This is Lucky, he was one of the first bunnies to be rescued and rehomed by CARROT.  He had a wonderful home and was loved very much by his new family.  One day Lucky went off his food and started acting strangely, he kept falling over and rolling around.  His owners contacted us in a panic and we accompanied them to the local vet.  Lucky got various injections and we were told to wait 48 hours to see how things developed.  His owners weren't sure they could give him the intensive care he needed as they had no experience of caring for a bun who was so poorly, so we decided to take him home with us.  We prepared a room for him and settled him into a small cage where he would feel secure and he wouldn't hurt himself.  Although he regained his appetite, his head was at an odd angle and he continued to fall over due to lack of balance.  At this time, Lucky was still under the care of his original vet. 

After 48 hours, we took him back to the vet and he declared that Lucky wouldn't recover and that he'd be better off 'put to sleep'.  Well, we weren't going to let that happen.  We'd done a bit of research on the internet, and spoken to several people who had head tilt bunnies, and we knew that some buns could cope and adapt very well looking at the world from a different angle.  Lucky was taken to our own vet and she took over his veterinary care.

Lucky's owners signed him over to us as they felt they couldn't cope with a 'disabled' bun and they knew that he'd have the best of care with us, so Lucky came back to stay.  He gets antibiotics twice a day to ensure that any infection is 'contained', no other treatment is required.  Lucky continues to do everything a normal bunny would do, he keeps himself beautifully clean, eats well, binkies all over the place, and is generally a very happy little man ... it's just his head that looks like it's stuck on the wrong way!  (one of his friends summed it up beautifully, 'it makes it easier to look up the doe 2foots skirts' *blush*)

Lucky is now being sponsored by Lynn and Chris, who often come down to CARROT to give him the nose rubs and cuddles he adores.

Head tilt is an upsetting thing to see and people react in many ways, some have tears in their eyes, some are very curious, some are amazed, some are disgusted.  Lucky copes very well and is still as cheeky and mischievous as ever.

Lucky's head tilt was caused by an inner ear infection which wasn't treated soon enough, it had gone undiscovered for a while.  All buns have varying degrees of symptoms.

For further information on head tilt see www.bio.miami.edu/hare/tilt.html and www.rabbit.org/journal/3-8/head-tilt.html