I’ve been trying to get a photo of the bunnies that shows their size relative to one another, but I’m afraid this isn’t it.

😉

If nothing else you get an idea of the kooky things I try to let everybunny have a little freedom without hurting one another in the process. Cricket is the big, big-eared bunny closest to the exercise pen that serves as a temporary fence. Little loppy-eared Peeper is on our side of the fence waiting for Cricket to get close enough so that she can attempt a bite at Cricket’s nose through the fence. Boomer is reclining in a sunbeam in the background, unconcerned with the feminine territorial battle being played out before him. As long as he has a comfortable spot to nap in, he’s happy.

Peeper weighs less than half what the Flemmies weigh, yet she is the more aggressive one and spent all her *out* time at the fence, rather than exploring the rest of the house. Once I got tired of keeping her from biting off Cricket’s nose and put her back in *her* room, she promptly fell asleep for the remainder of the afternoon.

Exercise pens make a great safe place, indoors or out, to exercise a bunny that lives in a cage. They’re also an excellent alternative to cages, so long as your bunny isn’t a jumper. Peeper could never live in one because she can jump higher than the pen when she means to.

Peeper lives in the spare bedroom behind a gate. She chews and tugs at the gate incessantly so once in a while I let her roam around the house. I’d be happier without a gate to climb over, but I worry about a fight between her and the Flemmies who live on the porch.

Dora, who passed away, used to live here in the spare bedroom, but we never needed a gate because she wouldn’t set foot outside of *her* room. The Flemmies don’t need a gate either because they hardly ever venture off the sunporch. But Peeper is a roamer. It’s strange to me how rabbits can be so much the same in some ways, yet so different in others.

On this particular day, Buddy had been sound asleep on his bed in the middle of the living room when Peeper came bounding across it and stopped to check him out. He woke up and ambled off to the kitchen window. Buddy gets nervous around the bunnies, probably because he’s afraid of doing the wrong thing and getting yelled at. Really, I don’t know why they make him nervous; he’s always been gentle and only gets yelled at for running full-steam onto the porch to bark at the mailman. That sends the bunnies to scattering in all directions and somebunny usually knocks something over in the process which just startles them worse and then Buddy gets yelled at for setting all the chaos in motion.

I snapped the photo just as Buddy had finished yawning and turned to look balefully back at Peeper and I pursuing him.

Big news here. All week we’ve been waiting for delivery of our quarterly hay order. It arrived today and the bunnies are celebrating the end of their self-imposed hunger strike. They’re spoiled and won’t eat anything but the stuff that comes straight from the mountains of Nevada. We ran out of it last weekend, after I ordered an extra 25 pounds just before Christmas. I’m embarrassed to admit what I pay for it. The hay itself is expensive, but having to pay 2 times the cost of the hay just for shipping makes me feel like I’m being taken advantage of. I’d imagine hay-making to be a very lucrative business, but really, I know better.

There used to be a wonderful hay company in Canada, just outside of Ottowa, that I ordered from for years. They grew a beautiful mix of timothy and orchard grasses that was loaded with dandelion flowers. It was pesticide free and the bunnies loved it and the price was reasonable. Then they went out of business and I was forced to find another hay that the rabbits would eat. There’s plenty of timothy available locally, but even that top-quality horse hay is not appetizing to the bunnies. A 7 dollar bale will last for six months because I use it only to fill their litterboxes. The hay I buy now is way too expensive to be litterbox filler! I dole it out by the handfull and still 75 pounds won’t last me three months! Doesn’t that sound like an awful lot of hay for five rabbits and two guinea pigs? I mean, I do feed them lots of greens and pellets too.

Lots of people find this blog by searching for “rabbit poops too much” which I think is just hilarious. Of course they poop a lot – that’s a good thing! The rabbits are pooping out all that hay that I pay a small fortune for. I’m repaid by having plenty of organic fetilizer for the garden, but still.

I was forced to migrate to the new Blogger this evening. I knew it was coming, but it might have been nice to have a choice about the timing. I was hoping to make a quick post tonight and then get started on grading papers; instead I had to fangle around with setting up new accounts and worry that I would foul something up. Hopefully it was a successful *migration* – I haven’t been brave enough to look yet!

