Our House Bunnies' Journal

We were busy today with Fish Club related stuff, and didn't introduce them at all. We pet them for a bit and gave them veggies, but we gave them a "day off" from meeting together.

Friday December 11, 1998

This morning, we decided to try opening the gate between their runs, to see what they would do. We swung the chain link fence open about a foot. Cleome entered Gus' side first, and clearly liked the place. She started chinning everything. Gus was a bit taken aback, but he didn't act territorial or anything! Soon, Gus was in the other rabbits' area, chasing around various furry aromatic bums, who were not interested in being had.. meanwhile, all three of the other rabbits were fairly boldly exploring his run, including his litter boxes (though they didn't use them), his tubes and play things, and his own sleeping box! Cleome even dug in there at one point.

Gus seemed to love the attention, and bounded right up to each rabbit (usually scaring them away in the process). He obviously wanted to mount them, but at the same time, he seemed to just want to be near them. He seemed to alternate between running around after them, and flopping down with his feet out behind him, breathing hard. We think the exercise is probably good for him. :-) He even flopped down in the other rabbits' sleeping box, right where Clover usually hangs out. It was very cute. Cleome entered the box and Gus left, but she didn't chase him off or nip him, from what we could see. Very promising. He didn't pee in any of their litter boxes, although he checked them all out.

Clover was the most interested in Gus, again, though she quickly ran away when he tried to get close to her. Overall, Clover was the most aloof and standoffish, though she was fairly bold when it came to exploring Gus' side of the cage - she just ran away when he approached. A few times near the beginning of the introduction, Clover chased after him, sniffing his bum and putting her face into his fur (but not to bite, perhaps to say "groom me!"). Gus flipped around, and they stood, tense, face to face. They had a few tail-to-nose chasings, but no fur flew, and they quickly settled down. There is obviously some energy between them, though we're not sure what it is.

Cleome didn't act protective of her territory or her babies, which surprised us both. She gracefully moved from place to place, chinning everything she touched, seemingly fearless and unconcerned. At one point, she dug at the hay bale separating the runs. We wondered if she knew that her place was on the other side.

Basil was his usual sweet self. He explored, and tended to avoid Gus, but didn't get into any fights. He just hopped away when Gus tried to mount him. He sniffed everything, and seemed to think about jumping on top of Gus' box. On several occasions, he put his head down, toward Gus, probably as a sign of passiveness or submissiveness. He seems like a really laid-back, easy going bun. He munched some hay, poked around, wasn't overly concerned.. He did thump at one point, when he was on Gus' side and the other three were on the other. We're not sure why he thumped, but he didn't start any thumping fests that time.

We were tempted to leave the gate open, but we wanted to watch them for longer before trusting them all day by themselves. We're thinking of opening the door Saturday night, and watching them for a long time. If they behave and don't show any signs of aggression, we may leave it open on Sunday for good.

Saturday December 12, 1998

We went on a hike, so we kept them separate until Saturday night, when we left them together for lots of hours. We closed them up that night, though I thought we might not want to, since they were right at the gate and seemed sad..

Sunday December 13, 1998

We opened the run in the morning and left it open all day. They seemed to be doing well. We checked on them ever few hours throughout the day and they were doing fine, though never sleeping strangely enough. They had settled down by 10pm, though they were still awake.. less thumping and banging.. in the evening, we noticed that all were grooming all! Gus licked Cleome's forehead and Basil's head too... and they groomed him! We figured we shuldn't close the gate now, since they're sort of bonded, or at least happy together... So we left the gate open over night.

Monday December 14, 1998

We went downstairs this morning, and the bunnies seemed fine.. we scooped litter boxes, but Gus stayed in his box (he's usually the first one out when we come down). We put down veggies, he stayed in his box. We peeked in, he was lying with all four feet out from under him, looking exhausted. I pet him and he didn't get up! A minute later he hopped out and lied down in some hay.. didn't move for a carrot, lost his balance and toppled over when washing his ear, looked exhausted. We closed the run for the day to let him rest. other rabbits seemed fine.. Gus seemed sad when we closed it, and sniffed the other rabbits through the fence, but quickly settled down and slept, so we decided we'd better let him rest.

When we got home from work, we opened the run up again, and the bounding and hopping resumed. From then on, the run has been left open, and Gus seems to be doing fine.

Tuesday December 15, 1998

We removed the skid/plywood part of the "wall", and turned the hay bale sideways. They jumped all over it. One of the strings broke, but the other is still holding, sort of. We almost always see one or another of the bunnies up there eating hay, when we check on them. It's quite cute.

Wednesday December 16, 1998

We decided to bring the rabbits upstairs and give them free range of the great room, etc. for the first time this evening. We went around and "bunny proofed" fairly well, removing or twist-tie-ing all chewable cords.. we brought up an untreated wicker basket with some hay in it (as a new toy for them to play in), and brought them all up. Gus was right at home, of course. Basil was a bit timid, and took a few minutes to "warm up" and start exploring. We put him near the christmas tree, and that's where he stayed for a while, sniffing the tree and tasting it. Hmm! We put Cleome on the couch, and she immediately decided it was hers. She jumped on and off of it, chinned it over and over again, and put a few poops on it (ick!). Clover was most interested in walking between the chairs and table legs, and ran there for safety when anything strange happened.

Cleome soon hopped off of HER couch and romped around with Gus. They were behind our 18 gallon 1/2 "whiskey barrel" "pond" that we have set up. The "pond" has one fantail calico goldfish, and the surface of the water is covered with (unheated) water lettuce and duckweed. For reasons which will remain a mystery, Cleome decided she had had enough of Gus, and so she leaped up onto the black "table" she saw looming above.

Well.

The "table" was rather liquidy on top, and before we knew it, we heard a great splash and sloshing! I looked into the pond, and saw a bread-loaf-bunny under the water! She didn't know enough to keep her nose up. I grabbed her out, hoping she hadn't inhaled any water, while Mike ran and got a towl. Once again, there I was with a soaking wet rabbit on my lap. Cleome seemed understandably shocked. She let us towel her off pretty well, and then we let her hop off of the couch. She immediately shook and started grooming. She hadn't really gotten *that* wet, since her fur was so thick.. but her legs were pretty soggy. Mike picked up the plants and snails and put them back in the pond. We couldn't stop laughing, even though we were worried and glad that Cleome was fine (she must have known to hold her breath).

Other than that, the outing went fairly well. The rabbits peed in a cardboard box that we had put up there for Gus, but other than that, and a thousand million poops, nothing bad happened. Cleome and Basil tasted all of the plants (the poisonous or precious ones were put out of reach), and Cleome chinned everything in sight. Clover mostly hopped around exploring. They went into the kitchen and hallway, and were quite unafraid.

Interestingly, when the bunnies were first brought upstairs, Gus exhibited his old mounting behavior again! He hadn't chased or tried to mount the other bunnies in days and days, so we were surprised to see him doing it now. We figured it was a social order thing - he was letting them know that this was HIS room, and HIS couch, and HIS plants, and he was here first. Yertle the Bunny. :-) He stopped mounting them after just a few unsuccessful tries though, luckily. He really is a very sweet bunny.

At one point, Clover hopped onto the couch, and then onto Mike.. and there she sat, for quite sometime. She climbed up his chest and backed her rear into his chin, and hunkered down for several minutes. Then she hopped up onto his shoulder, and back onto the couch. It was very cute.

We returned the bunnies to their run and swept the poops up. Next time we'll have to bring up many more litterboxes, and see if that helps. We were afraid that the babies were too young to "get it" when it came to pooping, but it turns out that Cleome is a big culprit too. They're sweet rabbits, but we won't be able to bring them up often if they keep this pooping thing up, especially if we ever had a baby of our own (yum yum! bleckth!). I used to take for granted the "good litter box habits" description on HRS adoptable bunnies.. now I won't take that for granted at all! Well, there's still time and hope - Gus pooped too, the first few times he went upstairs. We'll see.

Saturday December 19, 1998

Rachel came over, we shot a bunch of pictures. She took some great ones. We decided not to let them upstairs, since they'd make such a poopy mess. Maybe tomorrow.

Sunday December 20, 1998

Mike's mom and her sister Nancy came by to see the bunnies. Nancy held Basil for a while, and Mike's mom held Clover. We again decided to keep them downstairs. We'd like to bring them upstairs more often eventually, but they need to be litter trained a bit more first. It's also a big deal to catch the four of them and bring them up.. the whole bunny-transfer takes much longer than it would with just Gus (who walks right up to us and lets us scoop him up). Hopefully as the other three associate being picked up with bring brought upstairs, they'll be less evasive.

The hay bale is getting out of hand, so we decided to use the shop vac to get into all of the corners of the run and get all the poops from around the bale. They were surprisingly unannoyed at the noise - especially Gus, who has heard it many times before, and actually went right up to it! I was careful not to snarf him up - that vac has a very strong suction! We vacuumed up a bunch of old hay and realized they were using some hay-filled corners as litter boxes. We decide we need to remove the chainlink fence door and do some rearranging to minimize the number of "corners". We're going to take the bale of hay out and only give them some at a time. We'll have to hang the food and water off of something else, rather than that door...

Late December, 1998

Well, things have been going well. We've let them upstairs several times, and taken several billion more pictures of them. Ha! So far they haven't destroyed anything. Somebody peed once on a small area carpet, but we just rinsed it out well and it's fine now. They still poop everywhere, but they only pee in their litter box upstairs. I haven't seen Gus use the litter box upstairs yet, though he does hop in and out of it quite a bit. Hopefully he'll get a clue. He will eat treats upstairs now with the rest of the gang - they devoured some cilantro and lettuce that we fed them up there.

They also enjoy nibbling on our plants. So far they haven't caused serious damage, but we're planning on moving some of the more sensitive plants to tables out of reach. We're hoping to plant some herbs for them, so we don't have to keep buying them from a store. For now though, a big bunch of parsley or cilantro costs about $0.59 and lasts for a week or so, so it's not exactly going to milk us dry. Basil is expensive though, strangely enough.

We also caught Basil tasting a few of our brand new chairs. We "thumped" and he stopped. My first instinct is still to "hiss" like a cat, which has no effect whatsoever. I'm learning to thump though. :-) We'll be doing more bunnyproofing as time goes on, but for now, they're fairly trustworthy for about an hour. When we have them upstairs, they spend the first few minutes tentatively hiding, then they become rambunctious and do binkies all over the place, hop wildly from place to place, skid along the floor, leap into the air, etc. As time goes on though (after about 1/2 an hour), they settle down, and eventually they spend most of their time grooming and wandering around nibbling plants and things. This is good - it means that if we keep them upstairs for about 45 minutes a day, they'll get quite a bit of adventure and exercise, but won't have enough time to be idle and destructive.

Over Christmas, we were gone for two days and Mike's mom and dad came to check on the fish, Hilary and the rabbits. They noticed that Clover wasn't in the run.. and found her just outside. They cornered her and put her back in. They said she seemed fine, though thirsty. We tried to figure out how she got out. The corners of the run could be pushed open with a lot of effort, but there was some debris piled against them that hadn't moved, so we doubted that she got out that way. It's possible she pushed the floppy door open, since it was only 2/3 latched, but again, it's doubtful since it was flush against the plywood wall. Our best guess is that she jumped from Gus' box over the wall and fell. We're glad she's ok. We moved the box to the middle of the run, so there is now no place for them to leap from, where they could reach the walls easily. She hasn't escaped again, but we'll see.

