Similar story here too. I adopted Lola ( a gray and white dutch)two months ago from the Humaine Society. They guessed her age at a little over a year old. I built her a large hutch in our bedroom and is let out of her cage for hours almost everyday. I've always monitored her diet and she was always active,playful and had a healthy appetite. I noticed tonight she was rearranging her bedding more than usual and suddenly rolled onto her back and seemed to be gasping for air so I picked her up and she was limp and died in my arms. I'm heartbroken and cannot understand how an apparently healthy rabbit can die so suddenly. Her eating and drinking habits were fine and she showed no signs of distress. No diarrhea and urine was good. Has anyone experienced this?
What temp. Do you keep your house? Temps over 80 can cause your rabbit to overheat and die. Also other pets can frighten your rabbit to death if they chase it or its just not used to other animals. Rabbits have weak hearts and moving things too fast can stress them out badly enough for their hearts to give out if you didnt let them acclimate to their new home before flooding them with a whole house. There is also a lot of diseases they can get www.gopetsamerica.com/small-animals/rabbit/internal-parasite
We got our mini lop ear male rabbit from the humane society about a month ago. He appeared healthy - active, social, great appetite but they did not know his age. They said he could be between 2-6 years old. He died this past Tuesday without warning. We built a spacious cage for him and had been trying to potty train him. When my husband went back to work he began to regress with the training and he also decided to start going all over the house (poo and pee) which he didn't do before. I considered it behavioral since he was so attached to my husband. I upped the effort on trying to train him with some progress. He also lost a little bit of weight, but I asked around and people told me that rabbits are naturally lean animals and I was probably just feeding him more like what he would eat in the wild, instead of unlimited pellets. I did not give pellets. I fed him organic vegetables and veggies from our yard only sprayed with organic stuff and washed before given. I fed him grass from our yard and a few days before he died, some from the outdoors. Washed grass with water but don't know if outside grass was infected. He seemed to be eating, pooping, etc. Normally and pee was light yellow-light orange color, not milky. He ingested a small amount of soft rubber on the first day of his new cage, but he seemed to be eating, drinking, pooping, urinating normally for the next week. Tuesday morning (the day of his death) I noticed he had drank little water the night before and eaten little grass, which is unusual for him (in my short time with him anyway). But he had still pooped and peed normally during the night and still pounced on the greens I fed him that morning. I bathed his feet gently, towel dried, and gently blow dried him. He seemed to enjoy the blow dry. Lightly wrapped him in a towel and set on carpet and he seemed to be really relaxed lying there but got up after a little bit to lick himself under the couch. I thought he seemed really chill after the bath. A little before noon, he lay down under our desk and I thought he was just relaxing as he would often do around our home. I heard him change positions a few times but it sounded spastic. When I turned to look at him he just seemed to be laying there peacefully, still breathing and I didn't want to disturb him. We took a 1/2 hour nap and when we woke, he was dead. There was no blood, heavy breathing, runny nose or anything else that would have suggested to me he was sick. He didn't seem like an old bunny when we got him. I don't understand what happened to him and feel guilty for his death. He was such a good rabbit and we miss him.
Well my french angora was bought avout a month ago,and I don't know why she died either. We always feed her a veriaty of things,tim.hay,pellets,carrots,celery,romaine lettece,etc. Well I didnt know she was pregnant and she didnt gain any weight. The babies were healthy but we lost them due to her cage not managable to keep them inside and she crushed them bouncing around. Its only been 2wks when she had them and I noticed she wasnt drinking water or eating as much. She been breating hard and tilting her head back all day. I knew she wasnt going to make it,but I just can't figure out what went wrong.
The same thing happened to me today (january 10, 2011) I feel SOOOOOOO bad. I gave her a bath and she was acting normal. I tryed to dry her as best I could. But she kept jumping outta my arms. So I just let her hop around the house. Then I found her in a corner with her head hanging down. I picked her up. And she kept tilting her head. It scared me. I put her down. And she tryed to walk but she was very unstable. She kept falling and tripping. I started crying because I was so scared that something was wrong. I got my step-mom and she looked at her and thought it wasn't normal either. She thought she might have gotten hypothermia. So we put some towels in the dryer. Then wrapped her in them. She kept closing her eyes. And tilting her head back. Then she would get spastic and move real fast or try to jump outta her arms. It was just so weird. Then out of no where, her heart stopped. It was heart breaking. I felt terrible. And I still blame myself. And always will. That poor bunny didn't deserve to die. But I feel like I took her life away from her. I just don't understand why she died ):
