topic Re: Protect your pet rabbits in Community Spirit

Protect your pet rabbits

bright.ton42 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 02:00:39 GMT

Just a heads up, the Calici virus is being released today said to dispose of over 40% of wild rabbits.

Apparently it is spread very easily and pet rabbits can be easily infected. There is a vaccine available and owners are advised to have their pets immunised.

http://kb.rspca.org.au/What-is-rabbit-calicivirus-and-how-do-I-protect-my-rabbit-from-rabbit-haemorrhagic-disease_630.html

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

davidc4430 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 03:55:18 GMT

i heard there is a shortage of vaccine, as usual great forward planning.

its truly a sorry thing that in the 21st century our answer to the wild rabbit problem is to inflict them with an horendouse death.

it would not be tolerated in most other animal contol enviroments.

imagine if the cat and dog control people gave those animals a disease that took weeks to kill?

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

bright.ton42 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 04:30:04 GMT

It just makes me cringe, I know they have to be reduced but why in this day and age can't something more human be found.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 04:35:32 GMT

And we consider ourselves civilised

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

debra9275 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 08:20:00 GMT

When we had pet abbits I was always worried about them being bitten by mosquito carriers

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

amalan11 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 09:51:26 GMT

I hate to see this kind of thing happen, very cruel .

I went to hardware store yesterday and got flyscreen to staple over my 3 guys cage wire as extra protection as apparently flys and mozzies will be carriers. I remember last time this virus was released it was a huge problem for pet rabbits,I will have to look at vaccination as well .

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

davidc4430 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 10:41:37 GMT

the "authorities" say just get your bunny vaccinated.

some people would have several bunnys, how much does it cost to get a bunny vaccinated?

i bet its not $5

quite a lot of bunny owners have them because they are a cheap pet that kids can handle and can live outside and eat scraps.

the kind of people who dont have lots of spare cash for vaccinations.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

chameleon54 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 13:26:28 GMT

Unfortunately nature is not always sensitive and kind.

As human populations become more urbanised and cut off from the real world, they tend to see everything through the sanitised, homoginised, pasturised view of the artificial, plastic world that they live in.

A place where everthing is regulated and controlled. Everything is man made. From the concrete paths to the architecturally designed gardens and parklands. Things come in a plastic bag and go in a plastic bin. We wake to a regulated alarm clock, go to work in our highly regulated and controlled traffic systems. Work for 8 hours at a computer in a climate controlled office and head home to heat our pre-prepared meal from the supermarket.

In nature there are fires, floods, famine and feast. Locust plagues, mice plagues, rabbit plagues and even koala bear and fur seal plagues. There are hunters and prey, untreated injuries and disease. Animal disability without human support and eventual slow painfull death. And there is calici virus.

Life in the natural world can be heartless, ruthless and cruel. Welcome to the real world.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

davidc4430 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 21:41:58 GMT

your confusing nature with mans intervention.

yes nature can and is cruel, no doubt about it.

no one is arguing that.

the argument here if it is an argument is that we are now in the 21st century and the best cure we have for a problem is to inflict a disease that takes weeks to kill and causes terrible suffering onto a species of animal because its become a problem.

if its ok to use such a thing on rabbits why not feral cats. imagine if the govt released a desease into the feral cat population that caused cats to die in a similar manner to the rabbits requiring every pet cat to be vaccinated? i would think the govt that did that would be booted out of govt. and yet the problems are very similar. then there is wild dogs, wild goats ect ect.

the govt only got away with it as it was rabbits, only a small number of people own pet rabbits.

i dont own a rabbit. but i would be horrified if the govt anounced they were going to release cat version of the calici virus to cull feral cats.

the calici virus is not part of the real world, it is just an easy solution to a problem

if i was to infect my dog with a disease on purpose that took several weeks to kill him in much pain and suffering and i was put in court i'd be fined, stopped from owning pets and possibly jailed.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

bright.ton42 — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 01:27:29 GMT

@davidc4430 wrote:
your confusing nature with mans intervention.