We removed the bale of hay and put it in a large trash can. Only about half of it fit. The rest we tied into a real bale (small one) and put on top. We'll be giving them bunches of fresh hay every day, rather than having a pile of it in their run (which inevitably becomes another litterbox). They have been peeing pretty reliably in the boxes, but still poop everywhere. They're wonderful, just the same.

Over Christmas, we took care of Rachel's bunny Paula. She seemed agitated when Clover got out, so the two probably had a chance to sniff through Paula's cage, which we had on the floor outside of the big bunny run. Paula generally did fine. We took her upstairs a few times, and I think she really enjoyed the romp.

Tuesday December 29, 1998

I took the liberty to examine their bodies today before returning them to their run. I clipped their nails (front only, the back ones wear themselves out) and took a look at their bottoms and scent glands. Basil and Clover had very small, clean scent glands. Basil had a scab-like thing on the right of his genitals, but it was firmly attached so I left it alone. I think it might have to do with his being neutered (though that was about a month ago). Perhaps it's just some old scab that is embedded in the hair. If it looks irritated, we'll soak is bottom and get it off, but we figured we'd leave it alone for now.

Cleome lost her last purple stitch, which is good, but her scar seems very bumpy under the surface - there must be a lot of random scar tissue in there that will take a while to smooth out. I hate to think of subjecting Clover to this sort of surgery. It's too bad it has to happen, but I don't want her to die prematurely of cancer, and we did promise the folks at the Massachusetts Rabbit Rescue that we'd do it. Cleome seems fine, but I just hate to mar Clover's pretty little perfect belly with a lumpy old wound. Sigh.

Cleome and Basil are starting to shed. Cleome looks patchy - chunks of fur have fallen out, and her very short coat is growing in underneath. Basil also is beginning to get little missing spots, though he doesn't look as silly as Cleome. So I guess we'll have some patchwork bunnies before too long. Gus' shedding last month was very minor.. he didn't have very much of the pluckable sort of loose fur.

Gus and Cleome have become very bold about the door to the run. We fixed it with a bolt so that it closes securely (though now it's a bit hard to close with one hand), and we clamped off the second door, since it's fairly floppy now (bad structure, really.. we're hoping to rebuild the run this summer.. but it works for now). Gus and Cleome follow us around closely when we change their litter boxes and sweep their poops, but Cleome never lets us pet her - she stays just out of reach and bounds away when we try to rub her. Gus is very friendly and lets us pet him, but he definitely doesn't want to be picked up, most of the time. When we do pick him up though, he's very relaxed and lovey, whereas Cleome is very tense and tends to snort a bit (very funny!).

New Year weekend, 1999

We took the opportunity to completely clean out their run this weekend. We brought them upstairs, and Mike watched them while I removed all of the cardboard, swept and then vacuumed the floor, scrubbed the concrete down with hot water, and then replaced all of the cardboard with fresh stuff. I tried to use large pieces, to minimize the edges where poops tend to get wedged. Every speck of floor was covered except a 1 inch strip that wasn't worth bothering with. I chose boxes with rims to line the corners, so kicked up Cobby Cat litter wouldn't make it onto the concrete so much. Then I put back only a few handfuls of hay, neatly in their box. I moved all of the "furniture" around on purpose, changing the location of all of the boxes and play things. I swapped all of the litter boxes around, though one or two remained in every corner. We brought the bunnies back down and they were quite curious. They ran around and sniffed everything, and tried everything out. They didn't pee on the floor for at least an hour!

Sigh.

Well, I guess they needed to mark their space since things changed. SOMEBODY just insists on peeing on the cardboard, and I don't know who it is. I should watch carefully, but it's hard to catch them in the act. We also bought a new water bottle for them, since we didn't want to ever have them run out, and one big bunny water bottle only lasts for about 36 hours. We are usually there twice a day to change litter, feed them veggies and pellets, etc. but every once in a while, we come home late, sleep in or go over someone else's house for the night, and we want to make sure they have enough water.

Wednesday, January 6, 1999

Some quick observations - Gus is becoming more aloof and hard to catch, while Cleome is becoming much more friendly. Gus and Cleome follow us around when we clean their run, and Cleome has a habit of standing on her hind feet and scratching lightly one of our legs (as if she's trying to climb it). She is the only rabbit who doesn't generally jump away when we try to pet her, which is something she used to do. Gus, inversely, is becoming less comfortable around us. He does NOT like to be picked up anymore, although he's a mush ball once you get him (but he'll hop out of your lap quick as a wink, whereas even Basil and Clover will stick around for a few rubs). He's clearly going through some sort of psychological change, since the other rabbits are here.

Gus is still the only one who will take food and run - the others generally eat it where they found it, or drop it and run, but Gus will take a veggie from our hand and run to another part of the run. Clover is very hard to catch, but very friendly when she's free. She'll hop right on our laps and allow us to per her freely in the living room (once we catch her and bring her up there!), as will Cleome. Gus and Basil rarely jump into our laps. Ironically, Basil's still the most comfortable or relaxed of the three new bunnies, when he's picked up. The others hate to be picked up and held against our chest (butt down, head up). They squirm until they're standing sideways and we're leaning back.. Basil seems to be much more mellow about it - though Gus is definitely the most cuddly still.

Basil's an eating machine, and is getting a little porky. He's not "fat", but he's definitely got a soft feel to him, and a pear-shaped body, which contrasts with his mom and sister, who are much more sleek and streamlined. We checked Basil's bum on January 6th, to see if that scab was still there. Indeed, it was still there, though it looked a little smaller - perhaps some of it has worn away or fallen off. We'll keep an eye on it.

We've been bringing them upstairs every few days. They've demolished every plant they could, so we've tried to keep all important plants out of reach. They particularly like one that we called english ivy but have since found out that it's not (what is it? check our gallery if you're a plant person..) and our aloe plants, though they have tasted christmas cactus (and its flowers), philodendron and several others. Clover in particular has a fondness for Norfolk Island Pine, which we are trying to discourage her from eating. We'll be building a table or bench for thep plants soon, most definitely. (NOTE: Since writing this, I have discovered that almost all of our house plants are toxic! Don't let bunnies eat house plants unless they're herbs.. all our plants are out of bunny reach now.)

The rabbits are fun to bring upstairs and fun to watch. They seem to pee in the litterboxes only, which is great, though they do still poop everywhere (less and less each time). They like to stay in the living room area, and haven't even tried to get into the computer room. They do like the carpeted living room though, so we still put the gate up. Gus and Basil have been spending some time at the base of the steps, but so far they haven't climbed them (though Gus knows how, and it's probably just a matter of time).

Hilary's still bugged by them, and generally stays away when they're let out. When we bring them upstairs, they tend to run around and binky, sniff, nibble, explore, etc. for about an hour, then they settle down to groom or cuddle. This is convenient. Even though it's a pain to catch them all, it's worth it, and now we know that probably 1 hour of supervised play time a day is plenty, and much better for them and the plants/furniture/etc. than many hours of play time with less supervision.

We're making a concerted effort to keep picking them up and petting them, so they don't forget that human contact is an ok thing. Hopefully Gus will get over his stubborn stand-off-ish-ness and return to his former jolly self. We never thought that giving him buddies would cause him to abandon us, but it makes sense in a way.

None of them show signs of bonding with any of the others, so far. They all seem equally bonded and hang out in random pairs. I expected that they would pair off eventually, but it's nice that they all get along, especially in case anything ever happens to any of them.

So far, every day is still exciting. We look forward to our morning and evening cleaning and munching rituals (they get some veggies at both times), and we still bring them upstairs with a child-like sense of excitement. They're absolutely wonderful pets.

Thursday January 7th, 1999

Well, we brought them upstairs again. They are becoming more bold about munching the plants, and it's obvious that something must be done. We are planning on building some sort of bench for most of them, but we're not sure what to do with the Norfolk Island Pines, which Clover has been particularly interested in lately. We've been "allowing" them to eat the plants, since we haven't removed them from the area, and I don't think that we could ever hope to train a bunny *not* to nibble on a nice crunchy green thing in its midst, but we do need to remove some of the nicer and more slow growing plants from their reach (and they have a long reach!).

I've been realizing over the last few days that I am developing a special, deep fondness for Cleome. I love all the bunnies, but Cleome has really captured my heart recently. She's so solid, soft and strong.. and friendly, but in control.. there's just something I really love about her. I love to pick her up and feel her strong paws.. I love to lie on the couch and have her leap onto my lap or back.. nose up to me, and hop away. There's just something about her. I can't wait until the other two grow up. They look like smaller versions of Cleome, but they still walk like kids, and look like kids, and act like kids... not that Cleome has lost any of her childish charm or charisma, but she's just somehow got more style.

MLK weekend, January 16-18, 1999

We seem going through a frustrating stage in our relationship with the bunnies. They don't seem be learning anything, or improving in any of the behaviors that bug us. I somehow expected that they would mysteriously get better litterbox habits, and become more friendly.. They are slightly more friendly, but the fact that we need to catch them to take them upstairs seems to really upset the balance. Every time we do the chase ritual, they become re-trained to run from us (why? when they get freedom, and fresh veggies and hay?). Gus will eat out of our hand, and Cleome seems close to the point where she'll do it (she sniffs the veggie but won't actually "take" it from us)... Clover just turns her head though, when we offer her a veggie. Even Basil's timid when it comes to food, these days.

I found some web sites with lists of plants that are poisonous, and almost all the plants that the bunnies have eaten (Norfolk Island Pine, Aloe Vera, Philodendron, etc) are supposedly poisonous. I guess we'll have to seriously keep them out of reach. We had a long weekend this weekend, and took the opportunity to wash all of the upstairs floors. The tile region had been peed on in several places, and we hadn't noticed because of the plants. We moved all of the plants off of the floor and onto tables or boards. It's not a long-term "stylish" solution, but it'll work for now.

On Saturday, we brought the buns up for several hours. All was going fairly well... they were using their litterbox (although again, pooping all over the place), and having a grand old time. We noticed that they often hopped onto the couch. We thought.. "oh, that's so cute". At one point, ALL FOUR rabbits hopped onto the back of the couch and settled in clumps on top of some throw blankets. We were enchanted. We whipped out the camera and snapped a few real pictures, and several digital pictures. They were SO cute!!! We did start to wonder though, after they had been up there for several minutes. They weren't doing anything, just sitting there. Um. Well, sort of. Except that actually, they peed all over the blankets, peed on the couch cushions, and nibbled several holes in one of the blankets (and one small spot on the couch cushion itself!). UGH UGH UGH !!!!

Upon discovering these facts, we strongly encouraged them to get off of the couch, and stood there, bummed. We let them run around while we talked, and then scooped them all up and brought them downstairs. (I must say, we're getting better at holding two rabbits at a time, and they're much better at staying calm for the walk down to the basement). We washed the couch cushions, paying special attention to the spots where we knew they peed (a cheap-o ultraviolet light from a party store is a GREAT tool for identifying animal pee!! HINT HINT!! Bunny pee shows up bright yellow/white, and so does every other little speck and stain and dribble you've ever dribbled on your carpet - ick!! It's great if you want motivation for cleaning though.. :-). The urine came out well (no more UV spots). We also washed the rug near the door and the rugs around the fireplace, which had been favorite "sitting" and grooming spots for them... HAR HAR. And all this time, they were peeing on the rugs!! Sigh. Everything's clean now, and ever tub/sink in our house, it seems, is full of slowly draining cushions and rugs. We mended the blanket and it looks better than we thought (good sewing machine!). All that stuff went in the wash... What an ordeal.

