What am I doing wrong? Not a short question....

Question
Dear Dana,  About 4 years ago, I inherited 2 rabbits from a pet store, one who we found out quickly was pregnant.  Very long story short, I found a lady who had 25 rabbit and she became my bunny advisor since I knew nothing. my rabbit had 7 babies, all girls.....and b/c my husband let the male/female out together again, she had another litter 3 months later, 4 survived and 3 died.  in the end, there were toomany so after i gave away to good homes what I chose to, i ended up with 7....4 from original litter and 3 from second litter.  We feel we take care of these bunnies like they are little princesses and they have all been healthy and active until we moved into this new house a year ago august.  Since that time, i have lost 3 of my bunnies and i feel that another is soon to follow.  The first we found dead one morning only about 5 months after we moved.  She had this "red urine" occasionally but i red in my book that in the fall, this sometimes happened with females and that it could be a kidney issue if it persisted, but it wasn't consistent and she died the day before i was off from work next and going to take her to the vet.  the next one was the worst for me...my favorite bunny tangerine...she was the runt of the first litter and she was a cutie..(all short hair rabbits except for one chinchilla) we have a sectioned off part of the basement where they can come out of their cages and run free daily, but we didn't see one spot that had styrofoam exposed and i caught her eating a piece.  I got it from her but i think she still ate some.  withing one- two days, she stopped eating and drinking and i took her to the vet who said what i already knew...that their digestive tracts are so sensitive, it was probably causing terrible problems.  the choices after they hydrated her was to take her home like on hospice or go for an expensive surgery that might not even save her.  so we took her home with medicine and she died in my arms the next night.  We lost the last one in august.  this was totally our fault but how would a person know.  i'll esplain.  Since we got the rabbits, we have been using pine bedding from a feed store that we buy in bulk on the advice of our rabbit lady...it is not like the pine bedding in the pet store with a strong odor...very subtle odor...and they were fine with it at the other house.  we ran out and my husband came home with a bag of cedar chips from the pet store because our usual place was closed for the w/e and the cages needed to be cleaned.  WEll......they all started acting kind of funny, eating less and drinking less and less active....but the chinchilla was the worse and by the end of four days, she looked disoriented and off balance...when it seemed like she could walk, i rushed her to the vet and she actually died in my arms in the parking lot.  they looked at her anyway but couldn't tell me anything.  I went to my rabbit book and it said cedar chips could be toxic to bunnies and cause respiratory problems (rabbit lady not availabe to us anymore) why did the package have a picture of a rabbit on it showing it as acceptable for bedding if it is unsafe???  My husband feels awful and I quickly took both cages to the feed store when open the next day and the manager said she thought it might have been the cedar too.  and that the chinchilla'nose is lower to the ground so it affected her more.  we quickly changed the bedding back to pine chips with absorbent pellets underneath (as we have been using all along)  and they all started behaving normally again with regard to activity, eating and drinking. Just one, thumper, one from the first litter, eats, drinks, but has lost weight and ever since that event with the cedar chips, sounds funny when breathing when you pick her up.  Now, in the past two weeks, her hind legs seem to be weak and today her right hind leg is hardly moving.  i have a call out to the vet but i fear she is declining.  If the life span of these indoor bunnies is 8-12 years, and we take such good care of them, then why are mine dying after only a few years???  I know why fluffy, the chinchilla died (cedar chips toxic i assume) and tangerine (eating styrofoam) but brownie with the red urine..the book said it can be normal, should i have done something different?  even now with thumper, we coudn't afford expensive surgeries if we had to, so what to do?? I love these bunnies.  will talk to you about diet in another note.

Answer
Dear Lynn,

Sorry for the delay.  I am very sorry about the loss of your dear bunnies.  I'll focus on a few quotes in your email to try and help you make some sense of this.

"The first we found dead one morning only about 5 months after we moved.  She had this "red urine" occasionally but i red in my book that in the fall, this sometimes happened with females and that it could be a kidney issue if it persisted, but it wasn't consistent and she died the day before i was off from work next and going to take her to the vet."

Red urine can be a harmless side product of plant pigments.  But in females, despite what you seem to have read in that book, it is *not* always benign.  If there is truly blood in the urine, it can be a sign of uterine cancer.  All female rabbits should be spayed by the time they are one year old, because the incidence of uterine cancer is HUGE in unspayed females.  

Without a necropsy, there is no way to know for sure why she died.  But this is one possibility.

"styrofoam exposed and i caught her eating a piece.  I got it from her but i think she still ate some.  withing one- two days, she stopped eating and drinking and i took her to the vet who said what i already knew...that their digestive tracts are so sensitive, it was probably causing terrible problems.  the choices after they hydrated her was to take her home like on hospice or go for an expensive surgery that might not even save her.  so we took her home with medicine and she died in my arms the next night."

Unless Tangerine suffered a true bloat--with a very hard abdomen (I mean *really* hard--like a watermelon), I would have my doubts that her death was caused by the styrofoam.  The styrofoam might have been a red herring that led the vet away from a more likely cause.  

