Dance like no one's watching

Pinky took her 1st peek at the world just now. Just in time to welcome the (Chinese) new year!

After feeding, i was patting her tummy as usual to aid digestion & the passing of shit & pee when i saw that her left eye was open the tiniest bit! After playing on the floor (just running about) for a while, her right eye opened a slit too.

The little bunny has been sleeping most of the night after that. Guess it must be tiring to open one’s eyes huh? I played a short while with her after my dinner. Heh… she still likes to sleep on my palm. Sigh… wonder if she’ll still stick to me as much after she grows older… I wanted to take some photos of her but i’m afraid the flash will be too blinding so i guess no photos for Pinky for a little while. 🙂

Pinky is also learning to be more independent now. Heh. This morning, she crawled under a standing Horlicks (who was trying to lick her) and managed to find a nipple to drink breakfast from. All by herself… haha. That made my job a lot easier… i just had to support her (her back was lying on my palm) and she was navigating between Horlicks’ nipples. Hehe.

Dinner was pretty much the same except i’m not sure how much milk Pinky managed to drink ‘cos her fur has grown a lot thicker so it’s quite difficult to tell if her tummy grew in size from milk intake or not. Anyhow, i’m very happy that Pinky opened her eyes today. Love u Pinky!!

I spent like 40mins using a cotton wool + hot water to stroke her tummy area to aid digestion. This process is supposed to help her poop / pee but she didn’t! Made me so worried that she’ll die of overeating (it happens to baby bunnies… something abt their intestines not functioning properly). She was so bloated that she could barely lick her own chest!!

Anyway, Pinky pooped small bits of crap the past 2 hrs so i think she should be ok. Here’s some photos of how bloated she was!

Overfed bunny… 🙁

“Ooh… i’m too full, too full!”

I’m so tired now. Checked on Pinky at 6:48am this morning and that little bunny crawled between the layers of the t-shirt. Gave me a shock ‘cos i was afraid she would suffocate. I quickly took the bunny out… she was warm but sleeping well. After patting her to sleep on top of the t-shirt, i decided to place a hankerchief over her so she could use that as a security blanket. Maybe if Pinky turns out to be a “he”, i should name it Linus! (like the Linus in Snoppy).

Anyway, after feeding her this morning, i did a short photoshoot of Pinky. Plus a video. But i can’t load the video here so u’ll just have to make do with photos. Heh.

Tired after drinking mommy’s milk. Getting ready for bed.

Curled up bunny style!

Pinky likes to sleep on my palm too! I love the shot on the left. It was totally candid. Pinky just happened to stretch out when the camera snapped! 🙂

Just saw from Airbus’ MSN nick that his dad has passed on. I suspect it was rather sudden ‘cos i don’t remember him mentioning any health problems his dad had to me before. I know Airbus must be feeling terrible now ‘cos he’s an only child and now that his dad has passed on, his mom would be all alone in M’sia. Guess he must also feel sad that his dad would not get to see the bungalow that he bought for them. I wanted to find out more but given how our last conversation ended, i was afraid that he might think i was patronizing him. So i said, “hey, just saw your nick about your dad… my condolences”. His reply was, “thx”.

Short, concise, maybe a little too sterile. I wanted to say more but i didn’t want to make things any worse than they already are. The last time i blogged about Airbus in “Shortcoming”, i was really mad & insulted, totally indignant about his opinion about me. But at the end of the day, i still regard him as a friend.

I don’t know how to comfort Airbus. Maybe that’s why God created prayer.

Pinky’s been doing ok so far. She’s (disclaimer: u can’t really tell the gender of a rabbit till they’re closer to 6 months old) grown quite a bit of fur so she’s not really pink anymore. She’s white with lots of brown/darkbrown spots. Her spots are at almost the same places a Horlicks… hehe… talk about bunny genes…

Anyway, Pinky’s really getting into the rabbit hop recently. As of yesterday, she was still very unstable when she stood up ‘cos her legs are too weak to support her body. So everytime she got up on all fours, she would wobble wobble and then fall down. Sometimes she can take like 3 steps before she falls down, does a roll in the box, and stands up again. Hehe, everytime i see her fall all over the box, i get very worried that she’ll sprain her back or something, so sometimes, i use my fingers to support her sides… and she uses them like crutches to move about…. and that was the start of my Hopping School syllabus.

