Save The Rescue 2010

As friends of the Rescue will be aware, we have been required annually to re-apply for planning permission to remain on our current site. This is largely due to our proximity to (and access through) a residential area.

Recently, in preparation for the current application, we contacted the local residents and asked them to let us know of any concerns they had so that we could address them. Most of the people we spoke to were very positive. The only concern we encountered was with the way in which waste was removed from the site and as a result we implemented a new system which eliminated all of the problems highlighted.

So having met the conditions of last years planning approval (limiting the vehicles on site in number and to volunteers only, visitors only on Saturday and only appointment etc) and addressing the only concerns expressed to us by the local residents, we were understandably surprised to hear that the Parish Council decided to recommend that the application this year be denied.

We have just a few days before the District Council make their final decision on our application, a decision that could mean the end of the Rescue. So please, if you support the work that we do, show your support by signing our online petition below. We have until 3rd March to convince them to let us continue to run the Rescue from our current site.

The petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rabbit10/

If you have any comments or queries regarding our planning application we would be happy to hear from you. Please contact Caroline at the email address provided on our website.

Rabbit Reconciliation

We love hearing from our rehomed bunnies and their families. Here is an email we received recently from a family that Caroline helped find a partner bun for (kindly rewritten for us to post here on the blog - thanks Andy!).

Rabbit Reconciliation - Bunnies fall out over ear-drops and VHD jab

Magic and Wendy
(Picture by Andy)

After the death of our beautiful little Lionhead, Pepper, at the age of 9, we asked Caroline to find a new partner for our 5 year-old Dutch-cross house-rabbit, Magic. We have had a number of rescue rabbits over the years, mostly from Caroline. We wanted a rabbit of similar age and temperament – Magic is quite timid – so Caroline's rabbit, Spirit, was suggested.

Unfortunately, after a long time on her own, Spirit turned out to be most boisterous than we initially expected, resulting in unsuccessful bonding and Magic getting a bitten ear. Against this backdrop of a slightly distressed rabbit, Caroline suggested one of her new arrivals, Wendy. Wendy is HUGE – well, Magic is little, and against him, Wendy looks enormous (3.5kg lop vs Magic's 2kg). After a couple of days with Wendy, Caroline noticed that Magic was just a bit wary of Wendy. Unusually, she proposed that we bond Wendy and Magic on Magic's 'home turf' – to try to boost Magic's reticence with a bit of 'home advantage'.

I went and picked up the pair and brought them home. In preparation, I had bought a new indoor cage for their bedding area. Together with the old cage, each rabbit had their own cage and small area at the back of our house, but separated by bars at the edge of the cage. I had also set up a web-cam to view the two cages. With support from Caroline, I proceeded with the bonding, initially waiting a couple of days to see them take interest in each other and be prepared to sit by each other, separated by the cage. This was followed by a couple of nights 'swapped around' in each other's cage to reinforce the familiarization of the other rabbit's smell. I then trialled the rabbits in the living room, to see how they reacted to each other with unrestricted access – there was wariness and a bit of chasing away, but nothing too serious. I followed this up by allowing the rabbits access to each other’s cages over night for a few days until they were happy to sit together in one cage. The second cage was kept as a bolt-hole, eventually being removed after a further 3 or 4 days. With the web-cam, I was able to observe them cleaning each other – bonding seemed to be complete...

However, trouble was ahead... Magic needed stitches removed from his ear following the earlier ear-biting incident with Spirit. Wendy needed her spay stitches checked, her waxy ears looked at and her VHD vaccination. Off we went to the vets... All went to plan and we were given some drops to help break down any remaining wax (Caroline having spent some time with a rather annoyed Wendy removing the wax from her ears with cotton-buds).

On return home, Wendy was a bit off-colour (naturally, after a vaccination). She also didn't like having the drops squirted in her ears – and the drops smelt funny too! But all was well... Except a day later, the rabbits were chasing each other around and trying to bite the other's backside. This was very depressing, having successfully (!) bonded the rabbits – my first attempt at this sort of thing. I spoke to Caroline, looking for advice. Obviously they needed to be separated. The bad reaction may have been a combination of Wendy being understandably grumpy and Magic not recognising her scent, masked as it was by the ear-drops.

