Dotty donated to 'nature charity' (and pics!)

[mouse_chalk]

Hi all,

I was going to post this in my blog, but I thought I'd post it out here as well, since I haven't posted much at all recently and I thought it was a cute story!

Dotty has been moulting like nothing else I've ever seen the past week or so. We've been having to change our bedding every 2 days or so, and her bottom is just as fluffy as a sheep. Usually when I brush her, I do it outside on the garden table, and the fur goes everywhere and flies all over the place. The past couple of days I decided to collect it, ad put it all in a little plastic bag. So when we went to lunch at my parent's house today, I took the fur with me. We put little clumps of it in the hedge in her garden, and watched from inside. They have a nesting box with a webcam that is permanently showing on the computer screen, that bluetits are currently nesting in, and there are sparrows nesting in the hedge on the other side of the garden. The bluetits hadn't been in the nesting box for a few days and my dad was worried they'd abandoned it, but we saw the female appear from nowhere, grabbing clumps of fur from the hedge, and watched her bring it into the nestbox, and 'fluff' it to make her nest with!:biggrin2: She made loads of trips back and forth, as did the sparrows- although they were less careful and dropped a few clumps. :grumpy:

It sounds a bit of a silly thing to be happy over, let alone posting a whole thread over LOL, but I quite like that because of that, some birds will be sleeping a lot warmer and cosier tonight! It was so cute to watch the birds as well- they looked so happy! When the others start moulting, I'm going to collect theirs too. As a reward to Dotty for her 'donation', I picked dandelions from my parents' garden and gave them to her as a treat (we don't grow many in our own garden so she's rarely had them before). She LOVED them.

Of course, I just have to share a few pictures of the brushing on the table, one of the nestbox, and the resulting reward time!


'It's the furrrrminator. Oh no. If I close my eyes it will all be over soon, right?'

'Phew! All over! Now it's noserub time!'

The nestbox on webcam on my parent's computer- it's blurry, but you can see the nestbox just about with all the clumps of Dotty's fur in it!

And now, reward time!

'Om nom nom!!'

'More!'

'What do you mean I've got a little something?'

'NOM!'

'Yum, that was good!'

 

[slavetoabunny]

Aww.....I'm so proud of Dotty for "giving back". Everybun is molting right now, I think. You should see the fur flying at my house.

 

[Sabine]

I put up two nest boxes in the garden and they are still empty. Maybe if I had left some fur around they may have seized the opportunity, I have two big plastic bags full of it anyhow.

 

[mouse_chalk]

slavetoabunny wrote:

Aww.....I'm so proud of Dotty for "giving back". Everybun is molting right now, I think. You should see the fur flying at my house.

Lol, thanks Patti!

I hate the moulting, more than anything else. Because Dotty sleeps on our bed alot, our bedding gets so furry within days when she's really bad, and it's much more noticeable than the other 4 because we sleep with it! But knowing that I can do something 'nice' with the fur makes it a little easier to manage, if that makes any sense!

Sabine, my parents have had bluetits- the same pair, nesting in the box every year for about 4 years now. They always used to leave out the dog's fur for the birds, but since he passed away a few weeks ago, they haven't been able to. They think that Dotty's fur is helping them to finish building the nest, and it'll persuade them to stay another year. It's so cute to watch the little eggs hatch and watch the mum feeding the babies worms etc through the webcam, so I'm so happy that they'll hopefully stick around! It's definitely a good idea to sort of poke it into a hedge or something though- so it sticks around, otherwise it just blows away in a breeze, lol

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Oh my goodness! That is such a clever idea!! I never thought that birds would actually use fur from rabbits - but it makes sense, since they use their own feathers. That is so helpful of Dotty to donate her shedding fur to the little birdies who can use it to keep their babies warm! How sweet.

And those pictures of Dotty are just soo cute!

I would do this, but I don't have any nesting boxes around, and I use the extra fur for my litters, anyway, haha. So in a sense, my bunnies are helping out with the baby bunnies by donating their fur. lol.

Emily

 

[Mrs. PBJ]

This is a great idea.

My two are not molting yet well storm just had his and jessi I think will go through a late molt.

But it is that time of year. I am hoping Jessi waits a little longer so her new food takes affect on her hair to make it nicer.

 

[CiaraPatricia]

Aw, what a great idea.

Some house martins build a nest in my dog's shed and lined it with bits of hay from the hutches and dog fur. Though they never had babies, I think they realised there was a cat sleeping in the shed too!

 

[hartleybun]

whisker pics!!!!!!:faint:

i brush all my furkids in the garden for the same reason after a hearing about this from another dogwalker. i know some people spin and knit with it but i prefer the nest option