A Heart-Breaking Update

Little Naked Baby Lucky. Notice the cute little nose and his tiny little stubby tail. Tiny, tiny black dot to the left of his tail is baby bunny poop (we even think that is cute)! This picture was taken on Saturday. We think he is cute, although to everyone else, I'm sure he is kind of scary looking.

It is Sunday night, around 10:55. Lucky died just a few minutes ago and I am crying my eyes out. Everything the vet and PetSmart told us about caring for and nurturing baby bunnies was totally wrong. As per their instructions, we were trying to feed him every 3-4 hours and should have been doing it only once or twice a day. We were feeding it goat milk because bunnies and goats are both herbivores (made sense to me), but we should have been giving it Kitty Replacement Milk, because it is richer in colostrum. We didn't know we had to gently stroke his tummy so he would urinate and we didn't do it. This can cause the tiny bladder to rupture. We fed him too much milk from the bottle and he aspirated it into his lungs, and truthfully, I think that is what killed him. He was doing fine and we were figuring out all the other stuff (thanks to the internet and experienced "bunny-whisperers" sharing their knowledge), but I gave him his last feeding and milk started coming out his nose. I quickly stopped and started sopping it up with tissue paper every time the bubbles came out, but it was just too late. He was gasping for air and died about 20 minutes after I fed him - so quickly.

We have devoted so much time and energy to this little baby bunny over the past couple of days, and I kept thinking if we could get him past the first few days he would survive. Then I imagined him a tiny little fur ball in my hand (he was already getting his fur, he had two tiny cute little bottom teeth and he had his whiskers, but you could just barely see them. Even his tiny pin-dot sized poop was cute). We have been fascinated by this little creature for the past two days and I've hardly been able to think of anything else. Even in church today all I could think about was getting home to our cute little baby. Between Trevor and Kenna he was held in their hands with a little soft cloth to keep him warm practically non-stop. I am so sad and as he was dying all I could do was sit and stroke his little head and tell him I was so sorry I couldn't take better care of him. Trevor has already gone to bed so we are going to have to tell him in the morning and I am not looking forward to that. Kenna was standing with Kent and I when the bunny died and we just burst into tears. I'm sure in a few days I will be embarrassed that I cried about a baby bunny dying, even worse, that I blogged about it (even now I am thinking this is a little weird), but maybe not. Hopefully tonight I can grieve and get it out of my system.

I've always said I am not an animal lover, but I think having a family of my own and raising my own children has made me much more tender towards life in general. Even Kent is sad about him dying (but so far, I haven't seen him cry)!!! What a crazy, wild weekend it has been with so much drama and emotional ups and downs. At one point I told Trevor maybe we could get a boy bunny (or borrow the neighbor's again for a minute, literally) and he could sell the babies to earn a little money, but I don't think I can go through this again if it doesn't turn out well. I may have to recant on that. Thankfully, human babies are much easier (hard as I thought that was) and I was better at helping them thrive!