# Bunny play time



## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Finally we had a nice enough day to let the bunnies out. I think all of the boys are in the air in this picture, lol!! 











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## Jenzie (Dec 26, 2012)

Aww so cute! I love bunnies. Are they difficult to care for?


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Thanks! 
They're actually almost equal as rats as far as care, just bigger. 
I think they're very easy to care for personally. Just gotta trim the nails when necessary and feed/water them and give them loves! 
They do poop a lot more than rats do, though, lol! 


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## Eden10 (Aug 11, 2012)

Aww I used to have a bunny...she was crazy lol! Very stubborn & would growl at me when it was time to go back in her cage...she ruled the house, even my big tough fiance was afraid of her LOL  ......pretty funny as she was so cute & angelic looking pure white with bright blue eyes.


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## RatGirl_Red (Nov 26, 2012)

lol the picture is upside down lol

how old are the four? i never got brave enough to try more than a duo of bonded pairs


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Is it? That's obnoxious. It shows right side up when I click it.. Lol!

Sorry everyone! Hope it didn't give you head tilt!! Lol!!


I actually have 5 rabbits, there are 4 in the main pen there and then one in the small part to the left(left of the pic when it's right side up.)

I'll give a short story of each of my buns with a picture to identify each with.

We'll start in the order of which I got them.

First is Draco

















He was very thin and covered in mats and urine when he was handed over to me. I rescued him as well as his brother, Havoc, however Havoc had a stroke at 6 years old and died.
Draco now has a full white coat(where it is supposed to be white) and a big old belly. I have a picture of him from his first day home somewhere, I just don't know where. He is 8 years old now.

Joker: 









(Hopefully that pic works)









Joker was mainly neglected. His owner would put food in the garage for him, but that's it. When he had contact from humans, it really wasn't good contact... He is nearly feral because of this. He runs and hides and tries to escape in any way possible. He got out once and took off for a week straight. He doesn't like small confined spaces and at first he would always scream if he was touched at all. I really don't want to know his story lol. I know that the owners used to have a dog and gave it a heart attack while beating it and killed it. (The boyfriend who did it [they live together] did go to jail for awhile, but they couldn't prove the girlfriends assistance so she didn't get charged) so I can't even imagine what Joker has gone through.
Joker is 1, he was born on the Fourth of July. 

Next is Zira. 

















She was from a meat breeder who, after deciding to get out of breeding, was just killing and tossing all of his rabbits. Zira was next on the list when I told him I'd take her. She's my long legged pretty girl. Kind of the Mona Lisa of the bunny world, she seems to have no facial expressions haha.
She is about 3

Loki:









He was given to me by a friend when my favorite little soul mate bunny Snoopy died.
He is 1

Odin:
He is a Charlie harlequin lionhead, I only have one pic of him on my phone and it keeps showing up upside down haha. He's 3 and is Loki's dad. After the store heard how good Loki was doing they asked me to take Odin, too. 



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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Aw cute. Funny the picture shows right on my Ipad but on my Laptop it's upside down.

Poor Zira, I feel bad for her, was she just throwing them away like garbage and not even using them or was she actually going to be using them? Or did you not ask? Oh and of coarse Joker, that's even worse.


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## Jenzie (Dec 26, 2012)

It's showing up correctly on my iPad too. Weird.Such sad stories, but they are all so cute and lucky to be in a good home now! I hope to have rabbits someday, they seem like so much fun.


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

No, he wasn't using them. With meat rabbits the breeder butchers the kits between 8 and 12 weeks old. Adult rabbits are stringier and can only be used for stews and such. (I've never personally eaten rabbit, but it isn't extremely uncommon here)
So, he was just killing them and tossing them. He had about 20 adults. 
The thought of it infuriates me, for I'm a strong believer in respect for lives. Even with elk and everything, if we bring one home we use every last bit of that animal. And there is no humor in it. It's something losing its life. 
So the fact that he was just culling and tossing really got to me. 

Joker.. Yeah.. Poor guy. He has settled down a good amount in the year that I've had him, but is still very much on the wild side. He'll never be a "cuddle bunny", I just hope that one day I can hold him without him freaking out. 