So, the second cage returned... They went back to the bonding arrangement for a couple of days, separated, until I was willing to risk having them have access to each other. The main problem then, rather than aggression, was that the second Wendy got near Magic, he would run off. Still, no fighting... So they had separate, but accessible cages for a further 3 days. Eventually, they could be sat next to each other without one of them running off. Back to one cage... Not exactly 'in love' though... Anyway, 1 week later, they are cleaning each other and all is well again – it just needed a bit of time.

The moral of this story, if there one, is, don't try to force the rabbits together, give them time on their own without human interference. And, if things go wrong, all is not lost. The situation can be recovered with a bit of patience and care!

If you have adopted a bunny from us and have an amusing or interesting tale to tell, please contact Caroline via the email address on our website.

Bun to be Wild

Pea, Pod, Cosmos and Goofy are wild (cross?) rabbits, hand-reared from a very young age. And they are great fun.

The wild streak can make the group quite manic at times, especially living in a group of four where there is always one doing something to set the others off into chaos.

Each of them sits on a different point on the scale of trust towards humans. When you go in to see them, outside of the usual feeding times, one will immediately bound up to you and place their paws on you to see what you are doing and one will move to the farthest corner and eye you suspiciously. The other two will lurk somewhere between, waiting to see what time it is - treat-time, cleaning-time or being-picked-up-for-health-checks-time! But all of them are ultimately friendly towards people and happy to be stroked once they have gotten to know you.

Today whilst cleaning them out, I repeatedly had to encourage them to move out of my way, to which they generally responded grumpily ("Hey, I was eating/relaxing-in that bit of hay!"), moved to somewhere I hadn't cleaned yet and glared at me. By the time this process had been repeated around the whole of their enclosure, we were left with four bunnies crammed into one small corner! ("Well, you've moved us from everywhere else!") It looked very cute and was one of the funniest moments I've experienced at the Rescue, though I don't think they really saw it that way. As with most of our cleaning-related stories, the incident ended with happy bunnies with their faces stuck into a pile of fresh Timothy Hay and dried grass, so I think they've forgiven me.

"Dude! Will you stop crowding me?
I'm trying to use the bathroom here!"

Caroline told me she fears these lovely little things will likely spend most or all of the rest of their lives stuck at the Rescue, which would be a great shame. It's probably true that they would be far too mischievous to be general house rabbits (you'd keep finding them under the sofa cushions and inside the VCR) and they are expert diggers/chewers, so you'd need a pretty well built enclosure to house them outside. But who wouldn't want to take in a cute little bunch of crazy bunnies that were almost guaranteed to make you laugh out loud every day?!

So now I need to save up to buy a house with a bigger garden. You have until then to get the adoption forms in before me... ;-)

Beware of the lunch thieves!

It wasn't my fault. Honest. I was sitting quietly having my lunch when this white flash suddenly appeared from nowhere and attacked me. Well, actually she attacked my sandwich - peanut butter, yum yum, she obviously thought so as well. Well I reckoned that this would be an easy battle to win, after all she's small and so very cute; I'd be able to fight her off easily.

How wrong I was. She's a strong little thing, that Perdy, but just when I thought I would win, I realised that she must have called for reinforcements, as two little helpers came at me from different sides. The tactic of Hoppy and Nestle was clearly diversionary as they went straight for the plastic bag containing my apples, found their way in and started nibbling. With my hands full from battling with Perdy, what could I do?
I realised I was on a loser so I had to sacrifice something. The peanut butter sandwich was too precious to lose so I grabbed an apple and thrust it under Perdy's nose. My tactic worked. Distracted for a moment, she let go of the sandwich, which was now all mine, ha ha! Thrusting the remains into my mouth I revelled in my victory.