When rabbits eat synthetic matter--especially if it's hard or spongy, they tend to chew it up into very small bits, and it passes uneventfully.  It's *possible* that she swallowed a piece large enough to block her duodenal sphincter (the one at the end of her stomach), but if that happened, you likely would have seen a true bloat.  It's also likely that if the styrofoam was the culprit, you would have seen problems within 24 hours.  But there's no way to know for sure, so all this is just guessing after the terrible fact.

I know this is too late for Tangerine, but if a bunny acts sick, here are some things you can do to find out what's going on, and what to do while you're waiting to get her to the vet:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/sickbun.html

Of critical importance is learning to tell a bunny's temperature, for the reasons described in the article.  So I think you'd be wise to invest in a quick-read, plastic thermometer to have at home in the "bunny emergency drawer."

"cedar chips from the pet store because our usual place was closed for the w/e and the cages needed to be cleaned.  WEll......they all started acting kind of funny, eating less and drinking less and less active....but the chinchilla was the worse and by the end of four days, she looked disoriented and off balance...when it seemed like she could walk, i rushed her to the vet and she actually died in my arms in the parking lot.  they looked at her anyway but couldn't tell me anything.  I went to my rabbit book and it said cedar chips could be toxic to bunnies and cause respiratory problems"

While it's true that cedar has aromatics that can potentially be harmful, they usually do not cause acute problems.  It's more of a long-term accumulation of insult to the liver and lungs, unless the animals are kept in very close quarters with the chips and there isn't very good ventilation.  Then it can be truly irritating and cause problems, depending on how fresh and aromatic the chips are.

I've never heard of cedar chips causing neurological signs, but I suppose it's not impossible if the animals were really overloaded with the fumes.  Again, there is just no way to know for sure without a necropsy.  But the fact that *all* the animals got sick when you put them on the cedar chips does seem to be strong circumstantial evidence that they might have at least triggered something.

"we quickly changed the bedding back to pine chips with absorbent pellets underneath (as we have been using all along)  and they all started behaving normally again with regard to activity, eating and drinking."

Pine shavings are not healthy, either.  If the bunnies had been on them all their lives, it's possible that they were already a bit compromised from those, and that the cedar really knocked them over the edge.  Just an educated guess, not a diagnosis.  But I would NOT use pine shavings, either.

"the chinchilla'nose is lower to the ground so it affected her more."

This is really a stretch.  But I still would not use any type of wood *shavings* as litter.

We use Equine Pine, a *pelleted* sawdust product that's very absorbant and odor-killing.  It's extruded at high temperatures, removing most of the harmful aromatics.  We've been using it for about 10 years with excellent results, putting a thin layer of soft timothy hay over the pellets so it has a nice "foot feel" for the bunnies.

"why did the package have a picture of a rabbit on it showing it as acceptable for bedding if it is unsafe???"

My cynical answer:  Because it's a cheap by-product of the lumber industry, and if the manufacturers can make a quick buck off it, they don't really care if a few animals die.
There are a LOT of products on the market like that, such as "rabbit" pellets loaded with seeds, dried fruit, corn, etc. that are extremely unhealthy for them, and will cause liver damage over time.  But the manufacturers make this product because it's attractive to humans, and if the humans don't know any better...well, the manufacturers of the pellets don't care if the bunny dies.

"Just one, thumper, one from the first litter, eats, drinks, but has lost weight and ever since that event with the cedar chips, sounds funny when breathing when you pick her up.  Now, in the past two weeks, her hind legs seem to be weak and today her right hind leg is hardly moving.  i have a call out to the vet but i fear she is declining."

I would not assume that this is due to the cedar chips, either.  I would ask the vet to draw blood for a complete blood chemistry and blood panel so that s/he can detect any problems with major organs, or detect infection.  Labored breathing could be due to pneumonia, and while irritation from the cedar chips *might* make a bunny more susceptible because of mild inflammation in the lungs, it's not the primary cause of the illness. If it's pneumonia, antibiotics will be an important therapy, and you will need a very experienced rabbit vet to help you with this.  From what you've told me, I'm not sure your current vet is up to the job.  

You can find an experienced rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

I hope Thumper will be fine, once the vet makes a positive diagnosis and can prescribe appropriate treatment.  But if you feel she is "declinining" then don't wait for a long-off appointment.  Tell the vet you think it's an emergency, and Thumper needs care NOW.

I hope this will help. You should not feel guilty about these things, because you have done nothing wrong.  We *all* start off not knowing some of the more nuanced things about rabbit care, and I have my own horror stories.  :(  But now I'll recommend that you get all your rabbit information, not from a "rabbit lady" who might not really be up on her rabbit care, but from the House Rabbit Society:

www.rabbit.org/

I also have a health site with many articles about rabbit health:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/rabbithealth.html

I hope you will find it helpful and useful.  Before long, you will be a rabbit expert and be better able to predict when your bunnies need care.

Another good resource is EtherBun, a free listserve strictly about rabbit health, care and behavior.  You can read more and join from here:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/etherbun.html

There are more than 6000 members, some of them experienced rabbit rescuers, vets, and vet techs.  You can usually get advice for just about any problem with your bunnies, and sometimes such advice can be life-saving.

I hope this helps.

Dana