yes nature can and is cruel, no doubt about it.

no one is arguing that.

the argument here if it is an argument is that we are now in the 21st century and the best cure we have for a problem is to inflict a disease that takes weeks to kill and causes terrible suffering onto a species of animal because its become a problem.

if its ok to use such a thing on rabbits why not feral cats. imagine if the govt released a desease into the feral cat population that caused cats to die in a similar manner to the rabbits requiring every pet cat to be vaccinated? i would think the govt that did that would be booted out of govt. and yet the problems are very similar. then there is wild dogs, wild goats ect ect.

the govt only got away with it as it was rabbits, only a small number of people own pet rabbits.

i dont own a rabbit. but i would be horrified if the govt anounced they were going to release cat version of the calici virus to cull feral cats.

the calici virus is not part of the real world, it is just an easy solution to a problem

if i was to infect my dog with a disease on purpose that took several weeks to kill him in much pain and suffering and i was put in court i'd be fined, stopped from owning pets and possibly jailed.

So well said David. As I';ve said before I know they have to be reduced but in this barbaric way? I don't know if I'm being naive but who cares, wasn't there talk of 'infecting' them with birth control methods? So it might take a bit longer than calici but I don't know why it's not doable.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

chameleon54 — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 21:23:02 GMT

@davidc4430 wrote:
your confusing nature with mans intervention.

yes nature can and is cruel, no doubt about it.

no one is arguing that.

the argument here if it is an argument is that we are now in the 21st century and the best cure we have for a problem is to inflict a disease that takes weeks to kill and causes terrible suffering onto a species of animal because its become a problem.

if its ok to use such a thing on rabbits why not feral cats. imagine if the govt released a desease into the feral cat population that caused cats to die in a similar manner to the rabbits requiring every pet cat to be vaccinated? i would think the govt that did that would be booted out of govt. and yet the problems are very similar. then there is wild dogs, wild goats ect ect.

the govt only got away with it as it was rabbits, only a small number of people own pet rabbits.

i dont own a rabbit. but i would be horrified if the govt anounced they were going to release cat version of the calici virus to cull feral cats.

the calici virus is not part of the real world, it is just an easy solution to a problem

if i was to infect my dog with a disease on purpose that took several weeks to kill him in much pain and suffering and i was put in court i'd be fined, stopped from owning pets and possibly jailed.

Sorry david, but I think you are the one who is confusing nature with mans intervention. You are confusing the cruel things that happen in nature with the sanitised, artificial " nice " world that we create for our pets and farmed animals.

The rabbits are not native to Australia. They are only here due to mans stupid intervention. In the countries where rabbits are native, the Calici virus is part of the natural ecosystem that prevents the rabbits from becoming a plague. All humans are doing is re-introducing a naturally occurring disease into a population that has been artificially kept from it.

I have lived through several plagues in my time on the farm including two mice plagues and several locust plagues. The plague strips every sceric of food from the enviroment until it either starves to death or is killed by disease.

One plague the mice where so bad they stripped all of the fabric door and roof linings from the cab of my truck. All that was left was the metal frame with its punched hole skeleton. It was seeding time and I had a seed cartage unit on the back of the truck. Every morning I would have to start the motor of the unit and auger out 150 litres of mice into a 200 litre drum from the shoots before I could access the seed. As I drove to the paddock, the mice would stare at me from the holes in the pressed metal cab and occasionally run up my trouser leg as I drove along.

