coming from the fact that the majority of the rabbit’s stomach content is nutrient-rich pellets, rather than hay.

I can’t actually find the ingredients on the pellets online. Are the pellets alfalfa or timothy hay? If it’s alfalfa based, you can stop feeding these pellets and switch to Timothy based pellets. Oxbow is my brand of choice for rabbit food, and is one of the most reputable brands. Alfalfa is needed for young rabbits to grow (more nutritious) but after about 6mo, the pellets should be switched to timothy-based because the excess nutrients are not needed and can cause excessive cecotropes and cloudy (white) pee. The whitening of pee is excess calcium exiting the rabbit. The occasional is fine, but if it’s very frequent, it means your rabbit’s body is getting too much calcium than it perceives it needs, and this can build up in the urinary tract and create an actual calcium stone.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Gordo and Janice]

And if she is still resistant to the Timothy Hay after limiting the availability of other foods you could change it up and try Orchard Grass. Our rabbit wouldn’t have anything to do with the Timothy Hay but would definitely munch down on the Orchard. She did however enjoy the Timothy Hay based pellets, just not the actual hay for some reason.

As Wick told me once, their order of preference (in general) is:

1. Sweets and treats

2. Greens and veges/pellets

3. Hay

* This varies even for healthy rabbits. Some rabbits really like hay over veggies, and other swaps on that list. 

— Typically, if a rabbit (healthy) is not eating hay, it could be because non-hay food items are distributed frequently enough that the rabbit would wait/beg for non-hay items than eat hay.*

So again with hay needing to be a minimum of approximately 80% (I think that is right) of their diet, you may need to more closely monitor how much of the fresh greens, carrots, and fruits you are giving her as well. Because they will get priority over hay most likely.

* I had to go back and check the actual source (Wick’s post) and edited accordingly with the asterisk statement.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

BTW, about carrots: anything which tastes sweet to us is candy for a rabbit, even sweet vegetables like carrots and sweet peppers. Carrots can be a great treat, but I wouldn’t give a rabbit more than 2 cm a day. It contains a lot of sugar, which may also upset gut flora. Of course they’ll love it, but in moderation. Carrot tops on the other hand are a great veg, Breintje gets carrot tops daily and sometimes I leave a bit of orange on.

It’s one of those pesky rabbit misunderstandings which are repeated everywhere from cartoons to advertising. Look up a picture of a rabbit. Good chance that it’s holding a carrot… Just as frustrating as the image that rabbits love to be picked up and dragged around by kids. Woops, many people get a nasty shock once they got a rabbit and find out that it doesn’t actually like being held.
There are many misconceptions about rabbits and many people have no idea how to feed/house/handle them properly. Which is why many rabbit owners are working on educating people. I invite people over who are interested in getting a rabbit, so that they can see how they really are when kept as a house pet. My neighbour across the hall considered getting rabbits, and at the end of the evening he said: “Everything I thought I knew about rabbits has been wrong…”. He was glad that he could make an informed decision, because he concluded that he doesn’t have the time to bond and play with the rabbits. This makes me happy too: I wish people all the joy of having pets, but I always hope that they’ve informed themselves instead of going by what they expect the pets will be like.

[DanaNM]

She is so cute!!!!!!!!!

Other’s have already chimed in on some diet stuff, but I just wanted to mention that kale, collards, and broccoli are all from the same plant family (the are all technically cabbages, are are actually in the same Genus, “Brassica”!), so nutritionally they are very similar. Broccoli and other cabbages can cause gas in some bunnies.

My current buns have never had issues with kale or collards (but I never give them too much at a time), but some bunnies get gassy from them as well. Even if they agree with her tummy, you want to rotate which one you offer, and they shouldn’t be the bulk of her greens as they are all very high in calcium.

This list breaks down the “groups” of veggies so you can make sure she gets balanced nutrition: https://rabbit.org/suggested-vegetables-and-fruits-for-a-rabbit-diet/

I try to take it one step further and never give more than one Brassica at a time, even though that’s prob overkill.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Sofia]

Oh my god I cannot express to you how much I am freaking OUT right now, she is absolutely adorable!!! I actually can’t get over it. But anyways, welcome! Also great that you saved her from those horrible owners

[Magisceris]

Thanks everyone for the advice! I’ve actually downloaded the fruit and veggie list from this site and reorganized it for myself in the different HRS classifications. Hoping to get her interested in more variety soon!

For her pellets, I think I’ll stick with this brand for the moment until I get her into an actual physical. I want to see where her weight and health are currently at. I definitely want to get her onto the best diet, but I don’t want to drastically change everything and upset her tummy either. Im glad everyone finds her as precious as I do!

[Author]

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