Thanks to Metaphorx for sharing this story on Imgur.
A mom of a friend of mine asked if it would be okay if she could put her female rabbit downstairs (caged) while she had people over that weekend. I said it was fine. I had two rabbits of my own upstairs, a neutered male and a female rabbit who I hadn't spayed yet. I had the space so I didn't mind. Anyways, we ended up letting the two female rabbits have a "play date" I guess you could call it. The other rabbit ended up mounting my rabbit and I told my friend that their rabbit had to be male. She told me that the vet said it was female and maybe it was just a "dominance" thing. Turns out I was right and it took that one time for my rabbit to get pregnant. Thing is, I didn't know she was pregnant.
My rabbit started ripping her fur out to make a "nest" so I googled why she was doing this and later found out that they do this when they're pregnant or think they're pregnant to get ready for the kits. I woke up to this one morning and walked in on her giving birth to the kits. There were 4.
Continue this oh-so-cute story on the next page.
They were so small and I was afraid to handle them in my hands in case the scent from me would scare the mother away from them. That was the least of my problems at this point. She didn't mind me touching them and she kept feeding them for two days, until the worse possible thing happened. She died. I went downstairs to check on her and the kits and she was breathing heavily. Rabbits try and hide when they're ill because they're on the bottom of the food chain, so seeing her like that worried me. I rushed her to the vet ASAP.
As soon as I got there she died at the clinic. She had stillborn babies inside of her that made her sick. I felt horrible. I should have brought her there as soon as she had the kits, but for whatever reason I thought she would be fine. You know, let nature take it's course and all that, but I was wrong.
The vet told me they are one of THE hardest animals to nurse, and where we live we can't get rabbit milk or rodent milk so the closest thing I could get is KMR (kitten formula) mixed with whipping cream to make it thicker, adding acidophilus to keep a healthy gut flora.
It took me 2 hours to feed them each feeding. They wouldn't eat. They didn't like the syringe. I fed them in the morning and in the night. 2 hours each time, sometimes more but I tried my absolute hardest to get them to feed. I needed to do this for my sweet rabbit that I lost. Everyone told me they would die. That I'd be lucky if they made it a week. Then one died and I lost faith in myself. The one that died was the one that just wouldn't eat as much as the other kits. I tried everything.
I contacted Hoppy Homes Rescue and they wouldn't take the rabbits in because they were "full". I contacted farms that may have nursing mothers, who could maybe adopt the kits. I contacted friends and families to see if anyone had a rabbit that was nursing. I even tried getting them to nurse from a nursing cat, but it didn't work. They can't even pee or poop on their own. You have to stimulate them by rubbing their bellies and their surrounding area with your finger or a cotton ball dipped in warm water. If you don't do this they can also die. The female rabbit usually licks them either before or after each feeding. I was so stressed out.
Continue to the next page to find out what happened to these baby rabbits.
And then things changed. They started feeding from me. They started to grow fur.
They kept warm in their mother's fur and snuggled with each other. I had the heat on blast in the room they were in to keep them warm as well.
Every day they got stronger, and more and more energetic! They stole my heart.
Finally the hopping began, and the "binkys" because they were happy.
Continue to the next page to see how this story ends.
I put them in a bigger box after and just used this one for when I took them out to feed them. At this point it's taking me less than 20 minutes to feed all three kits.
So the kits are 4 weeks old today and they've started picking at hay and pellets, and they're still drinking the KMR formula. I have to feed it to them until they're 8-10 weeks old.
They are my absolute favorite in this world and I never thought I'd be able to save one, not to mention 3 of them. I wish I could have saved all 4. I wish she never died, but I can't change what happened. But look at them. Look at the difference. I'm so happy to have gotten the chance to save them. Everyone told me I couldn't do it, that it was near impossible. But here they are, fighting against all odds and winning. They are true fighters. I have complete faith that all 3 of them are going to make it now. They are doing so well. I'm so happy.
Share this heartwarming story with an animal lover in your life.
Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
​Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
​This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
​Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
​This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
​Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
​Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.​
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run