A bunny girl died

One of our two ginger (fauve de bourgenons) bunny girls died today. She didn't eat her breakfast - which is unusual - and was quiet this morning. I checked her and couldn't see anything wrong, so I thought maybe it was because she was pregnant she was a bit off her food. Doug checked her later in the day and she was all covered in diarrhea. We washed her off and put her in a cardboard box with some straw, but when we checked shortly afterwards she was dead. 

I have since read that rabbits have a tendency to get a thing called GI stasis where for one of various reasons their gut stops working properly. Maybe it is similar to colic in horses, not sure. Most advice on the internet is for pet bunnies and suggests rushing them straight to the vet as it is a serious condition. Tummy massage and force feeding liquids seem most common other advice. One thing suggestd an enema (!) but said that it was very easy to burst their intestines, I just can't see it being a good idea.

We are going to cut back on the number of pellets we are feeding them because hay is very important for keeping it all moving and they seem much keener on the pellets than the hay and perhaps she ate too many.

We feel sad, even though we have them for meat (although we haven't managed to get any yet!) we are very fond of them - they are quite funny little things. We thought of skinning her as we got the fauves because they have pretty fur, so that we could use the pelts for something, but we couldn't bring ourselves to. It seems different somehow when you have decided to kill an animal for meat and more sad when it has got sick and died. Probably not logical - perhaps due to feeling we failed her, and she looked all sad and bedraggled after the washing.

I doubt I could skin and gut one of them even if we had decided to kill it, but we have agreed Doug will do that, maybe one day I can - I can manage chickens fine, but they aren't as friendly as the rabbits. Tricky stuff this raising animals for meat.