Help Milo In His Battle With Respiratory Disease

The bunny that changed my life now needs our help to save his. We are looking to raise £1,000 to help cover the costs of his next operation and lifelong treatment.

Read our story:

The Bunny That Changed My Life

On the 31st of March, 2020, I drove 50 miles to pick up a tiny Netherland Dwarf bunny. And boy would my life have looked different if I hadn’t. 

To the outside world, Milo is  “just a bunny.” In fact, to the outside world, my dedication to him must seem bonkers at times.

But Milo isn’t “just a bunny.” Milo is my rock. He’s my total sense of stability and companionship — a constant 1.4kg bundle of fluff that has been by my side every day for the past 400 days.

Every day of that first pain staking lockdown (and every one since!), every day while I finished my degree isolated from friends and family, every day suffering my own physical and mental health struggles...

Every day. 

He was also the sole source of inspiration for the start of my small business, The Greener Grass, which in less than a year has already been more of a force for good than I could have ever imagined.

From providing a very special bunny with kidney disease his very own blend to buy him time, planting countless trees in the Scottish Highlands, promoting proper rabbit care, and encouraging small eco changes for a more conscious life with bunnies, The Greener Grass has achieved a lot.

And it’s all thanks to Milo.



Milo Needs Our Help 

But now, after helping me — and so many others— he needs our help. And with a small business as our sole source of income, it’s more than I alone can give him.

At just fifteen months old, Milo has been through the mill and back. But a long list of exclusions makes him utterly uninsurable (believe me, I’ve tried.)

The reason we’re here is therefore very specific — he suffers from upper respiratory disease and will be in real trouble without further support.



The Medical Facts

As exotic animals, bunnies can’t be treated to this degree without specialist care. So after taking him to (what felt like) every vet under the sun, we were finally referred for proper diagnostic testing.

A full body CT scan and complete nasal swabs revealed infection to be running rampant in Milo with his peg tooth (one that grew back after his incisor removal) at the epicentre. Bacteria present included coliform (from faeces, likely from eating cecotropes) and staphylococcus (from skin, likely from grooming.)

In plain terms, these natural bacterias took advantage of Milo’s vulnerability and got in where they didn’t belong. And this would be fatal for a bunny like him. 

So we got moving and fast!

After starting on targeted antibiotics, Milo had his right peg tooth removed, his tear duct flushed (successful on the second attempt) and a rhinoscopy to check for foreign objects and flush hard deposits of infected material.

And although I knew an infection of this severity would cause long lasting damage, I thought we were over the worst of it.

That is until his abscess appeared.

In the process of clearing his infection, some of the rhinitis tracked down under the skin to form an abscess in the right hand side of his nose. And the operation to open it up costs a further £750 -1,000.

So, here we are, deep in medical costs and reaching out for help. 

What Milo Really Needs

He already has all of my time and attention (medicating him twice a day, taking him back and forth to the vet, staying up with him all night when he’s not eating), but what I really need your help with is being able to continue to fund his treatment.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have been wrestling with asking for help since I was first quoted the cost of the CT scan, but as the list of treatments grows, so does our need for support.

The only alternative here is to watch Milo suffer or put him to sleep, neither of which Milo deserves.

To date, Milo has paid three visits to the exotics specialist and has a further operation booked for this Wednesday, the invoice of which I will upload shortly after. 

Milo will need a nebuliser for the rest of his life due to the structural damage caused to his nasal passageways, which not only incurs the cost of the nebuliser but also the regular cost of the fluid it uses.

He will likely always struggle to fend off future infections and be prone to respiratory complications; however, we hope with the right care and attention, his quality of life can remain as joyous as he is used to!



Our Educational Mission - and perk for you!

If you have made it this far, thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to read our story and hope you will consider sharing it with your community to help us spread the word.

If you are able to help Milo out financially on his medical journey, I have a little something for you!

I will be spending the next few months creating a downloadable case study of Milo’s experience with respiratory disease.

It will combine our story (in depth from start to finish, misdiagnoses and all!) with specialist input and expert advice to hopefully provide you with a resource that is both completely telling of what Milo has been through and an educational aid for your life with your own bunny.

If I’d have known more about this prior to Milo experiencing it, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble. So I want to save you the same trouble if I can. Any donations, big or small, are eligible to receive this free guide when it’s ready.

Thank you, as always, for your support.