The question is, how do we keep the bunnies from doing this again? Do we forbid them from the upholstered furniture and rugs? I don't think many house rabbits are quarantined to an area with only hardwood floors.. that seems mean (no binkies for you!). And yet, they seem to have this great desire for peeing on soft surfaces. I'm not sure what we'll do.

I have a few ideas that might be fun though. I'm thinking we need new and exciting litter boxes upstairs, like maybe a big tub of hay, and maybe a large shallow area where they can sit and pee and groom in.. they always seem to prefer the wide shallow litter trays, where they can bunch together if they want, and see what's going on around them. We've also decided to only let them spend about 20-30 minutes at a time upstairs.. we'll watch them like hawks, and see what they do. I want to find out who is the pee-er, who is the pooper, and the chewer, etc. I have a feeling it's cleome, but I have no rational reason to suspect her (other than the poop sizes, which seem to big to be the babies'). We are also thinking of just bringing two up at a time, to try to identify problem bunnies.. not that it will matter, but if we can really pay attention to them, we might be able to follow their line of reasoning, and entice them away from their bad habits.

I'm still not sure what to do about their run though. They continue to pee on the cardboard, particularly right in front of their food. What sillies! If we change the cardboard though, they promptly pee on it again.. what's the use? It's frustrating. We take a roll-up plastic sled in there to sit down on when we visit, so we don't sit on dried up pee. We keep the floor generally swept of all poop and extra hay and litter, but there's not much we can do about the pee. We're also curious about them - I'd like to try making a litter box with wire mesh, just to see if they use it.. it would be easier to manage if they didn't dig the cobby cat all over the place. As is, most of the litter is out of the boxes by the end of the day - then they pee on the bare plastic. What goof balls! We could do the newspaper/hay thing, but I have to wonder.. I'd like to compost the urine, and I don't think newspaper is the best thing to compost.. Sigh.

Part of me also wonders if we should bring them upstairs for good. I dream of ways to avoid the chasing routine. I keep thinking that if we could simply open the cage door and let the rabbits in and out of their cage, we'd be much better off. It's just so convenient to have them in the basement.. for quietness, allergic guests, space (any cage upstairs would have FAR less romping room) As is, they really use the space.. rabbits can "deal" with a small run, if given regular exercise time, but it's nice to know that if we don't have time to let them out for a few days, they'll still be able to torpedo around downstairs.

This is my real dream. I want to build a cage for them that is several layers tall, and goes all the way up to the ceiling of the basement. Each layer would have a large door, so it would be fairly easy to catch them if need be. Hopefully we wouldn't need to "catch" them in their cage though, because we would then have a ramp leading to a trap door upstairs. This door would remain closed most of the time, but we'd open it when we wanted them to have free time upstairs, and they could come and go at their leisure. I'm thinking that it shouldn't be that hard to install a grate type thing, like the kind used in very old houses, so heat could convect up to the higher floors. A person could step on the grate and nothing bad would happen (they wouldn't fall through), and the bunnies could have a bit of sunlight, but they couldn't open the grate on their own. It would be perfect. Unfortunately, the door would open into the carpeted living room, which is totally un-bunny-proof. There are electrical cords and speaker wires everywhere, VCR/TV/fishtank cords, upholstered furniture, cushy wall-to-wall carpeting.. eek. We could make the trap door open up into the living room, perhaps, depending on where we put this care that I'm thinking of building... Anyway. Doesn't this sound like fun? :-)

Maybe this summer when we have more time. HAR HAR.

Meanwhile, I'll keep sweeping and scooping. I subscribed to some bunny mailing lists this weekend, thinking that those folks might have some good advice. Everyone's bunnies are so different, it's amazing! Some are so angelic, and some are so difficult! (most are both :-). I'll skim the lists for a while (on digest mode, my oh MY, they are chatty!), and then post a bunch of questions. We'll see.

Wednesday January 20,1999

One thing Mike and I have noticed for a while now, but that I never commented on, was the state of Gus' fur. Though he's still perfecltly fit - not one bit overweight and not too thin, his fur seems to be getting significantly dirtier. We often find little smears of brown in his foot fur or around his bum, and he often has yellowish fur around his face and forehead. He also seems to have a darker fur area in his nose creases. I'm not sure why. He does groom himself frequently, he hasn't "gotten into" anything unusual, we still sweep all poop and clean the litter boxes twice a day.. so I'm not sure where this careless hygeine is coming from. I would think that with three buddies, that he would have no problem keeping his face clean. We know that at least Basil, and perhaps all of them, help Gus keep his eyes clean. We've caught basil in the act of licking gus' eyes right in the front crease where he tends to get a little hardened grain of something... since he's been living with them, his eyes are perfectly clean. I wish they'd try cleaning the other end too. :-) He's not filthy, he's just.. like a little kid who has been out to play all day... unkept.

Another general observation. There are many "types" of rabbits that I would enjoy having experience with. I have learned a lot from spending time with my sister's Netherland dwarf, Paula. I think it would be interesting to try adopting another lop, or adopting a full size (not "mini") rabbit. I would love to have a dutch rabbit too someday, and there are many other variations on the rabbit theme that I think it would be great to experience. However, I have to say that the more time I spend with our bunnies, the more I'm realizing that every rabbit is unique. Cleome and her children are similar in many ways, since they are after all related, and have grown up together. In spite of this though, they are amazingly different in many ways. It is no less interesting for us to watch a family of bunnies interact, than it would be to watch four different "kinds" of rabbits grow up together. They each have very distinct personalities, and they each grow and change at different rates (for instance, Basil grows in the circumference direction, while Clover grows in the head-to-toe direction *grin*). Seriously though. Any opportunity to live with rabbits should be seized with enthusiasm, regardless of how similar looking or different looking the rabbits may be.

Weekend of January 22-24, 1999

After the blanket-munching couch-peeing experience, Mike and I have been reluctant to bring the rabbits upstairs again. We desperately want them to be up there with us, and yet, we want to keep our stuff safe, and them safe from the poisonous plants, wood stove (assuming we ever get back to having "winter" again!).

Mike and I talked for a while about this, and decided to take a look at the local Pet Food Warehouse to see if they had any enclosures that might help. Indeed, they had strong steel "play pens" in many different sizes and heights. Some were obviously meant for puppies and dogs, but many could be used for rabbits. The enclosures ranged from about 2-4 feet in height. We decided that 3 feet would be fine - not so tall that it looked ridiculous, but tall enough to seriously discourage them from jumping. We pawed through the brochure, and spent almost an hour trying to decide whether to get one with eight 2 foot long panels (giving 16 square feet of coverage, or a 4'x4' area if arranged as a square), and another one which had 6 4' panels, and would therefore be twice the area.

We finally decided that the big one was too heavy and long to be easily moved in and out of the living room, and that it was never going to fit our needs downstairs either, so we went with the smaller one, with the understanding that we could exchange it if it was too small. It turned out that it was plenty of room. The large one would have taken over our entire house, I think! We arranged the cage in an octagon, with an old sheet pinned under the walls. We put the sheet down for traction, to protect the floor from the somewhat scratchy edges of metal, and to make cleaning up a bit easier. We put a littlebox in there with a bunch of fresh hay, and some extra hay on the floor. We then brought the rabbits up.

We made the innocent mistake of bringing Gus up first (although I'm not sure if it would have mattered either way). When we brought the others up, Gus immediately began trying to mount them again!! It was amazing. They were acting the same way they acted that first day in the kitchen, except with less alarm. He chased after them, and they would drag him along and try to get away, but they wouldn't fight back. Clover was the quickest and Gus rarely got near her. I picked up Gus and held him on my lap for a while to let the other three explore the play pen in peace.. and then put him back. He resumed his chasing, but they weren't quite as purturbed. They spent a lot of time in the litter box. We put another low cardboard box in there for them to hide in too, and Clover spent quite a bit of time there.

Gus' mounting behavior gradually died down, although he still went after any rump that crossed his path. One thing that really surprised us was how vocal Clover was! She was very upset at Gus' advances, and murmured and chirped kind of like a monkey. It's hard to describe, but it was quite noticable!

Clover was also the most intent on escaping. All of them tried to stick their head through the bars at one point or another. Cleome couldn't get her whole head through. Basil could get his head through, but not his shoulders. Clover was the most determined. She quickly discovered that the bars were slightly further apart where the panels were joined (because of the hinge), and if she pushed, she could get her whole front half through! I stood up at that point and she backed back in, but this worried us. If they put part of their body through and then pushed on the cage, the panels would get closer together, and so would the bars. They could squish themselves in terror, trying to get out and getting more and more squished... it was a bad scene. Clover got completely out twice before we were able to solve the problem. We found some old rubber coated copper electrical wire and wove it through the bottom two openings at each joint. This seemed to stop her, and after a while, none of them bothered to try sticking their heads through. Whew! We're hoping that they'll soon be as big as their mom, and we won't have to worry about it, but this will hopefully keep them safe for now.

Weekend of January 29-31, 1999

Well, I haven't been keeping up very well with this. A few things we've noticed:

Cleome's stiches are healing up nicely. Her fur has just about grown back completely on her belly, and I can still feel the vertical bumpy line clearly from her sutures, the skin scar is just about gone. The bumps are partly in her adbominal muscle wall, and part on the skin surface, but the skin does move loosely over the incision spot, which I think is a good thing. She looks great, though she does seem to begaining a tiny bit of weight lately. I hope the lumpiness smooths out in time, but the important thing is that she seems to be behaving normally and her tummy works just fine. :-)

Cleome's coat has grown in beautifully. She now looks as shiny and lumenescent as Basil. We were worried that older rexes would have a permanent patchwork look, and her fur is still lumpy around her sides and rump, but the top back area is smooth and lustrous. She looks like a new bunny!

Cleome has also developed a real aversion to being caught. Basil and Gus are the easiest to catch, and Cleome and Clover are the most challenging. We have learned to choose the most challenging first though, because Cleome becomes VERY defensive when she's the last one. She sits in her wooden box and lunges at our hands. She actually bit us - not hard, just basically hit us with her teeth. It was shocking, though painless. A very clear message. I finally had to turn the wooden box sideways to prevent her from climbing in, and then corner her at a litterbox. I felt bad about stressing her out so much. Once she was caught, she was fine though! Mike sat with her for a while this weekend (Cleome on his lap), and she actually started tooth-purring, which is something we've never heard her do! We keep hoping they'll figure out that we're not so bad.. but they still like the running away and being chased game.

Gus continues his endless humping-fest when we bring the four rabbits into the puppy pen. We have taken to squirting him with water in the face sometimes, if he just won't let up and is bugging the other rabbits. We not sure whether we should leave him downstairs a few times, or whether that would accomplish anything at all. We hoped he would settle down, but he just seems to be stuck in this hormone phase, unfortunately. As soon as we squirt him though, the other rabbits rush over and groom him, even though he had just been chasing them around moments before.

Clover has continued to be very vocal about being picked up, particularly when we take her out of the puppy pen to go downstairs. We've figured out that the sound is similar to the monkey-like throat sound that guinea pigs make - not the shrill "eeek" sound, but the googly in-the-throat sounds. It's amazing that rabbits can do that, I never knew it. When we reach to pick her up, she hunkers down in her dewlap, forming a tight ball, with big eyes, and makes that noise. I feel bad about having to pick her up under those circumstances, but we just have to. She seems ok about it once she's up though.

