sudden death norweigen dwarf

Question
Hi
i recently purchased a dwarf rabbit from a large store in the UK (pets at home) along with a hutch and hutch hugger (cover). The rabbit was played with in our home on a daily basis and returned to the hutch overnight with the cover over, the hutch was positioned under a carport-garage and out of the elements.
The rabbit was around 10 weeks old when purchased and was with us until this morning some two weeks later.
My children are distraught. The rabbit peed on my child  what at the time was funny but could this have been something else ?
Also people were letting of fireworks around 500 metres away from our home lastnight ....my dog was not disturbed by these but i wonder if this could be another reason for the death of our rabbit ?
The rabbit was found with its eyes open in its "bedside"
of the hutch.... any help would be gratefully accepted.
regards
Steve Coysh

Answer
Hi Steve,

It's sad that your children have to experience such a horrible event...it is always tough.  Couple of things come to mind and without a necropsy, we can only speculate.

Stress is a major concern with rabbits as even the domestics retain much of their prey animal instinct.  Rabbits seem to have a way to shut themselves down if they feel their life is threatened.  It appears that is nature's way of preventing suffering.  I see that a lot in the wild rabbits I rehab here.  I suspect the stress of the move from the pet store had not fully waned yet....and I do think the fireworks might have had something to do with this.  If this rabbit was terribly frightened by the proximity of the fireworks, it is very possible it felt it was under life threatening attack and the stress of that probably contributed to this unfortunate event.  Here, we try to keep things as quiet as possible but like with our human children...as hard as we try, we can't protect them from everything.

Something else we have seen....and I experienced first hand very early in my rabbit days....was the quick change of diet when we got our first rabbit.  We made the mistake of feeding this baby far too much lettuce (and we had to feed iceburg which is usually a no-no) and we caused a major digestive system issue we now know as cecal dysbiosis.  Rabbits require a high population of beneficial bacteria in which to digest their food.  We fed him improperly and upset that delicate balance....and it's more delicate in babies that have just weaned or they are about to wean.  So diet might be something to look at also.

Hope this helps.  Things like this are just speculation without a proper necropsy.  I wish the best for you and your family in dealing with this tragedy.