12/09/2024
Trigger Warning: Animal hoarding, abuse, neglect
Hi everyone, this is an urgent introduction post to a new rabbit rescue we are starting in response to an awful hoarding situation involving rabbits, cats, dogs, and turtles. They were kept in horrific conditions without food and water. The pictures and description are graphic, but I feel they are important to share to raise awareness of what these poor bunnies have been through. If you don’t want to read the details of what they went through, which is completely understandable, but would like to help our rescue, please skip over the next section, called “Backstory,” and go straight to the section below it called, “Can You Help Us?” The first few images are cute pictures of the bunnies after being rescued, but past the visible ones are the pictures showing what happened to them at the hoarding house. As far as I know we are the first rabbit rescue in this state. The local animal shelter is not equipped to handle rabbits, especially not this many. Fortunately, one of the local rescues that works mainly with cats and dogs, Save Them All Rescue Services, has offered to help with getting our rescue up and running and another amazing rescue, Always Sunny Sanctuary and Rescue, has been helping us as well. It’s an overwhelming process but we are being supported by so many wonderful people that I believe we can make this rescue happen. Our name is Lucky Clover Rabbit Rescue, in memory of my first rescued bunny, Clover.
Backstory:
Several months ago, a concerned person made a post in a local pet Facebook group asking for help because he noticed an earless, domestic bunny running around a neighborhood. Thinking this was likely a situation of a bunny being dumped or lost, my friends and I went to see if we could catch it and try to find the owners. Unfortunately, the situation turned out to be much, much worse. The rabbit was lucky enough to have escaped from the house of horrors and we were able to catch her with the help of kind neighbors, but we knew there must be something bad going on beyond the fence of this house because the neighbors told us they could hear rabbits screaming at night. The smell of decomposition from the hoarding house was noticeable from the sidewalk and neighbor’s yard. We spent the next several months advocating for these bunnies and trying to get animal control to help them, but the help never came. Unfortunately, this took place in South Dakota where animals tend to be viewed as livestock. We couldn’t do anything to help the other bunnies until the man hoarding was removed from the property, so they unfortunately continued to suffer and reproduce for several months. The new owners of the house were happy to have help with the bunnies because the local shelter wouldn’t call them back and they didn’t know what to do. When we finally got to go onsite to catch and rescue the rabbits, we found them kept in filthy hutches with mounds of f***s and deceased rabbits everywhere. There were so many bunnies that when we were pulling them out of the hutches, we were accidentally picking up both living and dead ones with the nets. Many of the bunnies are missing parts of their ears due to them fighting and cannibalizing. We also found a bathtub full of water and dead turtles, but one little turtle was still alive and struggling to get out of the slippery bathtub. Thankfully, one of the rescuers on our team adopted the turtle. We spent several days going on rescue missions to catch and trap the bunnies. We kept finding more hutches and it just seemed like it would never end. All in all, there were 38 living rabbits and with no other place for them to go, we separated the males and females and moved them into a large garden and empty chicken coop temporarily. Several bunnies were severely injured and ill and we kept them indoors and got them immediate vet care. We prioritized getting the pregnant bunnies into foster care immediately too.
Can you help?
We are currently working on building a climate-controlled shed for all the bunnies to live in while awaiting adoption. The shed will also serve as housing for our future rescue bunnies. We are also in the process of getting all of them spayed and neutered. We are in desperate need of financial assistance to cover these costs because it has been an overwhelming amount of expenses. If you can donate please use our PayPal below:
PayPal: https://paypal.me/LuckyCloverRR?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US
If you are not able to donate but would like to help, please like and follow our page, share, and help us get the word out! Together we can save them ❤️🩹 Thank you from the bottom of my heart and from all of the bunnies!