Today, we practised hopping again. Wow, the improvement is fantastic. Pinky doesn’t really need my fingers as crutches anymore. When i put her on the bed, she’ll scramble like 5 steps, then hop forward once, followed by more scrambling. Only when she falls down and has difficult getting up, then i’ll give her some assistance. Heh. I’m going to take a video of her scrambling / hopping when she wakes up later. She’s sleeping off her dinner now.

Pinky turned 9-days old tonight. She should be opening her eyes either tomorrow or the day after. After that, she’ll be able to take some solid food (mainly hay) + Horlicks’ milk. This is another danger period ‘cos if her stomach doesn’t take to the food, it may cause intestinal problems, enteritis, etc.

Anyway, i need to go mug a little about what happens from the 10th day onwards. Hope to be able to take many many photos of Pinky for many many days to come. 🙂

Pinky is starting to get used to sleeping by herself (i’m assuming it’s a “she” ‘cos the fur coat looks like Horlicks’). She still tries to look for Fatty 1st…. and will crawl very unstably all over the box for at least 15min before she tires herself out and settles down to sleep. My dad just called back from Germany to ask what happened to Fatty… he suggested it could be some sort of milk regurgitation from the stomach that caused the choke? I think that’s unlikely ‘cos i hadn’t started feeding yet. Sigh… poor Fatty… he really looked a lot like the daddy.

Now… about the topic i was going to share. My female rabbits, i.e. Horlicks & Peanut have been exhibiting “loanrabbit” (think loanshark) behaviour. It’s strange but Horlicks refuses to allow any other rabbits into the backyard. It’s probably some instinct thing so whenever i let Horlicks out to roam, i need to lock Peanut back into her cage. Even then, in a show of defiance, Horlicks would sometimes go in front of Peanut’s cage, attempt to scratch Peanut through the grills, and then pee in front of the cage. Just like your HDB loanshark… pouring smelly stuff in front of their debtor’s home.

Anyway, i decided to be fairer to Peanut ‘cos we’ve been neglecting her a bit since Horlicks gave birth and i let her run around the backyard for a couple of hours just now. Wow…. talk about revenge… when i went downstairs to lock Peanut back in the cage, i saw this pool of pee outside Horlicks cage. No wonder Horlicks was hopping mad inside her cage. Sigh… anyway, it’s going to be like that till i get the boys sterilized.

Instead of sterilizing Coffee on 1 Feb, i’m going to send Muah Chee in instead… ‘cos MC is really in heat so i think we better settle him first.

If u’re reading this and u’re a rabbit lover too, please pray for the bunnies ya? That MC’s sterilization operation will go well and that he’ll recover w/o any complications (eh, the poor rabbit has to be put under GA ok!) Then there’s Coffee… smallest bunny in the household… please pray that no one will bully him.

Please also pray for peace between the 2 fine ladies, Horlicks & Peanut. My mom and i are a little concerned now that Peanut may be pregnant again (after locking her up with MC for 2 nites… before we found out MC is male…) ‘cos Peanut has started her digging habit again….

And most importantly, please pray for little bunny Pinky…. only survivor among Horlicks’ 3 babies. She’s getting less pink now as more white fur grows. We all appreciate your prayers.

Oh did i mention before that sometimes to coax Horlicks into staying in a lying down position so i can feed the babies, i would sing to her? So far her favourite song seems to be “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”. Maybe ‘cos her babies were born at night too…

I took these 3 photos of Fatty & Pinky with my hp camera this afternoon. Last 3 shots of the siblings sleeping together happily.

I was quite tempted to name them “Patience” & “Cirrus” (depending on their gender) when they grew up… but there’s no need for that now i suppose. Pinky could just remain as Pinky… it’s an endearing name in itself.

