death of a loved rabbit

Question
I was hoping you could shed some light on the most distressing death of one of our three 9 week old bunnies.

We have only had them for 3 weeks and on Friday one of them died while being held on my daughter's lap.  My daughter is 4 years old and I have kept a close eye on her handling the rabbit and she has been very carefull but as I was not in the room for about 5 min before she called me to say there was a problem, I cannot eliminate the possibility of her "loveing it to death".

I am suspicious that it might have been something else as when I got to her, the bunny was bleeding from the mouth and nose, and I cannot see how this could have happened unless it was a disease of some sort.

The three bunnies have been housed together, and the other two seem very healthy.

We are hoping to get some idea of what happened so we can keep the other two in good health, so that we can know whether we need to keep our bunnies in isolation (and for how long), and to try and gain some closure for our children (and me) on this heartbreaking death.

I would so much appreciate any words of wisdom you could offer.

Kindest Regards,
Lisa

Answer
Hi Lisa,

first I am sorry you lost your young little bunny.

It is difficult for me to answer you and I will preface it that you may be offended by one of my suggestions, but please know it's not meant on purpose.

It is unfortunate that you were not in the room the five minutes before you went in and found the rabbit dead.  I wasn't there and I don't know what condition the rabbit was in.

As a side note, rabbits are not really the best pets for young children, as they are more delicate than cats and dogs, and they stress out at much of the  behaviors of young kids (loudness, running fast).

And, as a rule, rabbits do not just bleed from the nose and mouth from simple diseases.  Natural causes of this would be an embolism (blood vessel breaks), or an extremely unusual case of Hemmorhagic fever (and your other rabbits would probably have it and die shortly after this one).  Another rare thing could have been a stomach ulcer or something that eroded into an artery.

I'd say it could have been complications from a surgical procedure but I would guess since you didn't mention it, she hadn't had an operation.

My own hunch is that something happened in the unsupervised five minutes your daughter had with the bunny.  The rabbit could have been struggling and she could have grasped him way too hard and crushed him, which would likely have caused ribs to puncture the lungs and hence, blood out of the nose and mouth.  Rabbits don't like being held, and even more so as they get older.  Their bones are much more delicate than cats and dogs and cannot handle lots of pressure.  And it generally is not a good idea to let little kids handle ANY animals alone by themselves (but especially small animals) at her age, as many times they are not yet aware of just how much force they should use when holding a pet, much less restraining a pet that could be trying to get out of their grasp.

I don't think at all that it was on purpose if something did happen.  But rabbits are very fragile and accidents like this do happen.

I believe what you need to do, is take the rabbits' body to a good rabbit vet, and have a necropsy done to determine cause of death.  If it was a congenital defect or problem you will know.  If it was by an accidental crush or something, you will also know.  I think it is important for you to find out because that is the only way to get truly satisfying closure on this issue.  It would be what I would do.  And in either case, it can help your daughter, either she'll know it wasn't her fault, or that she needs to learn from you and dad how to handle the other bunnies, and for you to be around when she's playing with them and take the lead with her with the rabbits.

If you don't have a good rabbit vet yet, go to:

www.rabbit.org\vets

and find a House Rabbit Society-recommended vet in your area.

Write back anytime, and please let me know what you find out.

Lee