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## RatGirl_Red (Nov 26, 2012)

Maybe my computer is trying to make me break my neck? lol standing on my head always makes the blood flow make my eyes wiggle. good story. lol


but ah, Joker is such a beautiful rabbit too, his color is so pretty and i am not a huge ticked fan lol

and yes, older rabbits past 6ish months tend to have less meat that is good for basic cooking. BUT he could have dressed them and sold them to people who feed fresh for their dogs or cats, or even the meat donated to a wild animal sancturary..or even sold the stock to someone else. Its horrid he just threw them out and wasted them.


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Oh wow, that's what I was wondering. It just seems so, wasteful. Makes me angry cause I want to one day raise meat rabbits, and over on the rabbit forum I'm on I can't imagine anyone doing that. At most they would either sell them, or at least use them for dog food, or to make stews. Stuff like that can give us a bad rap, people who raise rabbits for meat already get in enough trouble from people who don't understand.


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

I absolutely agree. I raised meat rabbits for awhile (still never ate one, haha) but it is the healthiest meat there is. Where I live, people think I'm crazy just for having rats, so most people view rabbits as food anyway, but with more and more city folk moving in.... Lets just say some people freak out about it! 
I haven't bred any meat buns for quite some time.. But my parents want some meat, so I haven't decided wether I'll be breeding for them or not.

When people like him do that, though.. It's just bad. People start saying that all meat breeders are vicious, careless people who torture and the animals and treat them just as meat sacks which isn't at all true for most.. 

Especially like with Zira.. She was a 1 year old meat breeder with gorgeous body tone and great hindquarters and everything. Someone would've gladly taken her off of his hands as a breeder. She was in her prime when he did that.. 

I dunno. It gets to me! 



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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

well, if you ever get back into meat rabbits let me know. We probably won't be getting into them for about a year or two (Basically when we get a house and have experience with chickens first).

Well, hopefully he never gets back into meat rabbits, if he was just going to be tossing them out like that he doesn't really deserve to be doing it ever again. Oh and you need a picture of Odin. He sounds like a neat looking bunny


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

This one is showing right side up in full size but the thumbnail is upside down so we'll see how it shows lol.










This one is, too... Ugh!!!! Lol!!!!








When I can get on a computer I'll add better pictures lol. 

I'll probably do a litter here and there., but I don't really see myself getting into it full scale again. People would buy of course, I just am getting full on my cages now since I cut back on hutches.
I have one hutch that has 7 separate rooms in it (one of which is a nursery-the size of two cages combined) and 3 super pet type cages (the real big ones) and 2 4x4' pens ( generally the momma's get moved to the garage in a pen with a heat lamp when they're kindling) but I also have 5 rabbits... Haha. 
My last litter was about 6 months ago now. Most of those kits were sold to 4h kids as pets (came of age right at fair time!) 



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## RatGirl_Red (Nov 26, 2012)

That is one very fuzzy bunny...like wooly fur and not LH or angora-y


I am not so into the idea of selling for pets with my rabbits, they are high quality show rabbits and if i cant sell them for the show table or brood, they will most likely not go as pets either unless their bad quality and suuuuper sweet and dont deserve FC


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

He is really fluffy, and cute. Be careful, on other forums you might make people jealous ;D

I love Harlequins, probably my favorite breed and pattern, my first rabbit (and only so far) was a Broken Japanese Harlequin (Though he was a meat mutt so I'm not sure how "pure" he was considering he was broken). Sweet guy, kept wanting to eat my belts though which was funny. I wish I had some pictures of him (I swear I do) but I can't find any.


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

I agree rat girl!!! The lady that gave him to me said lionhead but, though the show rabbits I bred were Hollands, not lionheads, I still went to plenty of shows and saw plenty of buns and lionheads do not have wool like that! 
His son (Loki) has regular lionead type fur (Liki is lionhead/holland) but then Odin doesn't,,, so weird.. I keep saying he's gotta be a cross and the lady says no, no.. He's pure. 
I don't buy it xD 

