Friday 17th February was a disgustingly hot day especially for bunnies. It reached 36°C. I hate anything over 25°C, and I hate it more because bunnies overheat in anything over 23°C. Especially Buttons, his coat is as thick as a snow bunny.

I had got up early to put the bunnies out before 7:30am (21°C), so at least they could do their thing until 11am when the heat was supposed to kick in, and I’d bring them back inside. I ended up bringing them back in at about 10am because it reached about 31°C.

They spent the day inside, sprawled out like flat rabbit mats, legs pointing in all directions and steam coming out their ears. Kind of like me, really. Inside without air conditioning, of course, the temperature is even more disgusting and reached 39°C.

I didn’t want them to overheat, so I wet a towel and burritoed them in it, in turn. It wet their fur enough to cool them down a little, and when the cool air of the fan oscillated past them they could cool down a bit more.

Poor Buttons had it bad, he was panting heavily. When he was burritoed in the towel, I pressed him and the towel against my body so that he could at least feel some of the coolness through is fluffy undercoat. He stopped panting as much after about 2 minutes. I was careful not to give him my body heat through the towel, but it was important that he cooled down.

When they were in the towel I took the opportunity to syringe feed them 5ml of water each, just to keep them hydrated because they did not drink all day. And that is the start of my training regime with them too, I’m going to syringe feed them little bits of water often so they get used to it, just in case I have to syringe feed them something. It also will get them used to me doing it by myself with them, just in case I don’t have anyone to help me – I’m going to use the same philosophy with cutting their nails.

At about 5:30pm the temperature cooled down a lot outside, to a lovely 31°C with a coolish sea breeze. It was actually really nice. It felt like 23°C with the breeze, although the sun was still hot. I decided to put the bunnies outside in their pens to cool off even more. They loved that idea, and so did I, because I will have tired bunnies at night, rather than shaking their pen with their teeth and thumping around as they zoomy and push their litter box around the floor (cute really).

I finally brought the bunnies in at 8:00pm, they ate their tea then promptly fell asleep. Goodnight sweet bunnies, tomorrow will be 23°C.