Our little rabbit, Maya had to be put down on the 30th of December. She was less than 5 months old, and made us very happy.
We do not know how old she was when we got her. We bought her in a pet store in France, where she was classified as “Extra Dwarf” rabbit (lapin extra nain). The store’s seller assured us that she was at least 8 weeks old, and that she was entirely done with her weaning.
She was the tiniest of her litter, but was also definitely the most active, and cute!
After bringing her back from the pet store, I spent a lot of time on the internet, searching for the best ways to train her, feed her, and entertain her, as it was my first bunny, and I didn’t know at all what she could or couldn’t eat.
Searching online I found a website, warning about extra dwarf rabbits, and how the underlying business was mainly a big scam, selling 4 weeks old, crossbred rabbits to sell them tinier and optimize sales. Because hey, the smallest the cutest and nobody cares about weaning.
I didn’t pay much attention to this website, as our rabbit was really fine, making binky all the time. She actually was so cute that I found myself, a 25 year old dude, getting tears of happiness more than once, while playing with her!
Two months ago, our rabbit started having weird seizures. She was losing balance, falling on the side, and panicking, kicking in the air with her little legs. Very soon, she was having two seizures per day at least. It happened to be caused by a parasite in her head. We found the cure to her disease. Our Vet told us that it was a very common disease among rabbits, especially when weakened by crossbreeding and taken from their moms too young.
Anyway, we found a very efficient cure, and our rabbit was finally doing great again!
I went to Slovakia with my girlfriend for Christmas leaving our Maya to my parents. My girlfriend had a dog in Slovakia at her parents. A Dachshund named Andy. He was already 16 and grew very weak because of his rotten teeth. We had to put him down on the 26th of December. My girlfriend had him since she was 7, and has been very affected by his death of course. We went back to France, all happy to come back and see Maya, but when we arrived home, we learned that she was very sick.
She stopped eating. She obviously wanted to, but something was hurting her. Even though rabbits can’t puke, her spit was leaking from her mouth, and we had to feed her with a pipette.
My parents didn’t know what to do and went to a vet, who told them that she didn’t have any problems with her mouth, but was bloated and couldn’t eat because of that. We were supposed to keep force feeding her until she would, hopefully, get better.
We did that, but she lost one third of her weight in less than a week, going from 600g to 400g. We went back to the same vet who solved our parasite problem, to get another opinion. He is specialized in rodents, and after inspecting her teeth, directly told us that she had a congenital defect. Her teeth were growing to the inside, spiking her tongue and preventing her from swallowing. There was nothing to do, and we had to put her down. Our vet said that it is sadly a very common disease in extra dwarf rabbits, and that the responsible for this is men, by crossbreeding and taking these poor animals away from their moms before they are done with their weaning.
This, at least for us, is a heartbreaking story. Maya helped us getting out of a very tough period of our lives, and the death of both of my girlfriend’s pets made it the toughest Christmas we’ve ever had.
The consolation I find in Maya’s death is that if I can denounce the extra dwarf business that is going on in France, her leaving us would not have entirely been for nothing.
The extra dwarf bunny business is going on in France for quite a long time now. Pet stores simply say that they are a variant breed of rabbits, but tinier. In fact, this is entirely false. There is no “Extra dwarf” rabbit breeds.
Truth is, these bunnies are stemming from multiple breeds of rabbits. In fact, most of the time, dwarf rabbits are even excluded from the breeding, because of their weak fertility. In order to make them look smaller than actual dwarf rabbits, pet stores put them to sale when they are approximately 4 weeks old. Problem is, a rabbit is not done with its weaning before it reaches its 8-10 weeks.
Weaning is the most important period for any animal, all species combined!
The result of this revolting practice is that these animals will very likely have a lot of issues.
Behavioral troubles might appear. A non-weaned rabbit can potentially show aggressiveness. Additionally in terms of health, food deficiency is very frequent for them, along with many other weaknesses. Finally, their lifespan will probably be much shorter than a normally weaned rabbit. The lifespan of a so-called “extra dwarf rabbit” will count in months, not years.
Of course, a small amount of extra dwarf rabbits will not end up showing these defects. But it’s just like flipping a coin.
I hope that this message will be heard, and serve for future buyers to boycott this unethical business.
For us, despite this tragic end, this experience was awesome. There is no doubt we will get a new rabbit, ASAP! But we will never ever buy a rabbit in a pet store anymore. There are certified rabbit farms, where none of these business practices are being performed, and that’s where our new friend will come from.
Her first day with us!
The day before she definitely left us.
