He's an adolescent hare now.. Tomorrow he'll be 11 weeks old!
And he's as wild and as mad as a hare can be!
Unfortunately, he had a small accident 2 weeks ago: a close encounter with a cat..
Buster was out in the garden, as usual nibbling away at some grass, sprinting and hopping as he does.
A cat jumped onto the garden and started chasing Buster.
Thankfully my husband was in the garden when this happened and he was able to send the cat off, however poor Buster had gotten such a fright that he ran, at full speed, into a concrete wall, bounced off it and knocked himself unconscious :-(
Of course him being blind and not being able to see where he was running didn't help.
Initially we thought the worse, but thankfully he gained conscience again in a few minutes.
He was bleeding from his nose and mouth and had a bloodshot on his eye from the heavy impact.
We rang the vet emergency line (the accident was late in the evening) and we were told not much to do but to keep him warm and hydrated for the night.
The vet examined him the following morning and reassured us that no bones were broken.
Buster was given an injection of pain killers and also some oral antibiotic because he inhaled some of his own blood from the nasal passages and his chest infection had made its way back.
The vet was also able to confirm that Buster is blind as his pupils don't dilate in the dark and it was suggested that possibly the retina never developed when he was a baby. This only confirmed the theories we've had all along.
Buster did not move from his basket for days, and we hand fed him milk in the mornings and water in the evenings with a 1-ml syringe, and oat and fresh grass during the day. When awake, his movements were very slow but he slept most of the time.
The impact had been so bad that the wall had 'shaved' some fur off his head.
Buster slowly recovered from this head concussion and he's now back to normal
(the hunt for the cat continues..)
We plan to build a run for Buster, completely enclosed on the sides and on the top by chicken wire so no cats can get it.
We have bought him a medium size kennel with a door for him to use as his hutch.
Once the run is in place, Buster will be able to stay outside on his own!
Strangely enough, he's still not weaned off his milk bottle.
It's the one routine he loves in the mornings and he gulps down a full 50-ml bottle of Welpi mixed with fresh cream and pro-biotics.
Some pictures of Buster!
Buster combing his fur and grooming himself!
What a handsome boy!
Zzzzzzz...
Buster now climbs the stairs and sneaks into the bedrooms upstairs!
Buster: "May I have some privacy, please?"
Buster getting 'carried' from the garden to the house for his antibiotic!
5 comments:
Thanks for the comment on my Buster's blog!
Your Buster is just adorable. What a wonderful story!
I'm so glad Buster has such good human parents! What a wonderful story! And he has such long legs! He's gorgeous!
If I may make one suggestion: when you build the run, it's probably a good idea to add an extra layer a short distance outside the actual run so predators can't reach their claws inside and catch him off guard.
Thanks so much for sharing this experience, Buster is so blessed to have been taken in by such kind people as yourselves!
He is SO CUTE. I can't wait to see more pictures!
First of all: what a wonderful hare and what a sweet blog. :)
Secondly: for a run I advice you use thicker material than chicken wire. Rabbits -and I'd think hares as well- bite trough it and can hurt themselves that way. For my bunny's cage I've used much thicker garden wire (without plastic around it, because they eat that). Also make sure he has a shadow spot in the cage, to hide when it's to sunny. When I made my cage I found lot's of info and tips about it on the net, google it up and I'm sure you'll find useful links (I can't share since the links I visited where in Dutch).
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