Together

Tyler and Amelia 5/22/11

Monday Bunday

Tyler settles in for his long winter's nap in

his apple box house while Harriet keeps guard.

Tyler's story; boy looses home; boy finds home and looses sister; boy finds sister; boy and sister meet a girl; boy, sister and girl becomes friends, it's a little complicated; boy,sister and girl meet another girl, it becomes more complicated; boy and sister become fast friends with second girl while first girl is away; boy meets first girl again........

Why can't dates be fun?

Amelia has gotten the OK from the vet to come off of restricted activity and social isolation. This required a completed reconfiguration of the pens and rabbit flow. I combined all the pens and set them up so that Harriet and Amelia could if need be, be separated by the Spots in the middle. I was unhappy with the lack of space. The Spots are used to roaming and really did a lot of running at BFs, I could see them becoming fat, lazy and complacent. To combat this trend I decided to divide the room more or less in half with fencing for exercise purposes. Tyler on discovering he could come out the pen went on an extended hop about of the territory. DS's room, the study/computer room, even the bathroom with it's cold tile floor did not go unexamined. A quick gnaw at a familiar bookcase in the study was, I imagine Tyler's

"Kilroy was here", better than peeing in the corner as far as I am concerned.

Amelia did plenty of hopping and chinning in her bigger space. You can see where she was shaved for her injury, it looks like her leg is falling off. Her other wound was on her shoulder.

Amelia on her side has been boxing with both Harriet and Sydney, bonding with them seems to have regressed to not quite square one, maybe square one and a half. Thinking I could easily re-bond Tyler and Amelia I popped them in a little pen in the kitchen. They squeezed themselves into the tiny littler box, but there was no grooming. I tried putting them both in Amelia's pen, but Tyler got snippy, he needs more time. Boy meets girl again on a speed date and doesn't like the pressure....

Amelia interprets the Eclipse.

Have a Great Week, don't miss acknowledging The Eclipse, there hasn't been a lunar eclipse on a Solstice for 372 years......

Monday Bunday; Givin' It Away!

For those of you who entered the Tiger print give-away there is test of skill to be passed. Before I hear a collective "Ahhhhhhh, no fair" let me add that there will be TEN WINNERS!!!! UPDATE: all the prints have been snapped up, thanks for your interest, Happy Tiger Year, what remains and the best is yet to come, to everybody! All you have to do is send your name and mailing address to my Email (banditrabbit at earthlink dot net) and the first ten will get a Year of the Tiger Print. The only restriction is that you need to one of the people who left their name in the previous post.

Tyler's hind legs appear to be above the floor, when I mentioned this to him he pointed out that he was, in fact, The Mystery Spot and that the local tourist attraction had it all wrong.

Often when I am printing there are rabbits supervising. Evidence above and below. I know they look like they are just lying around, but they tell me differently.

Amelia has SUCH a fat tail.....

I have taken to having Harriet's gate open during mealtimes. This lead to one incident when Amelia thought she should go into the Harriet zone, Miss Hare took offense and there was a little scuffle in the lean-to from which they both emerged unscathed. Since then no bun has ventured to the other side, but I think they are getting used to being near each other without the fence. Today Harriet and Amelia have been mirroring each other, laying together closely with the fence between, of course, grooming at the same time that sort of thing. I am SO tempted just to remove the fence and see what happens........

Have a Great Week all you Bunnies and Humans.

Monday Bunday

Yes, yes, soon the fourway bonding attempt with begin. Harriet gets her staples out on Tuesday, her incision looks like it healed nicely as there was no redness or swelling and she was a good girl and didn't lick it. She has seemed a bit depressed, probably a result of the surgery and no being let out of her pen.

Harriet in her willow tent and all matching floor towels. I tried putting the Snoozy pad in the tent but it was pushed out. Once arranged near the food bowls she often stretches out on it. Harriet has some definite ideas about BunShui.

Her appetite has not been as sharp as her pre-surgery self (or as the other rabbits who seem to think they are being starved). However in the last day or so appetite is seeming better and she was skittering around her pen and working hard at pulling a towel through the bars. There were two meetings without bars, one inadvertent and one planned, between Amelia and Harriet. The first was when, in an attempt to let Harriet have more room I barricaded off half the back room. Amelia was engaged with a nap in her lean-to. Harriet was quite stimulated by the whole arrangement and within a few minutes had broken down the barricade and was nose to nose with Amelia, who did absolutely nothing. This seemed like a good sign so later I opened the outside annex (AKA the Bunnex ) and let Amelia out. She immediately found the pumpkin I'd put out because it was molding on one side and began to help herself, not to the moldy part which was really very small. I let Harriet out for some room exploration, but she was more interested in finding Amelia. Play the video to see what happened.

This event happened twice, each time ending in a light scuffle. Now I have an idea of what to expect.