Sigh. 🙁

Fatty died tonight. It was very sudden. It was about 7:30pm and i brought both babies down to the backyard to feed them. I managed to coax Horlicks to lie down so i went to carry Fatty to her… but as i was approaching, Horlicks got up again. So i placed Fatty back into its box. Fatty was so excited… nibbled my finger 3x! I told it to wait a little while till “mommy was ready”.I then went to coax Horlicks to lie down again and once she did, Clown brought the box the babies were in over to me. I picked Fatty up and saw that it was rather lifeless. When i placed Fatty near Horlick’s body and it still didn’t move much, i realised something was seriously wrong.

Clown & i examined Fatty & we suspect that it was choked on something. We tried all means to save Fatty… we patted it, stroked it and when it struggled, Clown even opened its mouth a little & blew air into it. For a while, it seemed to work and three times when it seemed to go stiff, this bunny CPR worked… but after a tough struggle of about 15mins, Fatty breathed its last.

Its throat was all stiffen up when it died. Clown opened its mouth a little to see if we could find what it choked on but we couldn’t. It appeared as though it choked on its own saliva and couldn’t cough to get rid of the choke.

Pinky’s still ok… Pinky drank A LOT of milk tonight. I was so worried when i saw its SUPER round stomach. I quickly warmed some water up & managed to help it pee… and my did it pee! Pinky’s stomach shrank to normal after that. What a relief!

I really don’t know whether Pinky will survive. It’s like every day a baby rabbit lives is a miracle. Now when i see all my 4 adult rabbits, i realise that they’re all miracles ‘cos someone, whether it’s the breeder or their mommy rabbit nursed them into life.

Quite a lot of unfortunate things happened to Clown recently… including getting into an accident on Sat nite. Sometimes we don’t understand why bad things happen. Yeah, skeptics may say it’s juz a bunny… but it was a bunny loved by all. (Pinky at first refused to go to sleep w/o the sibling… kept crawling all over the box to look for it… which is what 1 baby would do whenever we take the other out of the box). But i believe Fatty joined all my other bunnies in rabbit heaven.

Just to share a song that we sung on Sunday during service…

“Trust His Heart”All things work for our good
Though sometimes we can’t see how they could
Struggles that break our hearts in two
Sometimes blind us to the truth

Our Father knows what’s best for us
His ways are not our own
So when your pathway goes dim
And you just can’t see Him
Remember He’s one the throne

(Chorus) God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don’t understand
When you don’t see His hand
When you can’t trace His plan
Trust His heart

He sees the master plan
He holds the future in His hand
Don’t live as those who have no hope
While our hope is found in Him

We see the present clearly
But He sees the first & last
And like a tapestry
He’s weaving you and me
To someday be just like Him

(Chorus)

(Bridge) He alone is faithful and true
He alone knows what is best for you

(Chorus)

Hi everyone! Need some help. Should i name Pinky, “Latte” and Fatty, “Mocha”? Or should i let Pinky remain as Pinky (it’s a cute name anyway) & Fatty becomes “Kuachee”? (Well since the father is called MuahChee and kuachee is sorta brownish)?Ok… here are the choices:
1) Pinky & Mocha
2) Pinky & Kuachee
3) Latte & Mocha

You can leave your vote on the tag-board, as a comment, or email me. Thanks! 🙂

A little worried for 001 aka Fatty ‘cos it’s not fat anymore. It’s thinner than Pinky (002) even! But for their dinner juz now, i let Fatty feed 3x whereas Pinky fed only twice. Fatty as usual, peed straight after its dinner… maybe that’s why it always seems thinner? Another possible reason could be that Fatty is now half a head longer than Pinky. Perhaps all the milk went to its height.Clown says that i shouldn’t call Fatty, “Fatty” anymore. We played around with a few names last night – Latte, Milo, Kua Chee (melon seeds)…. but it’s difficult to settle on one since we’re not completely sure what colour the babies will turn out. I believe Pinky will turn out like Horlicks – white with brown sports and Fatty already looks like MC – a mixture of brown & grey fur.

For now, i think i’ll call Pinky “Latte”, and Fatty shall be called “Mocha”.

Photos take on day 2 – Mocha’s on the left & Latte’s on the right.

Photo taken today (day 3).