However, my glory was short lived as my apple was disappearing fast. I tried to save it but it was too late as the three monsters had gorged their way through it. I'll swear they never took a breath during their merciless attack. I did manage to retrieve one of my biscuits for a moment but alas, weakened by the struggle I had to give in.

Finally gasping for breath and traumatised by my experience I staggered up and away from my tormenters, cursing their names ........................................................ or something like that.

Already I'm looking forward to my next lunch in warren 10!

Bunface

This week we started setting up a Facebook page for the Rescue. If you are a Facebook user, search for The Rabbit Residence Rescue and "Become a fan" to receive updates of all the latest happenings and events, plus (of course) lots of pictures of our adorable bunnies, past and present.

'S No Fun

Well, not much activity on this blog for a few weeks. I mostly blame the weather. We have just lived through a month of rain, which has meant miserable bunnies staring out from underneath hutches and inside sheds not wanting to come out and play (well, the sensible ones anyway). But the rain has now passed, replaced with frost and snow. Oh joy.

And not just a little bit of snow. It kicked off with about 10cm in 6 hours. So this weekend I am, basically, snowed in. I cannot get to the Rescue (in fact Royston has been on the news as one of the worst hit towns in the region) so I have taken up residence on the sofa for a few days with the TV, my laptop and occasionally some very grumpy bunnies.

The snow appears to have brought great joy to many of my colleagues, neighbours and friends, who are spending their days away from work/school frolicking in cold wet sludge. Caroline tells me the bunnies at the Rescue are also enjoying themselves, running madly about and playing in the curious white blanket that covers the ground, the like of which many of them have never seen before.

My own opinion of snow is more like that of Alex P. Keaton. And, once again proving that Caroline does an excellent job matching bunnies to people, S+J are totally with me on this.

Santa has been grumpy for weeks as the temperature has been gradually dropping. One morning he failed to notice me come in with his breakfast as he was so busy re-arranging the hay in his bedroom to try and make himself warmer (also partly my fault – I may have over-compensated with the straw earlier in the week and they pretty much had to burrow their way back in to go to bed). He doesn’t like the cold. When he woke up to thick snow Friday morning, he peered at it suspiciously from the doorway before seeming to decide that he was “cold enough thank you very much” and disappeared back inside refusing to come out of the shed for the rest of the day.

Jemima also hates snow. With her short Rex fur already giving her little protection and consequently regular problems with sore feet, she can’t bear to walk on anything cold or wet. She came bounding out, but as soon as her feet hit the snow she panicked, flew across the garden at great speed and disappeared into the house. When it came time to put bunnies back in their house, I couldn’t persuade her to come out of mine.

We all became a little more accustomed to the weather over the course of the weekend. By Sunday, all three of us were willing to spend up to several minutes in the garden, though it was inevitably followed with some quality time indoors in front of the radiator. Once her nose was dry, Jemima went on to her daily task of making all the hay disappear, while Santa decided to work on his on-going project to find the highest lagomorphically-accessible point in the lounge. Via a pile of cushions, the back of the sofa and a bookshelf he managed to surpass his previous record by about a foot and seemed very proud of himself.

It doesn’t look like the weather is going to clear this side of Xmas, which probably means more days of disapproval from the little ones, but at least I am having more time to spend with them. Still, I can’t wait til the roads clear and I can get back to the Rescue – or maybe Santa (the other one) will bring me a new 4x4 car for Xmas? Here’s hoping.

Copper Bunny : Saved

Thankfully, it looks like the Tacoma and Pierce County Humane Society have had second thoughts about ending the life of poor little Copper Bunny - they have now released Copper to a local rabbit sanctuary in Gig Harbor.

The Rabbit Haven Sanctuary is a larger operation than ours, having around twice the number of rabbits in their care (and I thought breakfast-time at our rescue was crazy!). So it looks like he is in good hands with expert bunny people who can give him the proper love and attention he needs.

For the latest updates on Copper's progress, check out the Rabbit Haven website, where you can also help Copper and other bunnies like him by making a donation to the sanctuary.

Many thanks to the Rabbit Haven Sanctuary for kindly giving us permission to use their photo of Copper on our blog!