Clover is also the most graceful bunny ever. We have a pattern of going into the run with a litter scooper, dustpan and 5 gallon white bucket. She has become quite curious about this bucket (which we dump used litter, old hay and poops into). She can actually jump directly into the bucket without touching the sides!! She prances like a pony. She can also hop right out again, as if she had giant springs on her feet! She can leap onto a 2 foot tall box and not skid one bit (Basil often jumps up and skids right off!). She is quite a sight.

Basil's doing just fine. He seems to be fairly restful and sleepy lately, and spends a lot of time sitting in a goofy zoned out stance, or lying down with his ears slicked back. He likes to lie with Gus (who also does quite a bit of lying down), but Basil doesn't flop onto his side as much as Gus. Basil has a cute habit of sliding his face under the head of any bunny who is grooming themselves, and lying there as if to say, "well, as long as your grooming.. want to lick me?". It's very cute.

Last night, Basil and Gus were lying down together, ultimately cute - Basil was hunkered down, and one of Gus' ears was flopped over him. After several minutes of this (batteries were dead on the digital camera, darnit!) Clover came by. She sniffed between them, and finally borrowed head first into the gap between them, and flopped quite suddenly completely on her side! It was hilarious! We just saw a white belly and a foot sticking out from between Basil and Gus! Unfortunately for Clover, Gus and Basil both got up a minute later, and went on their way.. leaving a sleepy, droopy-eyed Clover lying by herself. Oh well.

One more important note: They haven't peed in their run in about 2 weeks! We're so impressed! Now we're afraid to change anything of course. They are still peeing on the sheet upstairs in the puppy run, but even that's gone down. So far, Clover has never been caught outside of the litter box, and she's used it several times, so we're still wondering who the culprit is. For some reason I feel like it's Cleome, but I'm not sure why. We'll stay on the lookout.

Thursday February 4, 1999

Over the last few days, Clover has given Gus a taste of his own medicine! We were upstairs making dinner and heard some noises coming from the bunny run. We looked over, expecting to see Gus chasing another bunny around, and instead so Clover climbing all over Gus (face first) and trying to mount him! She did this several times that evening, and this morning, we saw her chasing him around and trying to mount him in their run! Apparently there is either a quest for dominance going on, Clover's hormones are starting to rage, or perhaps a little of both. We're thinking about spaying Clover in "real" terms rather than "someday.." terms.

Also, I have to append my statement above about not peeing out of their litter boxes. They have rarely peed out of their litter boxes lately, EXCEPT for right in front of their food containers. Who knows why, but for some reason, somebody thinks it's important to pee right where everyone else stands to eat. Somewhat conveniently, the food dust and spilled pellets sop some of it up, but how icky! We haven't caught the culprit yet.

It occurred to me yesterday, as I pulled a hunk of hay out of the bin, that they are actually making a dent in it. In fact, from our original bale, it's more than half gone already. It's great that they eat hay like this, but it still comes as a surprise to me. Somehow in my head, I figured that it got old and matted down, and we composted it.. but no, they actually CONSUME it. It returns in the form of poop. If we don't give them some every day, they actually run out! For some reason this took a while to sink in. The hay bale seemed infinite, but it is definitely not so..

Also, I must confess - a few days ago, we didn't realize that they were running low on food - the dish parts were full, but we didn't notice that there were no extra pellets up above.. that night, there was NO food left. We were alarmed, although in reality, they had plenty of hay and were only without pellets for at most several hours.. Well, we took the opportunity to hand feed them, and it worked! Both of us squatted down (and later regretted it, since we didn't want to move to spook them, and had sore legs afterward..) with food in both hands. They actually ate the food out of our hands! It was the cutest thing. As usual these days, Basil was the most timid... but the other three ate with no reservations. We could hear them chewing. It was so cool.

Gus is incidentally going through another major shed. He really doesn't like to be plucked or groomed, but the fur is coming off in amazing quantities. I do it anyway, and then give him a carrot or another treat. He still seems really bugged. Clover and Basil still show no signs of shedding other than a few tiny spots of pulled out fur on their backs (probably from someone trying to mount them).

Monday February 8, 1999

We left this past weekend, and put my mom and sister in charge of checking on the rabbits (and Hilary, and the fish..). They stopped by and checked on them, cleaned their litter boxes, etc. Everything went well. They held Basil and Cleome, but couldn't catch Clover. When we got home Sunday night, the bunnies seemed fine. Mike caught them and brought them upstairs, and we socialized with them while we made and ate dinner, and for a while after that. We both agreed that they seemed bigger - Cleome and Basil seemed to have grown to huge proportions. Gus and Clover seemed somehow smaller.

I sat with my body at the door to the run and my legs inside, and let them check me out. Cleome and Clover were both interested. They dug at my pants and Cleome even tried to nibble at them. They both hopped on and off of my legs and allowed me to pet them. Gus and Basil were much more standoffish. The more I looked at Clover, the more small, frail, thin.. she seemed. It occurred to me that her fur looked unusually ratty, and she had obviously lost quite a bit. I wondered if Gus was mounting her in their run a lot. This really bothered me. We both watched her, and she seemed perfectly perky and happy, and munched on hay several times throughout the evening. I also noticed that the poops in the litter boxes seemed a bit small - more of them went right through the slits in the scooper than usual. I of course worried that Clover had some sort of intestinal problem (but she was eating hay..). Cleome and Clover mysteriously showed NO interest whatsoever in a thin slice of banana that we gave to each bunny - Gus inhaled it ("*smack smack* *mush* *gulp*, more?"), and Basil eagerly ate it out of my hand as well, but the females showed no more interest in it than if I had put a piece of metal near their noses. It was odd.

We brought the rabbits downstairs. We carefully looked Clover over, felt her belly, felt her body in general... she definitely seemed to be smaller and thinner, and I could feel the bones in her pelvis and spine much more clearly than her relatives, but she did seem to have a normal doughy, firm round belly. She REALLY didn't like being turned over at all, and absolutely would NOT be hypnotized. We looked at her bum, which was clean and normal looking. Then we cleaned out the run.

I'm amazed she had any fur left at all, based on the amount of fur we found in the run. She had ripped a huge amount of fur out of her body, and had created this huge mass with it (mixed with hay and cardboard) inside of a narrow cardboard tunnel that we gave them long ago. There was fur everywhere.. clumps of it in most of the corners of the run... huge tufts. I would have thought that she'd been in a huge fight, but I just don't think so. I think she is exhibiting nesting behaviors. It's too bad that this is so self-destructive. I don't know if it has anything to do with her being mounted by Gus periodically, or if it has more to do with her internal age. I had talked to Melissa a few weeks earlier, and she'd mentioned that she got Clover's two sisters spayed already, and they came through it just fine... so we don't have their behavior to compare to.

In any case, we're thinking that perhaps the time has come. I don't want to see her pluck herself like this, and she is five months old now, which is probably reasonable. We'd like to make sure that she grows to her full potential, but being neutered certainly hasn't stopped Basil from growing, so perhaps it wouldn't affect her either. We'll see.

Friday February 12, 1999

Well, I talked to Colleen and decided to hold off on the spaying. She said that most people don't spay females until 8-12 months, and that 5 months seems really young. I agree, but I just want to do what's best for her. She hasn't pulled any additional fur out, so we'll wait for now.

On another note - On Wednesday, we noticed that Gus smelled a little funky. We sniffed him carefully, trying to figure out what it was. We're still not sure, but he smells faintly of sweaty feet. I know it sounds gross, but he smells like old sweaty skin - not musky or B.O. like, just like.. a kid's feet at the end of the day. Anyway, it's not very pleasant. He seemed to smell all over, but particularly around the face and front-half of their body. We sniffed his paws, thinking that with those huge dust-gatherers, perhaps he stepped in something unsavory.. but they smelled normal (like nothing in particular). We sniffed the other bunnies, and they also smelled! If we rub them, our hands would pick up the odor. It's faint, but not normal. We looked in the run for any signs of decaying veggies, hay or bunny waste that might have slipped under a box, etc. but we found no sources for the stink. We're going to do a careful cleaning this weekend and see if we can pinpoint the source. Colleen will be coming over Sunday, so perhaps she can sniff them and let us know what she thinks.

Valentine's Weekend, February 13-14, 1999

Well, we cleaned out the run completely Friday night and replaced all of the cardboard. There were no stinky spots, although I noticed that their wooden box was retaining a bit of odor. We'll probably hose it down in the spring, but it's too big to wash inside in the winter. It doesn't stink, it just smells.. a little funky. We originally planned to switch the cardboard over the course of a week or so, so they wouldn't be disturbed and feel the need to mark, but when we got in there, we just decided to go for it. We didn't move any of their litterboxes around though, or their playing boxes. They only marked in front of the food, as usual. That's so weird to me!!

We've been bringing them up to their pen for longer and longer - they have pellets, lots of hay, a deep litter box, a basket for chewing, some play boxes, and fresh water up there, so they can stay for quite a while. They've been doing well, but they can't seem to help peeing on the sheet that the puppy run is placed on. We're running out of old sheets, so we'll wash them all soon and see if that helps.

On Sunday, Colleen Rouhan, a woman we had met on the internet, came to meet us. She's involved as an educator with the HRS and volunteers at the Franklin County Humane Society in St. Albans, Vermont. We had talked over the phone, but this was the first time we'd met in person. It was great. We spent most of the afternoon talking about bunnies. We brought the bunnies upstairs, and they played in their run. Later in the evening, we let them run loose, and it was very interesting. They obviously regarded the pen as their home base, because they spent quite a bit of time in there, and frequently hopped in and out. They explored the couch, and everwhere else in the rooms.. but they didn't poop (or pee) one bit on the floor, outide of their run!! I was very impressed, both because they used to poop on the floor all the time before, and because this could be considered new territory to them, since they had been in the pen for so long. We did find one suspicious spot on cheap door mat, but they'd peed there before and we only rinsed it. Next time we'll wash it in some vinegar and see if that helps to get rid of the scent. Anyway, it was a successful and encouraging evening.

We did notice though, that there were quite a few cecal pellets smeared or left lying around on the sheet and in the litter box. Gus also had a piece of poop stuck to his left front paw. I got it off with a warm, wet paper towel (which bugged him), but it was still strange. I picked up the cecal pellets before they were stepped in.. but I was surprised that there were so many! Colleen asked if we had changed their diet at all. I said we had cut down the number of veggies they were getting because we ran out toward the end of last week.. she said they may have responded by eating more pellets, and therefore having too much protein in their diet. hmm.

Monday, we brought them up again.

February - March 10, 1999

Boy, my writing sure has slowed down - but not because things have calmed down! Clover has continued to pull her fur out, and is now almost a checkered/patchwork bunny with several almost bald spots here and there (especially in her dewlap region). It's slowed down in the last week, but I think that's just because she's run out of fur. :-(

She has also been spraying urine for the last few weeks! After about a week of spraying, we contacted Colleen's preferred veterinarian and talked to her.. and decided to go ahead and spay Clover (assuming her physical exam goes well that morning). We never knew female bunnies could or would spray, but Clover has turned into quite the dominant bunny. She mounts everyone now, although Gus is her favorite. She also sprays every day several times.. bleckth! At first, we had no idea who was doing the spraying. We would watch and watch, and it seemed like between blinks, urine would appear mysteriously. Finally last weekend we caught Clover in the act. On Friday March 5th, I travelled to New Hampshire with Colleen to pick up some bunnies from a Humane Society there which was over-run with a bunny couple and their three litters.. Our plan was to take a few of the babies and the mom (and possibly the dad) back to the Franklin County Humane Society, since they had no rabbits. There was a slight chance that the mother bunny was pregnant, but nobody seemed sure. Then the night before we left, Colleen found out that the mother bunny gave birth to another NINE bunnies! So off we went, to help share the burden. Mom and the babies were taken to a foster home (one of the employees of the shelter), and we took dad (a beautiful brown and white spotted mini-rex who we named Evan) and four babies. Two babies were probably about 10-11 weeks old, and two were probably about 6 weeks old. Poor mom!

