Help! To move or no, time sensitive!

[MeketatenBun]

New member here, looking for advice.

Two days ago I let my Havana rabbit, Meketaten (pronounced Mehk-eht-AH-ten), out of her cage in the morning and she was hopping, binkying, tossing her toys, etc. Then she went to a corner of my room and urinated, which was unusual of itself since she’s litterbox trained. When she hopped away, it was pure blood she left behind. Took her to the vet since she’s a four year old unspayed female, I was fearing the worst with some kind of cancer. Turns out she has a bunny bladder infection and is currently on antibiotics for ten days.



Here’s the emergency: I live four hours away and she lives at my parent’s house in my hometown. I moved away for college and while I live in an apartment for the whole year, I haven’t brought her with me because I’m afraid all that moving year after year will shorten her life from stress. I work back in my college town and already called in today to spend an extra day at my parent’s with little Meki. I can easily give her the medication (liquid given through a syringe into her mouth) by myself, but this morning my mom struggled with even catching her to give her the meds under my supervision (to make sure she could do it alone). This stresses my mom out and she starts getting frantic and yelling, which stresses out my rabbit even more. I ended up having to hold down my rabbit while my mom gave her the meds, which defeats the purpose of “training” my mom how to do it alone.



I’m thinking I should just bring the bun back with me and come home again in a week like I had been planning all month, which coincidentally lines up perfectly with when her last dosage is. Has anyone moved rabbits around before? I’ve heard moving buns a lot stresses them and I feel like I’m weighing my choices between mom possibly failing at giving her the medication or me stressing out the rabbit to death from a four hour car ride each way tomorrow and then again in a week. Advice? Tips? I’m work tomorrow afternoon and am leaving tomorrow morning!

[Sarita]

It really depends on the rabbit but it sounds to me like you feel more comfortable medicating her and honestly a car ride for four hours is not going to stress a rabbit to death.

[MeketatenBun]

It’s true I do feel more comfortable medicating her myself. And I feel I’m probably stressing more about this then Meki will! I just worry because she isn’t as young anymore and she’s always been a bit of a scaredy bunny- at the vet’s office she was hiding her face in my shirt the entire time the vet was collecting a sample, and she kind of “army crawls” or shimmies her way around outside when I take her out on a leash. It’s just for a week, then she’s coming back home to my parent’s with a freshly built new hutch waiting for her. =/ I have a carrying cage for her, and a larger wire cage I could keep her in, fresh food, water, her favorite treats, her favorite towel and stuffed bunny…. I’ve just never moved her out of this house aside from half-hour tops vet visits

[MK]

She will probably be OK. i got one of my bunnies from a shelter almost and hour away (I know that four hour is much more) but she turned out to be absolutely amazing t in the car. my advice would be to make sure she has water and maybe two towels in her carrier, along with some hay, Also, i’m not sure where you live, but it would be best to keep her very cool in the car. if its hot and you don’t have ac, or don’t want to leave it running the whole time, bring a frozen water bottle to put next to her. Just make sure she had room to move away from it if she gets too cold.

[Emillie]

i got my bunny less than a week ago at home and i was worried about the same thing you are since i knew i had to take her to college with me and it is a two hour car ride and she is only 8 weeks old and had previously never been handled that much let alone in a carrier or on a car ride for that long. She turned out to do fine i just made the carrier as cozy as possible and had plenty of hay and pellets in the back and a towel for her to rest on as well as a water crock that attaches to the front door of the carrier. i gave her a little treat during the first hour and would check on her often but she did fine and calmed down after the first half hour or so.

[MeketatenBun]

Oookaaayyyyyyy.

So everyone’s been saying do it, so I did it. I wanted time to spend with her when we got here, so I packed everything up and brought her and we just made it back. Currently sitting next to the cage.

She did well on the car ride. I could tell she was freaking out at first due to wide-eyes, but then she started to calm down and was laying down and even closing her eyes a bit. We stopped at the two-hour/ half-way mark so she could come out of the travel cage and stretch a bit and so I let her sit in my lap and snuggled her a bit. Heavy breathing, seemed kind of hot, so I offered her the water that was sitting in her travel cage and she took a few sips, didn’t touch her hay though.

But as she was sitting on my lap she peed… and when I say pee I mean pure blood that started clotting immediately. I think it was more of a case of her holding it since she didn’t think she could go in her travel cage, but it scared me hugely. Got her back in the cage and drove the remaining two hours.

Got her in the apartment, set up her cage like we had it back home, and she seemed curious. Took a good long drink of water, ate a single pellet, ate a single piece of hay, and then did that face-first, super dramatic floppy lay-down thing that bunnies do. Hoping she eats more and will keep an eye on her for that, but I’m grateful she’s drinking her water.

Also, she’s getting real bold. Opened her cage door to pet her face and she PUSHED my hand aside and went exploring/ playing chase through my WHOLE room. Waited for me to catch up then zipped in another direction. Glad to see she’s still her usual self. If the blood persists though I will be calling the vet. Never had a bunny with a bladder infection, but two doses in and all that blood is not making me a happy mommy.

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