My family and friends who know my crazy rabbit story can understand why this is such a happy day! The story is almost emarassing, but since I don't have a problem laughing at myself I'll share it with you. : ) A little over a year ago I decided I wanted to raise rabbits. When I was growing up my dad raised rabbits and I loved it. So I studied it out and decided on Dutch bunnies for reasons that aren't really relavent to this story. Anyways, me and the kids built a hutch (which is a story in itself :) and we invested in 3 bunnies, and imagine if you would, 3 Buccheit workers, 2 kids and a mom standing in a circle in the store trying to decide if the bunnies were male or female. According to the employees we had 2 girls and 1 boy. I kept saying "hmmm, I just don't see the difference" but 2 girls and 1 boy is exactly what I wanted so I went with it. The time came that they were old enough to breed. I often found myself looking to see if we indeed had 1 male and 2 females. I'd say "hmmm, they look the same to me" but I would breed them anyway. They did what they were supossed to do, but I was still not sure. I had read that doe rabbits do "that" as a way of defending their territory. After MONTHS and I do mean MONTHS of trying to breed with no success, I decided that they must all be females. We located a male dutch bunny and the lady assured me that it was indeed a male. When we picked it up she tried to show me, but you know what...I just didn't see a difference. At this point we were racing with time. A female doe is suposed to have her first kit before she is a year old, otherwise she could die while giving birth. Our male rabbit was not of age so all we could do was wait. As he got older I checked again, and what a suprise I had....you really CAN tell the difference lol! There was no doubt! We now had a buck and I couldn't help but laugh at all my attempts of breeding female rabbits together. Today all the waiting and false attempts have paid off. I was litterally jumping up and down in excitement!
In my inexperience I wasn't even sure if Brownie was pregnant, I was very concerned because she is a little over a year old. She started pulling her hair out today(she had did that once before with a false pregnancy) so I put her nesting box in and a good thing I did, about an hour and a half later we had babies! All went well and from what I read 6 kits for a dutch bunny is a large litter and she had 7!
Bethany wants to temporarily name them (she knows we can't keep them all) Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I was hoping for Basil, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Paprika, Ginger, Clover and Rosemary, but since she takes care of the rabbits more than any of us, I think I'll let her have her choice. :):):)
Congratulations on your new additions! :)
ReplyDeletewhat a beautiful part of gods creation !! rabbits are interesting creatures as i had a very peculiar friendship with a wild one from our neighborhood some years back .....he woul eat right from my hand and sprawl out right next to me on a blanket in the yard some days ....he (or she because i had never figured it out myself ) would also do jumps and leaps and flips for me when i would go in to get him some corn ...... what an unusual rabbit ....i will not ever forget it and i have the pictures in my photo album to prove it ..... nice bunnies ......have a great night and i'll visit again when i have a moment
ReplyDeleteThat is so neat Summer! That is definetly something to remember. :)
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