Anyway, while we were there, we took a look around, and found another bunny who had been there for over a month. Her name was "lucy", and she was a ~7 pound beautiful, soft as silk bunny.. I picked her up, and she was a cuddly puddle! Unfortunately for her though, she had the most horrible malocclusion I've ever seen in my life (not that I've ever seen one before, but still!). They had been clipping her teeth with nail clippers, and she was very good through the procedure, but ultimately, the teeth were probably going to have to be removed.. one bottom tooth was longer than the other, and both seemed hollow, like the middle part had started to decay. The top teeth were parted like bangs.. going off each side of her mouth. Her left tooth was much thicker. Remarkably, she seemed to be eating fine, and actually seemed a bit overweight.

Still, since she had special needs, we doubted if anyone would ever adopt her in that condition. She was absolutely the sweetest bunny I've ever met, in spite of her teeth, so we decided to take her and make her an HRS bunny. I held her in my lap for the ride home, and she just snuggled right in. She never got tired of being pet for the whole 2 hour drive, and actually appeared to be snoozing for part of it. We took her home to Colleen's house, where we set her up in the kitchen. I really didn't like the name "Lucy", and she didn't seem to answer to it, so we decided to name her Madison. She seemed to be fully litterbox trained, and never peed once outside of it, even though she'd spent a month in the shelter with no litterbox (or resting pad). She ate pellets and hay, and snarfed down her veggies in the evening. I was amazed that she ate so well with her teeth like that - I bet her molars get quite a work out!

She wasn't spayed, so Colleen made an appointment to have her seen on Monday. Unfortunately, her vet has never removed bunny teeth before, and isn't sure how to proceed. She might only file them, but she might remove them (this would be ideal). So Clover and Madison will both be spayed on Thursday, and Madison will her her teeth either worked on or removed. I'm taking Thursday off from work and spending the day at the veterinary office. I'll read papers and do some work if I'm not allowed to watch, but I'm hoping that Paula will allow me to watch the procedures. We'll see!

We put Gus' old cage back in the run for the bunnies to explore. All four of them seemed immediately interested. Clover was the first to hop in, and Gus and Basil followed. We haven't seen Cleome hop in,but she's sniffed and chinned it. clover is chinning everything lately. We've even seen Basil chinning occasioanlly (so far, no chinning for Gus). We put some hay in the cage and left it open.. they started using it as a litterbox immediately, which I think is great. Hopefully this transition period will make Clover feel slightly less alarmed when she's put into this cage after her spay. I'm hoping to re-unite her as quickly as possible with the other bunnies, but I don't want her to get hurt. I might reunite her with just Basil and Cleome for at least a few hours the day after the surgery, just to make sure she knows that he buddies are still around. We'll see what the vet says.

Another thing.. I spent the night over Colleen's house, and in our expedition the following day, we picked up some surplus linoleum and small samples of obsolete carpet for the bunnies. I was lucky enough to get a piece of linoleum that was perfectly sized - about 1 foot longer than the run in both dimensions! Sunday, Mike and I brought the bunnies upstairs in their pen, and cleaned out the whole run. We removed every object, swept, vacuumed, and then scrubbed all of the urine spots or spots where poops had ground in.. we made a mixture of hot water and white vinegar, and used a bristled brush, and it all came up very easily. I highly recommend vinegar for cleaning concrete in general, it did a great job. We let the floor dry, and then carefully slid the linoleum under the wall framing (we had done such a crummy job building the run that we could "swing" the walls apart easily to make room). We smoothed it out and made sure that the linoleum hugged the walls closely. We left some slack, since the foundation walls waver a little bit, and decided not to cut the slack off, since sloping edges would be easier to clean. We lined the edges with random pine boards to prevent any chewers from tearing up the edge. We're hoping to protect the edge more carefully when we rebuild the run, but this works for now. We put back the stuff, and let the bunnies loose.

It was fun. They explored actively for a while.. and seemed to spend slightly more time in their box than usual - the floor was a big more slippery than cardboard. We had laid down a piece of cardboard in one spot, and they stepped on that quite a bit. We also put one of the carpets in their run. About two minutes after they got there, someone had already peed on it. I didn't catch which one. I watched the carpet more carefully.. Clover came over, dug at it a bit, turned around, and stuck her butt out.. just as I was getting ready to scootch her along so she wouldn't pee, she wagged her butt back and forth and out came a spray or pee! BLAH! Caught in the act! Mike grabbed a paper towel and we mopped up the pee as soon as possible, but ooh, what a bummer. We took the carpet out and won't put it back until she's spayed. SIGH. Before we took it out, Basil came by, sat on the carpet, and peed! (boy, am I slow or what!). Luckily his bum hung over and the puddle ended up on the linoleum.

Anyway - so far so good. The bunnies adjusted to the surface just fine, and cleaning up is a breeze. We'd still like to cut down on the amount of debris in there, since it's hard to sweep around so many obstacles, but mopping up the pee is SO easy, it's wonderful! It's great to be able to clean the surface to the point where we don't mind sitting on it. Ideally, we'd like to put down some swatches of carpet or rugs/towels for them so they have something to binky on, but we'll wait until Clover is spayed and the sexual tensions have died down a bit.

March 11-19, 1999

So much has happened in the last week, I know I'll never remember it all, but here goes. Clover was spayed on Thursday, March 11th. We put her in Gus' old cage with a towel, and brought a bag with lots of hay, fresh parsley, a water bottle, pellets and a food hanger, extra towels and a small toy. I felt like I was carrying a baby, her car seat, and a huge diaper bag. :-) Clover was really nervous in the car. She calmed down a bit at the veterinary office, but still seemed somewhat tense. I got a ride to the clinic with Colleen, who was bringing Evan in to be neutered, and Madison in to be spayed and have her teeth clipped.

The staff oogled at the buns (and Colleen's tiny puppy who she was fostering). They were amazed at Madison's teeth. I went with Clover into an examining room, and Paula looked her over. She looked in her ears, felt her all over, etc. Paula tried to look in her mouth, but had no luck. She decided to check out Clover's molars while she was sedated instead.

They took her back and pre-sedated her while I was busy with Colleen and her clan.. when I went back, Clover was already hooked up to the isofluorane, and was completely "out". It was amazing how limp she was. They had put a little rubber rimmed cup over her snout and gently taped it around the back of her head. They shaved her belly, and then brought her and her anesthesia machine into the other room. The table they have is kind of V-shaped, so that fluids run off of the middle, down away from the animal. They can tilt it to encourage this, but they didn't have to do that for Clover.

They scrubbed and rinsed her whole belly area well several times with some clear slightly sudsy solution. Then Paula began. I was impressed with how meticulous and careful she was making her incisions. She picked up the skin before nicking and cutting through it, to make sure she wasn't cutting anything below the layers she intended to cut. She also peered under the skin as she proceeded with the scissors, making sure that everything else was out of the way. I was also amazed at how thin Clover's skin and abdominal muscle wall was! I am so impressed with how strong she is, given how thin her muscles were..

I'd be happy to supply more details - send me mail if you're interested. Otherwise, I'll just say... it was all very methodical. There was almost no bleeding whatsoever. She just tied off and clamped each blood vessel, then snipped between the tie (on the bunny side) and the clamp (on the uterus side). At the end, she tucked the snipped bits back in and closed up the opening, muscle wall first, then skin. Her incisions were perfect and interesting to watch. For the muscle layer, she made a knot near the bottom, then made a series of spiral stitches up to the top, where she made another knot. Then for the top layer, she actually only punctured the durable underside of the skin, and when it was done, it looked like lips - as if someone sewed lips together from the teeth area, leaving the exposed surfaces untouched. There were only two tiny knots with almost no suture left to pull at. It was beautiful.

After they were done with the surgery, they removed the mask, wrapped her gently in a big, soft towel, and let me hold her. I had heard that animals often pee as they wake from surgery, so I tried to point her tail away from my body (I had brought a change of clothes just in case!). I held her for about 15 minutes. I stroked her head.. she didn't seem to be waking up. They had put some sort of goop in her eyes to keep them from drying out, but the goop sort of wore off, and her eyes started popping open. They put more in, but her eyes still popped open. She got really heavy, so I decided that she might feel more comfortable waking up with her feet on the ground. I put her, still wrapped in the towel, in the cage, and stood by her, petting her head.

While I waited for Clover, I watched them neuter Evan. It was amazingly simple, and he was only anesthetized for .. 10-15 minutes maybe? I was impressed. He woke up within 15 minutes and was eating veggies and hay and acting bunny like.

Wednesday, March 24, 1999

I snuck up on the bunnies this morning in their run, and peeked over the side. Cleome was not seen.. Basil was hunkered down meatloaf style next to the food dispensers. Clover was nearby, grooming her foot. Gus was near a wall.. as I watched, he jumped into the air, twisted, and flopped flat on his back, with his legs drooping over to one side - perfect dead bunny pose! It was the cutest thing. A minute later, he slowly rolled back over and sat sphynx-style with his big fluffy tail sticking out. Awww..!! I'm so glad they're all friends again.

April 2, 1999

We brought Gus to Mike's grandmother's retirement home. He was a real hit, but was exhausted from the day. He was lethargic all weekend, and didn't clean his feet very well... a few cecals were found - perhaps his. His eyes seemed a little wetter than usual. I think it was very stressful. We won't do it often, and if we do take him in again, we'll give him more rest time in the middle of the day.

As it was, we brought Gus in in his small cage, with lots of hay, pellets, a water bottle, a toy, and a grass mat for sitting and chewing. He hardly drank all day, and didn't sleep much. I brought him into my office covered in a blanket. I kept the blanket partially on the cage so it wouldn't be so bright, but I don't think he slept well all day. By the time we got to Pillsbury Manor, he was really tired and stressed from the driving (30 minutes to work, 10 minutes to the manor)... we took him in, and I tranced him for a few minutes. Then we went to the dining area, and brought him around to the 40 or so people in the room.

Almost all of the people pet him gladly with grins and smiles, and many people shared stories with us about the rabbits in their life. Several had lived on a farm and raised rabbits, and several had a rabbit as a pet. Gus got lots and lots of rubs. He was extremely patient and mellow, but I wondered how all of the commotion was affecting him. I sort of felt like we "broke his spirit". He just sat there with a defeated feel to him.. he didn't try to jump away or explore at all. Many people commented on his wiggling nose, and almost everyone asked us how old he was. I thought that was very interesting. I hardly ever think about the age of an animal first thing, but his age was very important to many of the people there.

Overall, I think they really enjoyed us coming. I only wish it had been less stressful for Gus. We were glad we brought him, since he's the most cuddly, and the most like an "easter bunny" (white, soft, etc). I think we'll have to take him on more short car rides in the future, with fresh veggies at the end.. before we build up to another experience like that.