If I can bond all four rabbits I think it will be a pretty busy place here at the Rabboratory. Just this morning all the rabbits were in the back room. Harriet was tossing her dish around, Amelia was being groomed by Tyler and Sydney was in the small box house. Minutes later Harriet was messing with her fence and pulling a towel through it, Amelia was rolling the snack ball around and Tyler and Sydney were shacked up in the box house, which is very, very cosy for two rabbits.

Tyler (L) and Sydney (R), Spots got to stick together, mostly......

Tyler thinks that if we are going to have ANOTHER free range bun about the house that the door needs to be just a wee bit bigger.....

Have a great week everybun........

Late addition: The Qi Papers now has 200 followers!!!!!

Friday Night FunBun Movie Shorts

Amelia is quite, quite, quite fond of being petted. If Tyler is getting his pets she will dash over and insert her head as close to his as she can. In this little movie you can see what is a usual occurrence around here. This short also features Sydney jumping over her brother!

Since Harriet is in a pen I try to let her out into the garden everyday for awhile if weather permits. She is pretty good about coming in and hasn't tried to get away. But don't think I'm not constantly checking on her. She has started a digging project that may have to be curtailed before she gets under the deck. Her paws got so muddy from her last last work detail that I had to wash and dry them, much to her dismay. In the next short she is checking our our fallow garden beds where I dump the rabbits poops. Don't miss the very end part where she flicks her butt and sprays urine!

Harriet is wondering when she will get out of jail. In true Harriet fashion her spay date has been changed three times. The good news is we have a certificate to pay for more than half AND our favorite vet, Dr. H., with whom we have a long relationship, will do the surgery. She is so good with the anesthesia and makes very small low incisions, so we hope for a quick recovery. Additionally Dr. H. wants a rabbit print as payment for Harriet's exam, OK, I think I can manage that....

And when Harriet has recovered we can try some four way bonding.

Bunupdate

When I was first considering adding a third rabbit to the mix my greatest fear was that somehow Sydney would be left out with a broken heart. She has not yet really chose to bond with me, and if Tyler left her for another bun, certainly I, for one would not be able to hold back the tears. However, the Spots remain tight, napping, eating and rampaging through Amelia's quarters like marauding bandits. What else can one expect from masked bunnies?

Here the Spots share their passion for hay tubes. These are an in-house item made by stuffing toilet paper tubes with Timothy hay. You can buy a similar item for very much more money if you so desire. Hay in a tube always seems to be be a more exciting form of hay then an au naturale presentation. A close examination of the photo reveals Amelia peaking out of the valley formed by Sydney and Tyler's backs.

An activity that Tyler and Amelia share is going outside. Although Sydney very ocassionally will barely, bravely, venture out, the other two exhibit no qualms when it comes to the greater outdoors. The above picture shows Amelia in one of several attempts to get Tyler to groom her, it is a bit hard to see but she is in the "mandolin" pose and he has just turned away having been closer.

Less than a minute later Amelia is still asking, but Tyler has decided he must impress her by showing how tall he is, maybe next time he asks her for a groom, she will comply.

This morning I stepped out to check on the rabbits and found Amelia asking for dominance grooming, while Tyler was more concerned with the freshly served orchard hay.

Her patience, persistence and positioning paid off and Amelia got a little ear lick from Tyler, not much, mind you, just a little taste.

Monday Bunday

The bonding is progressing, at this point it appears that it is all about Tyler and Amelia figuring things out in their own bun way. This sequence of photos was taken one after another over the space of less than a minute. The array of bun body language is, to me, fascinating.

"Kiss my head, oh unspotted bun of the pink eye."

Tyler approaches, this is his more subtle form of dominant posturing. When he and I were first getting to know each other he would do this, often, but I didn't realize what it was until he developed a more obvious form for the simple human.

"I'm not moving, spotty dude, you must kiss my vast whiteness."

He approaches and they touch, notice Amelia is so chill, so confident that her ears don't change. She is asking for dominant recognition from the most vulnerable of postures; supine.

"What the heck is he up to? am I supposed to be impressed."

Retreating Tyler periscopes, "I am big, check me out." Usually bunnies periscope to see more get a view of their surroundings. Clearly it can carry a message as well depending on the circumstance.

" I am still the ultimate bun-man, I am still the ultimate bun-man, I am still the ultimate bun-man, I still the ultimate bun-man (repeat 100 times."

After holding his periscope for a significant time, Tyler turns and washes his face. This has a taste of the self-comforting behavior, after all he has essentially been rejected as the dom-bun, but he has maintained his bun dignity.

Update: the gate is down now, whenever I am home, not just for feeding. There are some small chasings, but these lack ferocity. Sydney was seen licking Amelia's forehead. Tyler and Amelia are spending time napping and self grooming within 4 feet of each other.....