Rabbit Awareness Week

RAW is a week long educational event put together by the RSPCA in the UK. One of their people sent me a personal Email commending the cuteness of this blog and asking to share their video. See it HERE. Although rabbits are very cute one mustn't forget they are animals and categorically, if you take them to the vet, exotic ones. Certainly their vet bills can be very exotic. Although often thought of in conjunction with children, rabbits and children are a bad mix, unless supervised by a responsible rabbit savvy adult. What follows is a cautionary tale and is not for the faint of heart.

Once upon a time before the 4Buns, when there was just one big grey rabbit, this writer and her son and the rabbit moved to a too small studio in the back yard of a rabbit keeping family. The rabbits were not house rabbits, but they were well kept and got to hop on the lawn on a fine day. The family had two children a boy and a girl. The girl was about 5 and liked rabbits very much. One day a rabbit hopped into the yard. It was caught and lots of signs went up all over the neighborhood. No one claimed the rabbit and it lived for a time in the big house. But they grew a bit tired of an indoor not very box trained rabbit. Feeling responsible for the animal that came across our path I took the stranger in, had her vetted (over $200 with tests) and bonded her, more or less, to my Bandit, who I was concerned might be getting lonely during the day. The girl still wanted to visit Biscuit, for that was the name of the stranger rabbit, and we allowed visitations on the lawn run. One day Biscuit was suddenly a head tilt bunny. A vet visit and antibiotics that didn't seem to help a lot. She got a little better, and a couple months later fully recovered when she had lots of room to roam in a new place.

The story continues. One of the other bunnies at the house with the too small studio developed quite severe head tilt. Investigation revealed that it was from an injury incurred when the little girl let go of the bunny from too great a height and the bunny landed more or less on it's head. I have no doubt this is what happened to Biscuit. The girl didn't know. Maybe she thought bunnies are like cats who really can be released from a ways up (within reason). She was a nice little girl but her parents should have supervised and given good instruction on bunny handling. This sad tale has a sad ending, but your story can have a better one. If you are considering falling down the rabbit hole do some research first, if you decide being a rabbit's slave is still the lifestyle to which you aspire, adopt a rabbit or two from a rescue organization and start each day thinking how you can be a better person by making your rabbit's life the very best it can be.

All photos taken 05/26/2011 and I think you know by now

which bunny is which, or is that whom?

Monday Bunday

Rabbits3 seem to be making slow, through steady progress. We would all like to acknowledge Sydney for venturing outside. Amelia likes to go out pretty much any time and at night will wait by the door so she can go out and look at the night. Tyler prefers daytime forays. And Dear Syd, is just getting used to the whole concept. It's not about what a bun can do, I tell her, it's about how hard a bun tries.

Sydney only just barely outside using the basil not for food but for cover.

On the bonding front spaces between rabbits continue to close up, and retreats from aggression shorten. Amelia, who in the very beginning could get aggressive, is still just retreating. Syndey is much more likely to go for fur, though Tyler was guilty of one incident. Only very small amounts of actual fur have been removed from anybun (it is hard to tell whose fur it is without a DNA check). Amelia is more and more standing her ground with head down asking for grooming, she and Tyler have had a few almost grooms.....

At home with Rabbits3; typical domestic scene.

I have noticed Sydney and Amelia playing a game I will call "Trading Places". I know, you thought this was a reality TV show, but it a trickster rabbit game. Bandit introduced this game to me. First when she was an only rabbit she would establish a pattern of places she would be at set times. When she thought I'd gotten the hang of it she would switch it all up and have a good laugh into her dewlap. When she got a companion, Biscuit, the waves of of silent lagomorphic laughter were palpable when I walked into their room one morning and they had switched beds. This was made even more amusing by the fact that Bandit, being a big girl, did overflow Biscuit's Bed and little Biscuit was almost swallowed by Bandit's bed. Sydney and Amelia are just in the beginning stages of "Trading Places" and so the switch was fairly rudimentary. Amelia had established under the chair as her habitual area, and Sydney often planted herself where Amelia's pellet bowl would be, in hopes I might forget that she shouldn't have free fed alfalfa pellets. Then a couple days ago they switched. Sydney has never lounged under the chair, but there she was, doing a fair Amelia imitation.

Sydney and Amelia choose to share a dish.

Notice their ears are exactly the same:

right ear lightly back and left is out to the side.

I've started putting the greens in three bowls (all the same amounts, mind you) and placing the bowls an equidistant triangle. For a while the Spots would run Amelia off under the chair and return to eating, she would stay under the chair and I would put a bowl there for her. Lately she has been returning to the triangle. Last night she and Sydney were sharing a bowl for what seemed like quite a long time until Sydney took a little lunge at her. Within 10 seconds they had re-configured and Tyler and Syndey were sharing a bowl and Amelia was back at her original place.

Then Tyler and Sydney share a dish,

when there is enough to eat,

eating is a non-competitive social activity.

Have a great week everybun.

Travelog from the Past: Part I

Mary Laure asked to hear about Costa Rica and I thought why not? Rummaging in a drawer resulted in the small red book I used as a journal. What follows is a trip (funded by the Burrito Revolution: see below) with some 18 8th graders, I was one of 5 adult chaperons. 

How could I leave these two?  my beloved Bandit on left 

and the little Agouti girl is Biscuit, an adopted stray.

5/30/04

Santa Cruz, California

Slept for maybe an hour last night between trying to make the "house" semi-presentable and getting rabbit care in order, the time just slipped away. It was a relief when out 4:45 a.m. pick arrived; what was undone would  simply remain so. It seems almost mandatory to start a journey already in a strange fatigued state that one might wake-up in a foreign land. 

I have a terrible fear of flying. I have to convince myself this is a good day to die and so if I do it is alright. On the plane one of the stewardesses complains to the teacher, Mr. S., about the rudeness of the students. It is true and they are being kids; sometimes sweet and thoughtful, philosophical even, and a bit rude.

The pilot announces the different countries as we fly over them; Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador. Places hitherto only in the news and adopted into the hearts of the left. 

San Jose, Costa Rica-

Humidity is the first sign of the tropics. It envelops our skins and fills bodies from the inside. Our raggle taggle group manages to get through customs. Bananas and fruit relinquished and forms filled out in pen. It has to be pen or it will be rejected. Our guides, Zack and Mel find us, it can't have been hard and we are shuffled onto our tour bus. Suddenly we are turistas. Looking out the window as we drive through the night to the hotel we could still be in the states, San Diego, LA, Phoenix, San Antonio, except for the occasional guard toting a large sawed off shotgun on a strap. The boys are very excited by this armament.

Our hotel is La Rosa American and is a sweet little place with a pool in a garden setting owned and operated by Canadians. As we walk to dinner the kids are noisy and boisterous. The girls are nearly naked, showing underwear and bras as much as allowed by the new decency standards. They are whistled at repeatedly by groups of men on the other side of the road. The restaurant is a large open air affair whose name translates to "Corn Delicacies" and here starts our consumption of tropical fruit juices; Cas, Guananna, Guava....The desert is memorable, a coconut flan. (Indeed it is one of first things I think of when I recall this trip, now 5 years later). There is a food fight (a skirmish really). The kids are reprimanded by Zack. "There are so many people without enough to eat, that this really upsets me." The topic of the Ugly American is broached and reoccurs throughout the evening. 

Back at the hotel both Annette (another chaperon/mom and my roommate)  and I feel homesick for our animals and relations. However I sleep like a rock.