April 3-4, 1999

We brought them outside for the first time - set up the puppy pen on the deck, brought them out one at a time with hay, litterbox, and a towel to sit on. It was probably in the high 60s-low 70s (F) and sunny.. Hilary looked jealous so we brought her in the pen too (She didn't jump out). She was very good. The bunnies tried to groom her tail, but it wouldn't stop moving! she raised her paw to bat at Cleome once, but we said no and she stopped. Pretty good behavior for being cramped into a 4x4' area WITH Mike sitting inside! I sat outside and fed the chipmunk nearby.. I got him to eat out of my hand!! Hilary stalked him through the bars. The intrepid animal ran right through the bars at one point (but Hilary wasn't fast enough). It wasn't interested in peanuts, but wolfed down lots of sunflower seeds.

Gus seemed quite lethargic outside. He spent a bit of time in the litterbox (they all wanted in, but only two would fit, so they hopped in and out in turn - cute! next time we'll bring two boxes out).. then he settled down next to the box with his eyes closed. I'm wondering if the sun really bothered him since he's an albino. Next time we will be sure to include a shady box or shady area if it's sunny out.

We spent quite a while out there. When we decided to go in, I removed all objects from the run (except the buns and Hilary). Then we scooted it slowly toward the open door and wrapped it securely around the door, so it opened up into the house. The bunnies hopped into the house - all but Cleome, who was busy sniffing around the far end. Finally, I picked her up and we brought them downstairs. It was a really fun trip.

We also bought a bale of new hay for them. We went to one garden store that had real pure timothy hay, but they had sold the last two bales before we got there. They recommended another store... but they only had 2nd cut timothy hay with some clover and one other kind of hay mixed in. We decided to give it a try, since we were completely out of hay. It's very grassy but it looks and smells good. It's much softer than our last bale (which was probably first cut). We'll see if they like it. The store owners suggested that we get 1st cut next time (they didn't have any at the moment) if we wanted timothy, because they said it was the first to come up, so 1st cuts are more rich in timothy. I'm hoping that we can get some of the 100% timothy next time.

April 11-12, 1999

This was a fun weekend. We pruned our apple tree and have been giving the branches to the buns. They have devoured them so far - they stripped the bark off, nipped the twigs into pieces and are gnawing through the soft wood. They aren't touching the old poplar branches, now that the apple branches are in there. We have a few branches that are rather large, and we're thinking about building something chewable out of them - a ramp or bridge or something. We'll see.

My mom and sister Rachel came over on Sunday, and we took the buns out on the porch. Hilary didn't come, since she has been feeling awful lately (she was diagnosed with an aggressive squamous cell carcinoma in her jaw Friday, and we're awaiting surgery...). The bunnies had fun in the sun, alkthough once again, Gus squinted the whole time. It wasn't even sunny - rather overcast.. if we'd kept them out for a long time, we would have put a blanket over the run for shade, but it was cool and the other buns enjoyed the sun. I held Gus in the shade for a while. He seemed fine when he was closing his eyes, but we'll have to take care to keep his exposure to a minimum, since I certainly don't want him getting a sunburn on his face or ears.

We moved one food dish to another wall of their run to see if they'd stop peeing in front of it. We also picked up a sweater box (under the bed style) and popped the top off.. we were looking for a BIG litter box. I'm thinking that maybe they'd be more likely to use a litterbox if they could all get in it. This box is a little low for my preferences (only about 5 inch walls), but it has a smooth bottom. Most of the other boxes we saw had lots of rumples in the bottom where things could get stuck. Of course, the smooth bottom means that the litter slides around, and they seem to like digging one end clear, and then peeing in it. We tried lining the bottom with old phone book pages, to soak up the pee when the litter's pushed away. We'll see how well that works.

Cleome's nose fur is rubbing off in a spot above her nose... we're thinking that perhaps it's because of those food pellet holders. We might try giving them a crock with pellets, but I would rather not, since they run through them, pee around them, etc. We'll keep an eye on Cleome's nose though - it's not a good thing (but why now after months of the food dispensers working fine?).

They are eating the new hay, though they don't seem as enthusiastic about it. Lately, they haven't seemed as enthusiastic about their veggies either - Gus and one other bun chow down while the other two (who chows and who doesn't changes from day to day) seem oblivious..

We bought them a papaya a few weeks ago. We waited for a while for it to ripen, but we didn't want it to go bad, so finally we cut it up.. I'm not sure if it just wasn't ripe, or if it was bad somehow.. it seemed fine texture wise, but it was fairly firm, and didn't smell or taste good. None of the buns wanted anything to do with it. We finally composted it. We'll try again someday with a softer papaya. We fed them a little bit of canned pineapple last week too - I realize that any pineapple enzymes were probably denatured in the canning process, but fresh pineapple is hard to find around here, so this was just a treat. Gus ate it, though he only ate half of his little chunk and came back later for the rest.. the others tentatively licked it, but didn't eat it while I was watching. It was gone by the next morning though, so SOMEBUNNY ate it. :-)

Lately, it seems as if the bunnies have been particularly sweet. They still run away when we try to catch them, but once we have them, they will remain cuddled for a while and will quietly sit against our chest without struggling or trying to get down. I walked around outside for 10-15 minutes with Basil last Friday (I held him the whole time, of course, since he wasn't on a leash), and he was just fine. He sniffed the air, but was otherwise fairly content. We took Cleome out too for a little 2-3 minute walk (we walked, she was on my chest), and she seemed pretty content.

They're all much more willing to let us pet them in their run too - instead of running away, they're slightly more likely to sit there and let us pet them. Gus is still pretty restless, but the others are much less jumpy. I'm happy about that. I can't say it's because they've been getting any special treatment either - most of our free time has been focused on Hilary lately, and we probably haven't been bringing them upstairs more than 2-3 times a week for the last few weeks. They seem to be doing fine though (but I miss them upstairs).

April 14th

My friend Sarah came over this afternoon, along with Ashley, a 10 year old girl scout who is doing a science project with us. We were theoretically working on the project this afternoon, but in reality, it was just a field trip.. she had a great time looking at the fish (especially the goldfish pond), and only noticed the bunnies after 10-15 minutes. She really wanted to chase them around, but we told her not to, and she listened. She also wanted to scare them by clapping and lunging at them, but we discouraged her from doing that too. She's in general very good with them, but... I don't know what it is about kids needing to scare animals.. like children scaring sea gulls in parks..

So we carried the bunnies upstairs (Sarah and I - Ashley carried the litterbox, since I was worried about the buns jumping out of her arms mid-way up the stairs) and set up the pen again. All four of the bunnies were very well behaved. We gave them a nice salad (turnip greens, romaine lettuce, chopped carrot, and one other green that I forgot..). We let Ashley feed them some thin apple pieces, but only Gus was interested. She sat in their run and pet them. They sniffed her. She was very calm and basically spent the whole afternoon chanting "I want a bunny!". I don't think that now is a good time for her though - her parents don't have enough money to provide good veterinary care and daily veggies, and she has older and younger siblings in the house, including a 1 year old. Not the right time. We tried to convince her that when she moved out of her house, then she could get one.. or if she got a job in high school, then she could get one.. but she was not phased. She wanted a childhood pet. I showed her the house rabbit handbook, and we both tried to push the concept of research and learning before you buy a new pet. She seemed not to quite get it, but you never know how much sinks in..

We let the bunnies run around upstairs free for a while. They didn't poop once for about 2 hours!! I was so impressed. Then I found a cecal poop in their pen.. and over the course of the evening, more little poops appeared in their run. They only left a few (maybe 2-3) outside of the pen, near a corner of the couch (on the floor). Hmm. It's such a balancing act - the more time they spend upstairs, both per day and in general, the worse their litter box habits are.

They were very interested in the seedling trays we had on the floor, and hopped all over them, even though they had wobbly plastic clear covers. You can bet that those will be going up on a table ASAP, or I have a feeling that we will mysteriously not see any seedlings sprout!

April 16th

Well, over the last week or two Gus has been sheddling like crazy. We have noticed that Cleome is REALLY interested in eating hus fur! What a silly! Not only will she roam around the run, picking up tufts of his white fur and EATING them, but she will groom him, and pull tufts of fur off of him, and munch them as if they were hay or parsley! I watched her for about 10 minutes last night. You might wonder why I didn't stop her, but it seemed pretty hopeless, since she's around him 24 hrs a day.

I try to pluck him every day when Gus is shedding, but so much fur comes up, and he's SO bugged, that it never seems like I'm done.. I have developed a nice technique though. Brushes don't seem to work - if the bristles are too close together or soft, they just glide right over the fur, and if they're too far apart, they go through it but don't snag on any of the loose stuff. I haven't tried the rubberized gloves or rubber brushes, because plucking works well and I don't want to yank on his fur with rubber, but I might try them sometime for the rexes, who are also almost impossible to pluck (you could pluck the same spot forever and a fine mist of fur would just keep coming out).

Anyway. I pick up Gus and put him on my lap, on top of a fairly stiff 1x2 foot carpet sample from a local carpetting place. This way he can't chew through my pants and I have somewhere to put the gobs of fur as I pull them out. Also, he has a more secure footing than on my rounded thighs, where his feet easily slip off.. I pluck him for a few minutes, and when he seems agitated or bugged, I stop and rub him all over gently. This calms him down and I continue for a bit longer.. after a while, he starts standing on his hind feet and climbing all over me. That's my sign that he's fed up with it, and I respect his wishes. Hopefully he won't catch on soon and stand up just as I start!

When it's not too cold out and not too sunny, I can pluck him outside - this is the best, because the fur doesn't fly all over the basement.

So we've been worried about Cleome's habit of eating fur. She seems perfectly active and still eats a lot of hay. To be sure though, I brought the buns up last night and guarded the litterbox. After a while, Cleome hopped in it and left a nice pile of poops. They were large and well formed, with no hairs attached to them. I broke several open, and there were obviously pieces of fur in it, because it resisted being broken and the pieces clung together by bits of fur (not tons, but obviously some). I can't tell whether it's rex fur or Gus' fur, but at least she's passing it. I still don't know who keeps leaving the string-of-pearls type poops though. I see a few every day. I wanted to do the poop test on Gus, but he must have held it all evening.. I might take him up by himself, but I have a feeling he'd be even less likely to use the box if he was alone, just because of the weirdness of being alone.

I'm a little concerned about Gus - he seems to act a little older than the others.. he is 3, but chances are Cleome is about 3 too.. Gus runs around passionately, and then flops and relaxes completely... as if he runs out of breath or something. I hope that's in the normal range of bunny bahaviors.

April 28, 1999

Well, I haven't written in a while - there is just no time. Gus' shedding has slowed down a bit. The lawn is still littered with white tufts of fur though, from our afternoon plucking sessions! I thought they would blow away, but they seem to get stuck in the lawn easily. May, 1999

We've been really pre-occupied lately, and it shows. The bunnies are doing fine. A few changes we have made.. we have moved away from Cobby Cat and Yesterday's News (because of price of YN and the possible health risks of Cobby Cat - some bunnies have had intestinal blockages from eating corn cob litter). Instead, we're now using compressed wood stove pellets (meant for use in "pellet stoves"). They work well. They are a little shorter and quite a big fatter than YN pellers (almost as fat as a pencil). When they get wet, they quickly break apart into flakes of sawdust. This makes it VERY easy to scoop out the litter - we simply lift it up in scoopfuls and shake the scooper over our compost bin. What goes through the scooper is used pellets (even after the sawdust dry it is still a fine consistency), and what's left in the scoop is unused pellets and poop. We put that back in the box. To prevent the buildup of bunny poop, we put the "once used" litter in a particular end of a particular litterbox that they tend to use the most heavily. That part gets quickly soiled, and we remove the entire corner of litter the next day.

