Rabbit help & advice appreciated

Up until the weekend I had two healthy 5yr old Lionhead rabbits (siblings). They live outside in a very large pen, and regularly dig tunnels under the garden. On Saturday one rabbit went missing for 24hrs. I excavated half my lawn and found him dead at the end of one of the tunnels. Is this normal - there were no signs of any illness from him? I guess I just want some peace of mind here that he didn't suffer. Secondly; this leaves me with a solitary bunny (female, neutered). Do I get her a pal? She is quite timid and anti-social; and I don't want to add to her misery by bringing in another rabbit if it is a bad idea. On the other hand; I don't want her to be lonely either. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

rabbits can very often appear healthy , yet die suddenly . They are prey animals and as such hide illness very well . While 5 is not old for a rabbit it is middle aged , it is an age when some start to have problems .
Are your rabbits vaccinated against vhd. This can be brought in to the environment by wild rabbits , on shoes , by other animals etc .If a rabbit gets vhd it will die . There are often no syptoms before death and often no signs after death on the body. Vhd causes death very quickly.
Alternatively it could have been a heart problem for eg ...There realy is no way of knowing other than having a pm done and this wont bring back your rabbit.

I would advise leaving your remaining rabbit for 2 weeks before deciding if you should get a friend. just in case it was anything contagious .

Hope this helps

Angie

Thank you Angie. I cannot begin to tell you have much your reply has helped. As you say, nothing will bring him back; but I think I can be fairly confident that it was a quick death regardless of whether it was vhd or heart disease. My rabbits weren't vaccinated against vhd - and I hope that isn't a very hard lesson learned. I did loads of research before I got them, but never came across this before. I will speak to the vet before taking the other rabbit for vaccination (last thing I want to do is take a contagious animal into the vet). But she will definintely get done. Then I'll probably leave it a month before getting a new pal - just to be on the safe side. I'll probably be back wanting advice on the best way to 'introduce' new pals - but, for the meantime, thank you again for your advice.