Living With Bunnies
Both of our rabbits are litter trained, so we are able to give them free roam of the house. Peter was around eight years before Flospy arrived, and has not been very keen on sharing his zone with her, so we have a baby gate separating the front and back half of the house. For some reason, Peter decided that slippery surfaces are unacceptable for bunnies, and self contains himself on a large carpet in the living room. When we rescued Flopsy, we were expecting her to have similar behavior, but no such luck. She is an all terrain bunny and is in and on everything! Both rabbits have a bad habit of tasting everything within their reach, and we have to provide them with lots brows, hay, and fresh greens to keep them otherwise occupied.
At this point you may be wondering, “Why would anyone want a rabbit?”. Well, for one, they are very cute and soft. Petting a rabbit is like touching liquid silk, and our bunnies are happy to have you rub their heads all day, every day. When you do pet our rabbits, they click their teeth, making little rabbit “purrs”. Peter loves to be pet so much, that when you walk across his carpet, he will charge your feet and trip you to get your attention. Peter and Flopsy are both so fun to watch play. When they are happy, they will jump and click their hind heels in the air, and when they need exercise, they will run and jump from side to side, as if a hawk is about to swoop down at any moment.
Below are a few pictures of the joys of living with rabbits, and the creative ways we handle them.
P.S. You can find the super stylish organic cotton cat bed pictured below here.
Here are a few links to help you decided whether or not a rabbit is the right pet for you:
http://www.rabbit.org/easter/
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/children.html
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/housing.html
The Hebivore Feeding Project
We currently share our home with three herbivores: Peter- an 8 year old black and white rabbit, Flopsy- a young lop eared bunny that we recently rescued, and Sherman- a 70+ lb. Sulcata Tortoise (also a rescue). We also plan on adding chickens to the menagerie soon, but more on that later...
Peter
Flopsy
Sherman
Sherman’s only food source is our lawn, so in the dry California summers we have to water it, which is not very earth friendly and can be expensive. The rabbits eat only fresh organic greens, which is earth friendly, but also expensive. The drought this year has finally given us the motivation to come up with a new system.
We are planning to build several very shallow vegetable beds on long 30” legs. The beds will only be about 2”-3” deep, because we plan to grow mixed greens with very shallow root systems for the rabbits. The beds will be on the long legs for two reasons: One, we want Sherman to be able to walk under the beds instead of plowing over the top of them, and two (this is the earth friendly part), we are making the bottom of the beds out of mesh screen. As we water the greens, any excess water will drip down onto the lawn below, watering that as well. We also plan to put wheels on two of the bed’s legs, like a wheelbarrow, so that we can move it around to different areas of the yard throughout the summer.
We’ll post our plans, pictures of the project as it comes along, and let you know if this system actually meets all of our goals.
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