Lydia
Active Member
Hello everyone!
It would seem that I have the distinction of being one of the few who posts in this intro section that is not a first time bunny parent. I first got some bunnies a year ago, but a lot can happen in a year!
My name is Lydia, and I live in South Carolina. My husband and I have the unfortunate distinction of having 38 bunnies. We love them all however, and look forward to having bunnies for many years.
I suppose a bit of explanation is in order, so here it goes!
Last year, in June, we decided to attend an animal auction out of curiosity and the hope that we might find a pet bunny. My husband had attended the auction in the past (back when he lived in the country and raised chickens), so he thought it would be a good bet for finding a rabbit. Long story short, we indeed found a rabbit. We found 2 little black bunnies, Mini Rex's, that were about 6 to 8 weeks old (as we would later discover). I had never had a rabbit before, and my husband had only ever had larger adult rabbits of non-dwarf breeds. We were unsure how to check gender, and so for awhile we thought we must have just bought two females. Needless to say, we were wrong.
We would later discover, when it was too late, that we indeed had a male & female. We named them Fred & Ethel (after the characters from I Love Lucy). We discovered in late October that Ethel was most likely pregnant (that also led to the discovery of their true genders). We foolishly kept them together, thinking that Fred would help Ethel with any babies. Obviously we knew little about rabbit behavior, so please forgive this glaring faux pas.
On 1 Nov 2011, Ethel gave birth to her first litter. We did not realize she had given birth at first, because we could not find any evidence in their hutch of babies. Once again, we foolishly kept them together thinking she was still pregnant. 3 days later, Ethel was becoming increasingly agitated so we removed her from the hutch with Fred, worrying that infanticide might have happened since we still didn't see any sign of babies. On an after thought, my husband removed a small box that was in the hutch that we had already checked for babies, and placed it in a separate enclosure with her. That's when we discovered she had indeed had babies! It turned out that she had had 7 babies, 5 girls and 2 boys. We later figured out their birth date based on behavior we had witnessed from her.
Unfortunately, those 3 days with Fred after giving birth would come back to bite us in the butt. On 3 Dec 2011, Ethel gave birth to her second litter of babies. This time she had 6 babies, 5 boys and 1 girl.
So we ended up with 15 bunnies fairly quickly!
Obviously we kept Fred away from Ethel after all that. Fred even helped raise the 1st litter while Ethel was away taking care of the 2nd litter.
At first we tried to sell or adopt out some of the babies, but were unable to find homes for them that didn't sound questionable. We ended up keeping them, and by keeping them in separate pens on our large sun porch had a very happy arrangement for awhile. Then "The Incident" happened.
In late March 2012, Twinkle, one of the boys from the first litter, managed to find his way into the girls pen. He had way too much fun doing some adult activities with his sisters, unfortunately making 5 out 6 of them pregnant.
Those 5 girls would go on to have a combined total of 22 babies.
Around that time we moved the boy bunnies into a new bachelor pad (converted dog run) in the back yard. Unfortunately, before all of them were moved Fred and Twinkle once again busted open a different hutch (that we had been calling Fort Knox), and Ethel and Cinnamon (one of the girls from the first litter) ended up pregnant.
In early May, a mysterious illness slowly killed some of the babies, 6 in all, leading to a very tough time for both of us. I held 5 of those babies when they died, something that has been a very emotional experience for me. Even our vet couldn't fully tell us what exactly killed the babies.
Thankfully, the surviving bunnies are happy and healthy.
On 25 May 2012, Ethel and Cinnamon had their babies. Ethel had 3, and Cinnamon had 5. Sadly one of Ethel's babies died a few days later, the first in nest infant death we had ever had.
I know this must sound like some sort of weird, twisted hillbilly drama involving bunnies by now.
As you can see, we never willingly bred our bunnies. We made some mistakes along the way, but we love each and every bunny we have and do our best to enrich their lives. We hope to get most of the babies adopted out to loving homes very soon.
I really hope I can find some fellow Mini Rex lovers and friends here!
We hope maybe one day become involved with showing bunnies. That way, we can share our beautiful bunnies with the world!