Using this method, there is VERY little waste - few pellets are tossed unused. We put a fine layer of hay on top of the pellets for better traction. It's also easy to lift flakes of hay with poop on top right out, thereby keeping the unpeed on litter underneath usable. We're going to stock up on these wood stove pellets, since they are going out of season. At ~$3 per 40 lb bag, it's quite a deal!

Another thing we have changed is food. We removed the solid metal feeding troughs that we had hung on the sides of their run and replaced them with a single pottery bowl. We did this because a few of the buns seemed to be rubbing parts of their face fur bare from eating out of it (though it was always full). We also removed them because we wanted to keep closer track of how much they were eating. We started giving them 1 1/2 - 2 cups of pellets a day. We're trying to guess at the amount they normally eat, and then give them slightly less than that. We're doing this for two reasons. First, they are all getting a little plump - especially Cleome and Basil. We'd like to keep them at a healthy weight. Also, we'd like to encourage them to eat hay when they're hungry. They have lots of fresh hay at all times, and I think sometimes that Basil eats pellets "just to eat". I'd prefer that he munch on hay.

If this change doesn't do the trick, we'll switch to a higher fiber pellet. Right now, they're getting Blue Seal, Bunny 16, which is something like 14-18% fiber and is alfalfa based. This is fine for a young bunny, but not a good maintenance food. Limiting their pellets will encourage them to replace the bulk with hay, which will bring their overall level of fiber intake up. We'll see. :-)

We have adopted 2 cats from the Humane Society. I don't have time to go into the introduction story now, but write to me if you are interested. They all get along fine. One of the cats is oblivious/frightened, and the other LIKES the bunnies. She loves to lie in their boxes, and spends a fair amount of time lounging in their puppy pen, whether the bunnies are in it or not. Sometimes she walks by the puppy pen and walks around slowly, as if she's sad that the buns aren't out to play.

We're thinking of building a cat bridge in the bunny run - two verticle poles that are carpeted, one on each side of the run, with a platform between. This way, Shadow could visit the bunnies freely throughout the day, but the bunnies couldn't get out. We'll have to observe the bunnies with the cats a lot more before we feel confident enough to do this, but I'd love it to work out.

June, 1999

Just a few updates. Last month we decided to make a real effort to ration their pellets and give them more veggies instead. Cleome and Basil are definitely getting a bit tubby (or at least are DEFINITELY not on the thin side!), and although Clover and Gus are a healthy size, they are still definitely getting plenty of food. We know how hard it is to put animals on a "diet", so we'd like to prevent any problems by limiting their pellets from the start.

We started by putting a limited amount of food in their hanging metal food dispensers. This didn't work for a few reasons. We quickly noticed that the face fur on our rexes was getting rubbed off in places - apparently the bunnies were digging deep into the metal tray to get the food as it ran out, and were rubbing their fur off in spots! That can't be comfortable, and they definitely looked silly. Also, I think there is some sort of territory issue around the food. We have noticed for months that somebody was peeing right in front of the food. We tried moving one of the food containers to another wall, and the peeing habit slowly tapered off. I haven't found pee there in weeks.

Unfortunately, when we limited their food, we began to notice clumps of pulled fur and some bite marks on Basil and Gus. By the time we figured out what was going on, both bunnies had some substantial bite scabs on their bodies! We were alarmed and filled their food containers once again. The fighting stopped, but a solution had to be found.

An interesting thing to note here is that Basil and Gus are thoroughly bonded. They sleep together, groom each other, play together, follow each other around, etc. (as do the other two buns). They are all pals, but somehow they change into little beasties when the food runs low!!

So - we went on a search for food bowls, to solve the fur rubbing problem. I wanted to stay away from plastic because bacteria can grow in plastic, and it can be chewed. It's also fairly light. We looked at a lot of ceramic "crocks", but they all had straight sides. I thought the bunnies would have a harder time getting the food out of the straight side dishes. Then we saw some steel bowls that we liked at the Petfood Warehouse. They were not heavy, but they were the right size and shape. Each one holds about 3/4 cup of food. We bought two of them to lessen competition and hopefully prevent fighting. The bowls are shiny stainless steel, and they have a rubber ring that goes around the outside bottom edge, so they can't be skidded along the floor. The bunnies have no "edges" to grab onto, so they can't fling them. It's worked out very well so far. (see the image to the right)

We had some trouble figuring out exactly how much they naturally eat each day. We don't want them to lose a lot of weight, we just want them to maintain their weight. I have settled on feeding them one cup in the morning and one cup at night. This translates into 1/2 a cup per bunny per day. This is about twice the amount recommended in the HRS House Rabbit Handbook. They munch the bowls clean before every feeding. We are going to work on lowering their daily food ration, but we need to make sure they get enough veggies to make up for it. We usually give them a heaping plateful of greens, and sometimes a carrot, but I don't think that's quite enough for four bunnies. Colleen's bunnies get that much greens every night for every two bunnies. We also bought a new kind of pellet. Instead of Blue Seal, which is about 16% protein and 15% max fiber, we bought Heinhold Show formula, which was the highest in fiber that we could find, other than Oxbow. It had more fat than we wanted (3% instead of 1.5% I think), but it had more fiber and not too much protein. I'll try to post the nutrients sometime soon. I would definitely buy Oxbow if I had one bunny, but with four, it is a little pricy around here. The store we went to also was out of the big bags of Oxbow anyway. As the buns get older, we may switch to Oxbow. We still have another week or so before the blue seal starts running low, and then we'll transition them over to Heinhold.

Other news - Following Colleen's setup, which she created for Sophia, a foster bunny who had 6 babies while in Colleen's care, (want a bunny? :-) we bought a large children's wading pool from Ames. It was only about $12 and it fit inside of the puppy pen perfectly (well, it was a bit tight, but we managed). We had carefully measured the pen and the pool, and determined that if we cut the edges down, it would definitely fit. We neglected to consider how we would get it home though, since it was about 5 feet in diameter! Luckily it squeaked into our Subaru Outback wagon with a few minor contortions!

We cut a door so the buns could leap out of the pen door more easily. I'll post pictures soon. Although the pool is not the most stylish of additions to our living room, it's made a big difference in terms of the amount of clean-up we need to do. No hay, poop or pee gets out of the pool, so we don't have to sweep the whole living room wheneverwe bring the buns up, and we don't have to wash the sheet and worry about the hardwood floor if somebun misses the litterbox. It's easy to take the pool out and hose it down outside. The textured bottom isn't that hard for them to hop around on either, and the steep sides of the pool mean that their romping area in the pen hasn't been reduced by much. We would put a carpet in there for them to rest on, but they so far have peed on every piece of carpet we've given them, so they'll have to settle for a hay bed and cardboard boxes (which they love to hop on and sit in). We were concerned that a bunny could hop into the space between the tub and the pen and get stuck in that little triangular ring, but since we cut a door in one side, I think they could hop back into the main pool if they went around the circle.

I highly recommend this pool option for people who are concerned about messy floors.

One more note: Shadow, out kitty who thinks she's a bunny, has proven herself to be more complex than we originally anticipated. She follows us into the bunnies' run every morning and evening, and sniffs around, lies on the floor and watches the bunnies, walks through their litterboxes, etc. She doesn't show and signs of aggression. When we let the bunnies out upstairs, she stays close by, and watched them, lies near them, goes into their pen and lies down, etc. However, we have noticed that she's started running after them when they hop away, and in some cases, she's actually chased them. We are keeping a close eye on her. We're pretty sure that she just wants to play, but she is extremely fast and strong, and what she considers play could be harmful to the rabbits. We will be observing her as much as possible, and will not be allowing her to spend unsupervised time with the bunnies until we're positive that she will be gentle with them.

Fiona doesn't seem very interested in the bunnies. She shows a more classical response to them - watching from a distance in a neutral, sitting position, and backing off without raising a paw if a bunny hops boldly up to her. We have noticed one thing with her that we think is very interesting. Fiona acts like a bunny too, in her own way. She loves being pet and rubbed, especially around her head and neck area. She exhibits normal cat behavior by rubbing her head and body along furniture, our legs, and other surfaces she comes across. However, she'll also rub her head against a treat if we offer her one! Even more interesting, if Shadow and Fiona come face to face, instead of sniffing noses, Fiona will lower her head and present the top of her head, as if for grooming. Sometimes she'll actually rub her head against Shadow's face, perhaps as a sign of affection. It's quite adorable, though Shadow unfortunately doesn't quite get it. I'm hoping that Fiona will try this with a bunny, and will be pleased when the bun starts grooming her. It could be a match made in heaven!

June 16, 1999

We bought a flea comb for the cats a while back, and I've been using it on the buns. I plucked Cleome's bum above her tail a few days ago, and was a bit alarmed to realize that I had plucked all her fur out there! It will grow back and she didn't seem too bugged - it was quite loose.. I probably could have plucked out more, but she was beginning to get agitated - not nippy, but just sick of it. Still, it's alarming to see a bald spot. The skin wasn't irritated looking or anything, so I think it was ok.

The flea comb works fairly well for the rexes - it does get out some of the loose fur.. it works really well for Gus, although I do have to be careful. I got a little overzealous a few days ago and was moving the comb through fairly quickly, and I think I snagged some fur that wasn't really loose. His skin in that area got a little red and he was definitely bugged. I felt terrible, so I gave him a nice little massage and put him back down..

Last night on his way to bed, I noticed that he had quite a bit of loose fur. I started plucking, and ended up with a huge pile of white fluff on the floor and a very funny looking bunny! The flea comb works well, but it's not as fast as plucking when there is a big job to be done. It works REALLY well for the cats though. Poor Gus is a patchwork bunny now. His new fur was starting to grow in already, and the old stuff had to go. Hopefully when I'm done plucking (I only got about 1/3 of the way done before I felt that he had had enough), he'll be a little cooler upstairs. He was really good the whole time - no squirming or nibbling on my clothes.. I was careful to alternate a minute or two of plucking with 30 seconds or so of just rubbing his face and back.. I hope that helps to keep him from being too bugged. When I was done, I massaged him for several minutes. I thought about trying to rub his belly, but he didn't seem interested, so I stuck to his upper parts.. then I put him on my shoulder and rubbed around his forehead and ears, and he actually toothpurred for me!!! Cleome has been toothpurring fairly predictably for a while now (she did it with Mike and then I was able to coax her into doing it too.. by holding her and rubbing behind her ears..), but Gus never has, that I can remember. I was thrilled!! After that, I rewarded him with a slice of banana (he got two, everyone else got one). He ate it right up on my shoulder! He's just absolutely adorable.

July 9, 1999

Things have been going well. The buns haven't seemed to lose any weight since we've been rationing them, but 1/2 a cup per day is not exactly rough. We're going to continue to cut down, but it's hard in the summer because we keep leaving on the weekends, and our bunny sitters can't come twice a day, so the buns end up getting unlimited pellets every other weekend.

