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water lovin bunny

22 10:57:20

Question
Great Profile! sounds like u love what u do!! k so heres my situation, we recently purchased a breeding pair of lionhead bunnies, the lady we got them from had them in very dirty smelly cages in her house, and i had noticed they were drinking and eating out of cleaned out tuna cans (aluminum i think) so at that point i knew i had to get them out of there, when i brought them home, i set up a rabbit cage about 3ft x 2ft on my fromt deak, the temperature outside here at night is about 10degrees celcius and about 15-19 during the day, a few days later the male died...very sad, the female is good although she drinks ALOT of water, we fill her water dish usually three times a day and she is so excited when we put it in there that she drinks it till its all gone...i was thinking maybe it had something to do with the aluminum cans she was drinking out of before maybe or do you think she could be sick with something else? thanks alot!!

Answer
Dear Tarryn,

Thank you for your kindness in rescuing the poor bunnies.  

Without a necropsy including histopathology, there's no way to know why the male rabbit died. But it might indeed have something to do with his being exposed to heavy metal in his drinking water.

Excessive drinking/excessive urination can be a sign of kidney disease/renal failure, and since the female is now doing this, I would worry about that.  You can find a good vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

(I have another site if you need listings in the UK)

Bloodwork will reveal whether the bunny's kidneys are okay, or whether something else is afoot.  But in any case, I think she needs the attention of a good rabbit vet to be sure all is well.

Hope this helps.

Dana