Thanks for your time!
It would seem that I have the distinction of being one of the few who posts in this intro section that is not a first time bunny parent. I first got some bunnies a year ago, but a lot can happen in a year!
My name is Lydia, and I live in South Carolina. My husband and I have the unfortunate distinction of having 38 bunnies. We love them all however, and look forward to having bunnies for many years.
I suppose a bit of explanation is in order, so here it goes!
Last year, in June, we decided to attend an animal auction out of curiosity and the hope that we might find a pet bunny. My husband had attended the auction in the past (back when he lived in the country and raised chickens), so he thought it would be a good bet for finding a rabbit. Long story short, we indeed found a rabbit. We found 2 little black bunnies, Mini Rex's, that were about 6 to 8 weeks old (as we would later discover). I had never had a rabbit before, and my husband had only ever had larger adult rabbits of non-dwarf breeds. We were unsure how to check gender, and so for awhile we thought we must have just bought two females. Needless to say, we were wrong.
We would later discover, when it was too late, that we indeed had a male & female. We named them Fred & Ethel (after the characters from I Love Lucy). We discovered in late October that Ethel was most likely pregnant (that also led to the discovery of their true genders). We foolishly kept them together, thinking that Fred would help Ethel with any babies. Obviously we knew little about rabbit behavior, so please forgive this glaring faux pas.
On 1 Nov 2011, Ethel gave birth to her first litter. We did not realize she had given birth at first, because we could not find any evidence in their hutch of babies. Once again, we foolishly kept them together thinking she was still pregnant. 3 days later, Ethel was becoming increasingly agitated so we removed her from the hutch with Fred, worrying that infanticide might have happened since we still didn't see any sign of babies. On an after thought, my husband removed a small box that was in the hutch that we had already checked for babies, and placed it in a separate enclosure with her. That's when we discovered she had indeed had babies! It turned out that she had had 7 babies, 5 girls and 2 boys. We later figured out their birth date based on behavior we had witnessed from her.
Unfortunately, those 3 days with Fred after giving birth would come back to bite us in the butt. On 3 Dec 2011, Ethel gave birth to her second litter of babies. This time she had 6 babies, 5 boys and 1 girl.
So we ended up with 15 bunnies fairly quickly!
Obviously we kept Fred away from Ethel after all that. Fred even helped raise the 1st litter while Ethel was away taking care of the 2nd litter.
At first we tried to sell or adopt out some of the babies, but were unable to find homes for them that didn't sound questionable. We ended up keeping them, and by keeping them in separate pens on our large sun porch had a very happy arrangement for awhile. Then "The Incident" happened.
In late March 2012, Twinkle, one of the boys from the first litter, managed to find his way into the girls pen. He had way too much fun doing some adult activities with his sisters, unfortunately making 5 out 6 of them pregnant.
Those 5 girls would go on to have a combined total of 22 babies.
Around that time we moved the boy bunnies into a new bachelor pad (converted dog run) in the back yard. Unfortunately, before all of them were moved Fred and Twinkle once again busted open a different hutch (that we had been calling Fort Knox), and Ethel and Cinnamon (one of the girls from the first litter) ended up pregnant.
In early May, a mysterious illness slowly killed some of the babies, 6 in all, leading to a very tough time for both of us. I held 5 of those babies when they died, something that has been a very emotional experience for me. Even our vet couldn't fully tell us what exactly killed the babies.
Thankfully, the surviving bunnies are happy and healthy.
On 25 May 2012, Ethel and Cinnamon had their babies. Ethel had 3, and Cinnamon had 5. Sadly one of Ethel's babies died a few days later, the first in nest infant death we had ever had.
I know this must sound like some sort of weird, twisted hillbilly drama involving bunnies by now.
As you can see, we never willingly bred our bunnies. We made some mistakes along the way, but we love each and every bunny we have and do our best to enrich their lives. We hope to get most of the babies adopted out to loving homes very soon.
I really hope I can find some fellow Mini Rex lovers and friends here!
We hope maybe one day become involved with showing bunnies. That way, we can share our beautiful bunnies with the world!
Thanks for your time!