Speaking of leaving... we have been going one one vacation or another every other weekend this summer.. we generally have friends or family share the burden of checking on the bunnies, cats, fish and plants. The cats do seem lonely and need extra play time and attention when we get back, but the bunnies don't seem to care all that much. They definitely notice if we forgot to give them veggies - the next morning, they are AT the door, chewing at it... but when we leave, as long as somebody gives them their nightly veggies, they don't seem to behave any differently when we get back. I'm glad they have each other.

It's been really hot lately. We have some ceiling fans, but no A/C, so we've been only bringing the bunnies up every few days, and only in the evenings. When we bring them up, they typically lie down a lot and seem to be breathing heavily - especially Gus. When we let them out in the living room they do explore, but they seem to settle down much more quickly and spend more time lounging. We also see less binkies in the summer. We had been feeding them their nightly greens upstairs, to encourage them to like the idea of being caught and taken upstairs... in the winter and spring, they devoured their veggies, but now, they often don't even nibble on them upstairs. Downstairs, they eat them, but Gus is the only one who shows any enthusiasm. Gus is a vacuum cleaner - he can polish off an entire carrot-worth of carrot slices in about 3 minutes! Sometimes we pick him up and let the others eat..

We got a new bale of 1st cut hay from a family member who has a farm in southern VT. It's quite green, and has lots of stems. We can't tell whether the buns like it more, less or the same as the old stuff (2nd cut, very grassy and soft). We'll see. We did have a bunch of funny looking moths come in on this new hay though. They were only about 4mm from head to butt, and were dark grey in color. They kept their wings spread quite far apart even when they landed, so they almost looked like little dark boomerangs. They are easy to squish. Next time we'll keep it outside or in the garage for a while before bringing it in.

August 3, 1999

We just got back from another weekend trip. We trimmed all of their nails last night - boy had they gotten away from me! I need to remember to trim them sooner. No accidents though.. I was fairly conservative. I'll probably give them another trim in a few weeks. Now that there is linoleum down and no concrete showing, their back claws actually do get longer than they need to be.

I can trim one front paw by holding them against me with my arm and spreading the fur and toes apart with the non-clipping hand (I'm left handed, so I can easily clip their right front leg, holding it in my right hand), but it's much harder to cut the nails on the other leg, and even harder to get the back legs. Lately, the rex bunnies have started to put up with me "hypnotizing" them or flipping them on their back.. Basil doesn't sit very still, but Cleome did pretty well. In that position, I can hold/rub their head with one hand and clip with the other - if I can get a good angle. Mike helped me with the head rubs for Basil, who was a little squirmer. In general, it went well though. Clover's nails were so dark that I think I was a bit conservative. I generally cut hers last, and take approximately the same amount off of hers that I took off of the others.. but it's hard to tell sometimes.

One thing I've found useful - the quick seems to be sort of "deep" and toward the bottom of the nail (bottom meaning the side that faces the floow). Above that pink area is a hard shell. The way the nails wear, I wonder if it's the hard shell that gives each nail it's durability, not the underparts, which seem softer. Instead of cutting them bluntly, I often cut at an angle, leaving a longer section near the bottom and cutting further toward the toe in the top section. This way, the bottom softer stuff is still intact (so the quick isn't disturbed), but I've gotten a little of that hard stuff off. My theory is that the soft stuff will wear away gradually, giving the quick time to recede, which might be easier on the bun than if I just whacked straight through the nail. I made some diagrams to help explain what I mean.

Another note about nail clipping, for anyone who hasn't done it before - Bunnies have four toes on each hind foot. They also have FIVE toes on the front feet - if you look carefully, you'll see a non-opposable "thumb" tucked in there. Don't forget about this toe! It doesn't seem to be as weight bearing as the others, so it doesn't wear out at the same rate. Often these two toes (one on each front foot) will get long and start to curl around in a spiral. It's important to clip these toes along with the others and check on them regularly.

Other news - I have noticed that the bunnies seem a little more aloof than usual since we got back from our trip. I'm not sure if it's because I clipped their nails the day after we got back (Some Welcome THAT is!, they're probably thinking)... or whether they just are less used to people being around. I look forward to bringing them upstairs more this week, since it's much cooler.

You might be wondering what's happening with the hole-in-the-floor and ramp project. We have that on hold, because we're thinking about building a semi-permanent abode for them upstairs instead of shuffling... if we can find a good spot, we might build a sort of habitat space big enough for the four of them upstairs. This way, they would get more socialization and run time. We would then put the puppy pen DOWNSTAIRS, and keep that for summer use. We could set it up on the linoleum and/or in the pool for temporary use, when it was really hot outside, but otherwise we could keep the buns upstairs. Although I really wanted to make the ramp, I think long-term that I'd rather have the buns upstairs. The TV table idea would have worked fine, except that ideally, I don't want the TV in that room anyway.. and it would be a really small space for 4 bunnies. We're thinking of maybe a 3 foot tall table that's 6-8 feet across and at least 2 or 2 1/2 feet deep.. maybe with 2 levels in part of it. I think that would be reasonable, as long as they also got free run time. We could put plants on top, where they'd be out of munching range.

August 30, 1999

For the last 3 weeks, we've been caring for 3 foster bunnies for Colleen Rouhan, the local HRS educator. The bunnies were about 3 months old when they arrived, and the two males had just been neutered. One male is black (I call him Trouble because he's extra-wiggly and is an escape artist). The other male, who Colleen named Thaddius, looks like his mom - he has a brown nose, brown ears, feet and tail, a white body and pink goofy eyes. We took some pictures of mom and babies, but I haven't updated the page recently.

It's been interesting, having different rabbits at home. They are VERY friendly. If they're running freely, they'll run straight up to us - not skirt around us like our bunnies. They are quite mellow when picked up, and will almost fall asleep if stroked while they're lying across our chest. They also had razer sharp claws - we nipped the tips off, but they're still quite sharp. The quick is very close, so we have to be conservative about clipping. They enthusiastically inhale any veggie we give them, and they can demolish a bag of Oxbow hay in under a week! They have very wise eyes (except for Thaddius, who needs a baseball cap and boxers to make his image complete). They were sneezy when they first came to live with us, but have settled down. They eat like horses, and poop like them too. They do better with our 8" high litter boxes - they pee over the edge of the others. They are quite well litterbox trained though, considering. We put a carpet in there for them to lie on, and only one bunny peed on it.. but it was clean for several days before that happened. They seem to be much cleaner than our bunnies, actually.

Our bunnies, incidentally, are doing fine. We've been gradually limiting their pellets, so now they get about 1 1/2 cups daily, half of it in the morning and half at night. They are not nearly as enthusiastic about their veggies as they are about their pellets. The fewer pellets we give them, the more hay and veggies they eat, which is good. Every few weeks one will pee on the linoleum for no reason whatsoever - still can't figure that one out. I saw a nicely formed pile of poop in their run yesterday, within an hour of me cleaning it out. Haven't caught the culprit yet. Why are they doing this? They live there. I haven't moved the furniture around for a while or anything. It's a mystery. They are relatively good about using their boxes for a few hours upstairs, but just as we start to take them for granted, they lose it and poops start flying. It's as if their timer goes off. We need to learn to bring them home before they get to that point, so they don't get in the habit of pooping on the floor. Still, a 2-3 minute sweep takes care of it.. I just want other people to be impressed by them, not disgusted. And if we have a baby someday, I don't want them to be quarantined to the basement for years.

November 8, 1999

A little more info on the fosters...

The foster bunnies spent their first 3 weeks with us in our bunnies' pool with a puppy pen around it. We put them in the carpeted living room, since they were used to being in Colleen's living room. They were so friendly and social, and we were afraid that they would grow to be aloof like our buns if we brought them downstairs. It quickly became tiring though, bringing the compost buckets up, trying to do litterboxes without getting hay on the floor, etc. It would have been easier if the pen wasn't in the carpeted living room, but as it was, there seemed to always be hay on the floor, and it was complicated to step into the pool and out without worrying about tracking the occasional poop..

So, after a month, we reluctantly brought them downstairs. Since then, we've been alternating run time in our kitchen with our bunnies and the fosters. Remarkably, the groups of bunnies do a fair amount of chinning, but don't seem interested in marking the kitchen (peeing, scattering poops, etc) even though they're constantly bombarded with the scent of the other group. I'm particularly impressed with Miss Muffet, our female foster who isn't spayed yet and has great litterbox habits. I'm betting that it's only a matter of time, but we'll see.

Yesterday, I cleaned up the basement and decided on a whim to clip our puppy pen to Colleen's (the one the foster buns are using) to give them more space. One pen was not enough, and we felt sorry that we couldn't bring them upstairs for kitchen time more often. With two puppy pens, they now have a huge oval! The pool takes up less than half of it.. we left the pool intact, and added 2 more litter boxes outside of the pool area. So far they have had great litterbox habits - only a few poops outside of the box and that's it. I like this setup a lot. We have the space to spare, and they are BIG rabbits.. they really need space to romp and stretch. They look pretty happy out there. We gave them some poplar branches to munch on and some cardboard to shred. When I came down the stairs this morning, I saw Thaddius lying down against the pen wall (on the concrete) with all fout feet stretched out (in "ded bunny" position). The other two bunnies were enthusiastically grooming him. For a second a bolt of fear went through me. I thought that perhaps something happened to Thad and the other two were trying to revive him. I talked to them though, and Thad lifted his head up and came out of his stupor. It was VERY cute.

Not that we're attached or anything. Naaahh.

Our Bunnies...

We haven't actually let our bunnies out in the greater living room in over a month now. We got fed up with the poop and pee, and decided that they just hadn't earned their freedom. We're hoping some day to give them the living room permanently, but only if they can prove that they're capable of living out there without leaving puddles every few days and a minefield of poops.

So now, we have a baby gate and a piece of "texture 111" siding (plywood, hey, "it was there.."..) that we use as barriers in the kitchen. We bring our bunnies up and give them litterboxes full of fresh hay, a bowl of water and veggies. They loaf in piles in the litterboxes and look like we're about to cook them for dinner. When we give them boxes, they pile into the box. They're surprisingly asocial, unless they smell raisins or apples.. then they're much more friendly. :-)

This kitchen thing could work out well. We're starting to think about building or buying a cage for them, and putting it in a hallway area near the laundry, off the kitchen. This way we could let them our in the kitchen while we're home (or all the time), and if they made a mess, it would be easy to clean off of the linoleum. None of the rabbits has shown any interest at all in chewing on the oak cabinets or the baseboards, luckily.

So the New and Improved long term plan is to create/purchase an enclosure, so that we can keep our bunnies upstairs in the area off of the kitchen. We will let them out into the kitchen when we're home, or maybe all the time if they earn it. If they show that they're litterbox trained there, we'll slowly (perhaps using puppy pens) give them more living room until finally they have the whole thing. If worse comes to worse, they can just keep the kitchen and we can keep the living room for ourselves. My pie-in-the-sky dream is to give them at last limited supervised access to a carpeted area or an area rug, because they can't do binkies or dances on linoleum easily at all, and a bunny who can't dance is a sad thing indeed!

I've caught up in my EtherBun postings, and I've read several statements by people which have led me to believe that the more time that the bunnies spend in your space with you, the more friendly/outgoing they tend to be. There are always exceptions, but I think they might have a point. I don't think these particular bunnies will ever be trustworthy enough to live in our bedroom with us (plus the bedroom is clearly Fiona's lair), but it would be nice if they were part of our daily routine, and if we could really "live" with them. I'd love to be able to lie on the couch and have a bun come and sniff my face again.. We'll see.