Rabbits!

Almost a year ago I bought two 8 week old female rabbits from the pet store to have as pets/livestock. I plannned on eventually raising rabbits for meat, but wanted to see how well the raising rabbits experiment went first before getting a male.

My two rabbits, Cinnamon and Freckles did not get along very well. Cinnamon is very shy but Freckles does not behave how I expected a rabbit to at all. Freckles acts like a cat - right down to climbing the furniture, and peeing on your things when she is angry with you. Freckles is also HUGE, she likes being petted, but won't let you pick her up, so I don't know exactly what she weighs, but it's way more than a gallon of milk. She is much bigger than a housecat. Freckles was moved to a cage outside rather quickly (rabbit pee stinks).

Cinnamon is very shy, and although she has the run of the house, I can't help but feel that she might be happier outside in a cage. My kids are a bit too loud and frightening for her. She spends most of the day hiding under the bed. Freckles didn't have that problem and would chase the kids around and play with them, but I can't have an animal that sprays in the house.

We got a male and waited a few months before breeding them. One nerve-wracking false pregnancy later...no bunnies. We tried again...no bunnies. He appeared to be getting the job done in the correct manner, but still...no babies. So I flipped our stud over to make sure that his equipment was undamaged, and he had only one testicle. Ooops. Our stud was a dud.

I figured that we could get him neutered so that he could keep Cinnamon company, but during a cold spell when we brought him inside, he must have had some unsupervised time with the other house rabbit, because 30 days later - BABIES!

I put him back in his cage, and the rabbit next to him found her way into his cage...more babies! We now had a grand total of 20 rabbits. 30 days after the first litter 2 more were born to the house rabbit. She got pregnant the same day she gave birth. Now I know firsthand what is meant by "breeding like rabbits."

Some highlights of the last several months with rabbits;

• Rabbits love to chew, and nothing is safe from them. Wires, furniture, unattended bowls of fruit, straw hats and many more things have been gnawed on in my house

• The day the baby rabbits took over the house. *shudders* It was like having roaches, but cuter. A dozen mobile balls of cuteness - everywhere you looked, there was a fuzzy little bunny blinking up at you. It sounds better than it was.

• Rabbits shed. Rabbit fur flies around in the slightest breeze. It gets everywhere.

Next post....Baby Ducks!