Do people do this? Am I a horrible mother?

[Battie]

It’s really too late to do anything about it now, but I’m unable to sleep worrying about my decision to travel overnight without a rabbit sitter.

My parents took care of Quincy when I was gone for a week, but they are very, very busy right now.  I’ve got to leave early tomorrow morning and will be back some time on Tuesday.

I know I can leave him plenty of food and water, but I don’t understand why it took my until JUST NOW to realize he is NOT A CAT.  What if something happens to him while I’m gone?  What if he somehow manages to get hurt or sick?

Maybe this is just more of a confessional or something… should I feel as horrible as I suddenly do about my poor planning?  Am I the only one to think it might have been okay to leave him for one day?

Argh.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Oh yes one-two days is fine. I free feed my rabbits and they don’t pig out so I can leave a extra food, but mainly extra water and they are fine for me to stay overnight. If it’s the whole weekend, say friday night to Sunday, I have a friend stop in to check on them and ensure that they still have water and are doing ok. Any chance you can get a friend to stop in quickly and check on him? Just ensure you put double or more water then you normally do. If you use a crock, leave a water bottle too, that way if the crock tips he can use the bottle.

[Battie]

Oh, good, thank you.

Unfortunately, I still don’t know anyone close by that I feel I can impose on.  Hopefully I’ll just get back fairly early tomorrow.

Quincy is a piggy but I know he won’t be able to eat it all at once, and I do have both a crock and a water bottle I can fill.  I think he also sleeps a lot when he’s alone (he looks dozy whenever I get back), so that should help.  My big worry is that he’ll do something dumb and get hurt while I’m gone, but I think that’s just paranoia.

Thanks for making me feel better.

[bunnytowne]

We all worry about our babies when we are gone.  This is nothing new. You are normal hehehe.  Bun should be fine.  Sounds like you got it handled.  Really it does

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Yup I’m sure he’ll be fine. As long as they aren’t totally alone for too long (ie. can get sick and not be noticed) then you should be fine. We often go camping in the summer on Saturday nights, so we are gone saturday morning to Sunday afternoon. If we leave friday we have someone check on them for us

[bitterepiphany]

I’m coming in a little late on the advice, but if anyone reads this later, it might be of some use to them. We have a few webcams laying around the house, so we set up a BunnyCam – it’s not served on the web, just through our local network and accessed by IP.

If you have some patience and a webcam laying around, you might consider setting one of these up next time before you go on vacation. Check in on it periodically and there you have it. I’m not saying you should watch it obsessively, but it would be a good idea if you wanted to check in in the morning and at night to make sure that the rabbit still had food and water and wasn’t injured. That way, you could call some one to refill a food bowl, etc… if an emergency arose.

Mine, on the other hand, is to amuse me at work

 

here are the instructions we used, by the by

http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=465446&seqNum=4

[Beka27]

aw! you are not a horrible mother! i think you’ll be fine overnight. any longer than a night, like K&K said, i’d try and have someone stop in at the very least.

[Battie]

Haha, that’s very clever with the webcam. I don’t own one, but that’s a good reason to get one.

Bunny did just fine while I was gone. I think he must have just “hibernated” out of boredom, because most of the food was still there and it took him a few seconds to wake up and greet me when I opened the door. Now that I’m home I think he’s trying to eat that pile of food as fast as he can before I decide there’s too much!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

WOW Yes the webcam idea is a great one!! That would sure be nice on extended vacations too, to peak in on them and get your bunny fix!

aahhaha sounds like a bunny, eating it before you take it away!

[Beka27]

it would be MORE like a bunny to eat every scrap of food five minutes BEFORE you walked in the door. that way you’d think, “ohmygosh, my poor baby has no food!” and you’d have no clue when he ran out…

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Ugh, can I vent a little maybe? I came back from my first vacation away ever, and my bf’s mom who was looking after Kokanee told me what she thought was a cute story…about Kokanee bugging her while she was doing the cage…turned out she was out of water and drank and drank…I had a water bottle and two crocks…You don’t fill when it runs out you fill to fill…I like her alot but !!!! I was worried about leaving them with her again…
so on my next trip I got her to rotate with my friend (day on, day off; under the premise to not work either too hard… ) so that between the two of them things would be taken care of (and they were…)
Sorry Off topic!!

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