The biggest plague species on the planet today is humans. Our breeding is totally and utterly out of control. We have reached such plague proportions that we have stripped the whole planet bare and affected the climate itself. The only hope mother earth has of stopping this current plague is to find a new disease that wipes us out, or that we stuff things up so much that we starve to death. Either of these is inevitable as this is the way all plagues end and balance is restored to the environment.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

chameleon54 — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 21:35:51 GMT

Or perhaps Putin could accuse Don of cheating at golf.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

bushies.girl — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 21:49:37 GMT

Excellent post David

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

tasfleur — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 21:56:48 GMT

"The biggest plague species on the planet today is humans. Our breeding is totally and utterly out of control. We have reached such plague proportions that we have stripped the whole planet bare and affected the climate itself. The only hope mother earth has of stopping this current plague is to find a new disease that wipes us out, or that we stuff things up so much that we starve to death. Either of these is inevitable as this is the way all plagues end and balance is restored to the environment"

That would have to be one of the best overall observations about planet earth I've read for a long time, so very accurate and sad.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

davidc4430 — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 22:36:45 GMT

i'm not arguing with you on wether the rabbits or mice or locusts are creatures that require control. my argument re rabbits is here we are in the 21st century and our only answer is to spread a disease with the greatest of eze. we havent come up with a more humane control.

if we are to talk about animals white man brought into australia as he did with the rabbit, we would need to remove a huge number of species to get back to what was native.

there would be no sheep, no cattle, no pigs, chickens, cats, dogs (besides dingoes) the list goes on and on.

to just pick rabbits out because they went wrong is an easy shot.

dont forget cane toads.

perhaps we should be employing huge numbers of rabbit 'hunters' to control the rabbits....oh we had that once. i seem to remember even the calici virus was released by accident whiping out a huge industry based around rabbits

i do agree mankind is a bit of a problem, we may have a cure just been elected to president of the USA.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

lyndal1838 — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 23:23:43 GMT

The actual cost of the vaccination is not very high...the problem is what the vets are charging to administer it.

My daughter is a vet nurse and she got the vaccine for her daughters and their friends rabbits for a few dollars each and administered it herself.

The biggest problem is whether the supply is going to keep up with demand....as far as she knows there is only one company producing it for the whole of Australia and there is currently a 2 week supply left and no certainty of when more will be available.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

bright.ton42 — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 01:13:41 GMT

From what I've read rightly or wrongly the only protection for pet rabbits other than vaccination is to keep

them inside. There are many ways it can be spread, and flies are one of them.

Anyway after reading this

The implication was that a rabbits last hours were often spent shaking, depressed and some rabbits had suffered a screaming death

I hesitate at reading anymore about calici as it makes me sick to the stomach. At the same time I totally agree with this about the human race. .

The only hope mother earth has of stopping this current plague is to find a new disease that wipes us out, or that we stuff things up so much that we starve to death. Either of these is inevitable as this is the way all plagues end and balance is restored to the environment.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

go-tazz — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 02:41:03 GMT

We used to go shooting on properties before Myxomatosis started the rounds and we would shoot 600

hundred pair on a weekend,(when Myxy was introduce it was very effective in reducing the rabbit population

and we gave up as we might only bag a couple of them that didn't have it).

The rabbits built up an immunity to it and something else had to be introduced.

When we first went shooting foxes were in abundance and we knocked over a number of them,(after Myxy was

introduced fox numbers seemed to be greatly reduced as was the rabbit population).

Unless rabbit numbers are reduced some farmers would need to reduce the amount of sheep that they can

have on their properties as the rabbit population can denude whole sections of land and make it

unsustainable for the number of sheep they currently have.

So the choice is sheep or rabbits,(easy choice IMHO),

Some may not be happy with the "solution" but it's the only one we have at present.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

michellebartley — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 00:18:06 GMT

There are a large number of people who breed rabbits to show also.

Re: Protect your pet rabbits

michellebartley — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 06:56:21 GMT

Also WHO bought the rabbit into Australia. The english apparently many many years ago. So dont blame the rabbits. The Cane toads were also introduced into Australia. And as for the stray cat population. People dont bother getting cats desexed a whole lot and are probably far too ignorant to do so. Not the cats fault one bit. Luckily the cat laws have improved greatly from 30 years ago. And thank goodness for micro chipping ones pets now days.