Well it is May12th today and it has been a long spring already to say the least. Getting ready to head out to the barn to see if the doe (QUINN M10 ) who apparently had a fun time getting "BRED" in the FUR class at NDS this year is going to have babies or not. Now I cannot "palpate" a rabbit to save my life. The only time I can actually tell if a rabbit is pregnant or not is if obviously they are full of babies or I can actually feel them moving around in there. Charles was over a week or so ago and he thought she might be pregnant. I, on the other hand did not think she was. Then a few days ago I pulled her out again and low and behold I felt movement!! I am thinking CRAP....this is the girls' best doe right now and we have a bunch of shows coming up. Oh well though stranger and stupider things have happened. I guess the good thing out of all this is the doe was bred by one of our own bucks and it was a black and not some awful looking tort or something like that. Well, off to the barn I go!!!
Well I am not sure where to start here. I guess it was one day when I got a call from my mother ( Sandy ) , she was calling to inform me that she and Charles Sayles were going to go to Megan Gottschalk's in the morning to "rescue" a few rabbits. Apparently I didn't take the term "rescue" quite so seriously until my mother came to my house and I went to the rabbit barn. Upon looking at the 7 bunnies in the carrying cages ( the other 7 bunnies went home with Charles ) I noticed right away that there are a bunch of blue rabbits I need to find holes for...lol but then I noticed something else....these rabbits were all skin and bones!!! I opened the first cage and picked up a rabbit named Elvis and he is a Moll's buck. I INSTANTLY fell in love with him. He seemed so gentle and kind hearted and when I held him in my arms he seemed to take a huge breath and a big sigh of relief that someone was actually holding him and paying some kind of attention to him. I thought to myself that gheesh this has got to be the most "mellow" bunny I had ever held. Then I looked him over, ran my hands up and down his body and I was now "pissed off" to put it bluntly. I am thinking to myself that how in the heck can someone let the condition of their rabbits get like this. I could feel every bone in his body. He was dehydrated. He was sick. So, I put him back and grabbed out another bunny who is named Skye. She is a small petite doe. Who was very light in weight, also boney, and for some reason she had pulled all of the fur off of her belly. This rabbit too was also very mellow and then it hit me why. They did not even have the energy to even think about squirming a little. Then as I was holding Skye looking her over she just kind of let her ehad flop and I was thinking ... holy cow this rabbit isn't gonna die right now while I am holding it!! Glad to say though Skye is doing well today.!!! Scared the bejeepers out of me though. Madison is of course in the barn during all of this and she is as mad and of course sad as I am. I mean comon if you cannot or just plain don;t want to take care of your animals do not let it get to the extremes that these animals had to endure. ALl of the 7 bunnies seemed to have swollen bellies. Madison thought that it was good that they seemed to have big bellies. Then I thought for a moment and realized that what they had was SWOLLEN bellies!!! Remember seeing the little kids in Africa with swollen bellies from starvation? Well, this is exactly what all 7 of these bunnies had. This is such a disgrace. We have had the bunnies since the 29th of December now and WOW what a difference it makes when you have bunnies that are cared for and nurtured every day. We still have a little lack of flesh condition but they are all eating and drinking well and seem to be happy bunnies in general...and Elvis ..... ELVIS ROCKS!!!!
