A bath and a trip to the vet.
Cinnamon of Wild Bird Store and Disapproving Rabbit fame will be on sick leave for the next week due to a long cut that looks WAY grosser than it is. She was acting strange Wednesday night, I had a dickens of a time getting her to go into her carrier when it was time to leave the bird store. At one point she hid in a new spot that I couldn't find her for half an hour and panicked a bit. When I got her home she was incredibly agitated, but since she was eating and pooping and hopping normally Non Birding Bill and I attributed the bahavior to a strong storm coming in. Friday night NBB was giving her a bath when he found the cut along the lower end of her right hind quarters. We took her to the emergency vet (because rabbit medical issues never happen during normal vet business hours) and discovered that Bill knew one of the vets who greeted us.
Laurie was very nice about not making us feel guilty for not noticing cut sooner. Rabbits are masters of hiding injury since that serves as a sign to predators that they are ripe for the picking. Plus, Cinnamon was eating, pooping and hopping normally since having the injury and those are the signs you watch for. The main vet that took care of us was a rabbit expert and didn't hesitate to remind us that Cinnamon is a little overweight and how we should manage that better. We were all surprised at the length of the cut but relieved that it wasn't deeper. It had already started to heal so stitches were not necessary however Cinnamon is not allowed to go to the store for a week, must be out on limited supervised excercises, get medicine force fed twice a day and a bath once a day--all her least favorite things in life and probably the reason why she was hiding her injury. I really wish she had just come up to me at some point and said, "I say, mumsy, I have a minor flesh wound here, would you care to escort me to the veternarian in the swiftest manner possible?" Alas.
My guess is that she got the cut while I was trying to corral her into her carrier Wednesday night. The mat in her carrier didn't have much blood inside when I checked it after visisting the vet and there wouldn't have been since it wasn't very deep. Sometimes the little bunny butthead likes to run through and climb over wooden bird feeders and bird houses and I wonder if in her running and climbing she scraped her hind end on one of the corners of the cedar houses or feeders. The vet shaved the area around the cut so now it looks really nasty. Hopefully, when she is allowed back to work in a week she won't look like her back end is zombified. I can't have the kids who come into the bird store see her and run up to her calling, "Look at the cute bunny!" and then cowering in disgust when the see her back end.
In the mean time when not being medicated or bathed, she will get a good week of spoiling and watching Matlock, CSI shows and Buffy the Vampire Slayer while eating carrot tops, fresh parsley, dried banana, cashews and fresh basil on the love sac. I love my little bunny butthead who thinks she can leap over a Peterson bluebird box in a single bound.