This is typical of what greets me most mornings when I first get up and head out onto the sunporch to feed the bunnies before work. Missy and Freckles live in the white lattice pen that you see there, but Boomer and Cricket are loose at night. I used to have a makeshift fence to keep the big bunnies from getting too close to the other pen, but I got tired of hopping over it and bruising my shins so I took it down. This is the result of that choice. Instead of hopping a fence I have to walk this minefield, sleepy and barefoot.

Rabbits are territorial and those that live close together, like mine do, need to mark their territory, just like a dog does outside. When I had the barrier up, the Flemmies would mark the *fenceline* but that was easy to control by placing a litterbox in front of it. Despite the two litterboxes in this tiny area, the Flemmies still feel the need to leave poops everywhere else.

Thank goodness they’re easy to clean up and make good fertilizer. I always have plenty of it! Bunnies are very efficient recyclers.

Just so you don’t get the impression otherwise, these bunnies are box trained, just not on that side of the room! They keep their own pen very clean. Peeper, who lives alone in a different room, has perfect litterbox habits, and never poops anywhere but in one of her boxes. The key to that is that she doesn’t feel any competition or the need to make a point of her ownership of the space. It’s all hers and she knows it!

Name the bunny part.

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So I got this nice closeup lens for my camera from Santa. Only there’s no flowers or bugs for me to practice on. And I do need lots of practice. It’s a fixed-length lens, which means that I have to move, rather than the zoom moving in and out. There’s also a really, really narrow range of focus. So I’m taking these oddball pictures of rabbit parts and still life shots of the clutter on my bookshelves until the garden wakes up. Most of these pics remind me of those puzzles that used to be in the back of magazines that would show an ordinary object magnified 50 times until it was unrecognizable. Remember them and how you had to guess what it was in the photo?

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Last call for photos for this Saturday’s edition of Good Planets. Email your beautiful pics to me at lc-hardy AT comcast DOT net by sometime on Friday. This is the last time that Good Planets will be appearing here, as it will have a new host for the month of February. Don’t miss out on the chance to participate!

Peeper’s favorite perch is my hope chest by the window. I’m not sure what she’s watching out there, other than traffic, but she loves to sit there watching. A car pulling up or someone walking along my neighbor’s driveway just outside the window sends her racing back to her cage with a Thump! Once I tried to sneak a photo of her in this pose from outside the window and she totally freaked out and Thumped! at me for a couple of hours. Silly rabbit! She insists that the window be open, even in this morning’s cold, otherwise she will paw and scratch at the window until I open it. If you have a sharp eye you might notice that the dangly things on the mini-blinds have been *altered* by somebunny’s teeth.

and for Suzanne from PetBunny, who died today:

DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE WHO CARE FOR ANIMALS
I Am an Animal Rescuer
My job is to assist God’s creatures
I was born with the need to fulfill their needs
I take in new family members without plan, thought or selection
I have bought rabbit, dog, & cat food with my last dime
I have patted a mangy head with a bare hand
I have hugged someone vicious and afraid
I have fallen in love a thousand times
and I have cried into the fur of a lifeless body
I have Animal Friends and friends who have Animal Friends
I don’t often use the word “pet”
I notice those lost at the road side
And my heart aches
I will hand raise a field mouse
And make friends with a vulture
I know of no creature unworthy of my time
I want to live forever if there aren’t animals in Heaven
But I believe there are!
Why would God make something so perfect and leave it behind?
We may be master of the animals,
But the animals have mastered themselves
Something people still haven’t learned
War and abuse make me hurt for the world
But a rescue that makes the news gives me hope for humankind
We rescuers and lovers of animals are a quiet but determined army
And making a difference every day
There is nothing more necessary than warming an orphan/stray, or surrendered
animal
Nothing more rewarding than saving a life
No higher recognition than watching them thrive
There is no greater joy than seeing a rabbit, cat, or dog play
who only days ago, was too weak to eat
I am an Animal Rescuer
My work is never done
My home is never quiet
My wallet is always empty
But my heart is always full
In the game of life, I have already won!
~ Annette King Tucker ~

Rest well friend. May your reunions at the Bridge be joyous.

Suzanne helped many rabbits find new homes. The 3 bunnies that she’s left behind have been adopted, sight unseen, by other members of PetBunny, and will be transported from Suzanne’s home in California to various points in the country by other members of PetBunny who volunteered to drive or fly them there. Suzanne volunteered for a few trips like this herself to get a bunny to a new home.