The Rabbit Report

Seriously, rabbits are the easiest animal ever. I had thought that honor belonged to the chickens, but the bunnies are making them look bad. So quiet, so cute, never squawking or fighting or waking me up too early in the morning.

I had always planned to have a core group of three - two does and one buck, but it took a while to get my third girl. I might add a third doe at some point if I can find an unrelated Californian doe (it would be nice to have some pure breeds to sell), but that's down the road a ways.

Boyfriend is looking good - he has gotten so big!

He is pure Californian, with dashing black tips to his ears, nose, paws, and tail. He's a shy guy who likes to rearrange all the items in his cage when no one is looking.

Guera is my New Zealand girl, and I have to say I'm just not that excited about her. Maybe it's because she's all white with pink eyes and seems like a lab animal, maybe it's that she's super skittish and unfriendly...but her breed is supposed to be one of the best. We'll see.

She's still pretty small, and not growing nearly as fast as the others, but those fine bones are supposed to be a good thing.

The new girl on the scene is Marta, a Flemish Giant/New Zealand cross. She is enormous - she's younger than Guera and probably twice as big already.

I really like the brown color and dark eyes - I think she and Boyfriend are going to make some beautiful babies together.

So far, the rabbit project has been pretty cheap - I have spent $40 on the rabbits themselves (probably could have been cheaper, but I wanted to start with good stock from good people), $30 on hutches (two were free, one used from Craigslist) and about another $30 on water bottles and feeders. They're still less than halfway through the first 50# sack of pellets, so between the three of them they've eaten about $6 worth of feed. The main chore is refilling water bottles, so when I can I'd like to set up a drip system, and I have to get the grow-out pen (currently in use by the half-grown chickens) in shape before the breeding group is of age.