Harlequin is one of my top favorite rabbit colors LW.. Since Odin doesn't have much color I didn't notice at first, but once I turned and actually looked at his stripe, it's all hq!  I miss my old holland Snoopy more than anything, though... He was absolutely perfect in every way  he was a blue tort, he had great conformation, but aside from that he was (literally) like a ragdoll. I remember once my little brother came out (not that I encourage this, but I was gone when he grabbed Snoop so I wasn't there to stop him) but he came walking out holding Snoopy by the two back legs and Snoopy was just dangling there looking dead. I wasn't scared though because that's how Snoopy is-lol! So I went and grabbed Snoop from him and hugged him up and he gave me kisses and curled up in my arms, belly up like he always did. He was a fantastic bunny. He did tricks, too. Spin, stay, sit up(sit pretty), give kisses, and then my favorite that we were working in when he passed was play dead. He'd also come when he was called of course. 
He always accompanied me to FFA meetings and to petting zoos my FFA chapter put on for little kids and he'd go to Petco with me and was just great for helping kids learn about rabbits. 
That was my baby </3 I'll never have another like him  
I kind of shut animals out after he died.. But my friend Nathan realized that and that is when he went and got me Loki. Loki doesn't measure up to Snoopy at all.. Yet anyway.. But he has a lot of the same qualities and is learning to love (Loki was kept as a pet store breeder just in the back of the pet store in a wire hanging cage and that's where he stayed, so he didn't really know what contact was lol) so Loki was kind of the one to get me back on track, haha.

Last summer was just a horrible one.. And Snoopy dying was the icing on the cake. But yeah, seems I've been "fixed" lol! 


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Oh and rat girl, the ones I sold for pets were mutts. Checkered Giant/New Zealand White/Californian.

Those ones weren't show quality rabbits.. Haha. 
Two, however, were still used for show by a couple little kids.


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Aw, he sounds like he was a great bunny. Stripes almost got eaten by our Cat at the time Fat Back (we swear this cat ate a chihuahua, you know he was with it in our yard one day and the next day there were signs saying it was missing, so you know, not at all a coincidence...) when we first got him. Though about a week later they were eating out of the same food bowl together (Stripes liked cat food apparently).

Curious, what breeds do you guys work with, or worked with.


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

He really was  we took Snoopy camping all the time with us and once there was this dog wandering loose and we had Snoopy out instead of in his pen and the dog looked SO confused at what the heck a bunny was doing at a campsite-Lol!!! He loved to travel :3 

I have worked with mainly Cali's and Pali's for meat. There was a Rex cross thrown in once or twice but I liked to keep it to the basics. I've also used New Zealand Whites. The other buck I've used is Draco who is Checkered Giant and New Zealand White. Zira is a Californian. 
My show rabbit of choice was of course Holland Lops. They're my absolute breed of choice for rabbits. The smooshy cheeks and outstanding personalities get me every time.
I've delt mainly with torts but had some frosties, Siamese sables, sable points, and I've had all of the shades of tort. 
I'm new to lionheads (if that even is what Odin is.. I don't think he is, but his son Loki sure looks like one) and they're ok.. But I prefer Hollands still x3 
I recently had the opportunity to get a tan rabbit. They really aren't "good" for anything though.. I absolutely love their colors (those markings are my favorite on any animal) and I have always wanted one but with my room pushing max capacity, I don't want to use the space on a (for lack of better words) "useless" rabbit. I'm not meaning to sound mean.. But they are NOT the cuddle bunny type, they aren't meat rabbits, they aren't common hear so showing/competing would be pointless if I was the only one that had one, so I would prefer something different.
Now, the kind I have ALWAYS wanted is a Flemish Giant. Little dogs. I love them so much but I've never owned one. 

I tried my hand with silver foxes for awhile but wasn't too fond of it, so back to Cali's haha.


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

I feel like I'm in the worse part of the country, see Albino rats are rare here, And it appears that Californians And New Zealands (Any color of them) are rare as well. only thing I've come close to is an add for NZ mutts. Of coarse with a year or two before we get rabbits I still have time to find some. Main thing here I'm seeing is Havanas, which is ok. I wouldn't mind smaller rabbits, might start with Havanas and/or Dutch rabbits since they still make good meat rabbits.

I don't really like Lops, but next to Flemish Giants and Harlequins, I wouldn't mind a French or English Lop.

The Only competition I've heard of having Tans in was Jumping, though that's way more popular in the UK and for some reason Sweden. I would say, if you had a tad bit more room, and had a black doe, you could breed him and should produce Tans in the first generation if my genetic memory serves my right. Then you could have tan rabbits that would make good meat mutts, or at least friendlier.

I would love a Flemish giant, though knowing me I would be trying to breed/make a Harlequin one. ;D now if only every rabbit was recognized in harlequin.


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Haha, just got on a computer for the first time in forever. 
Both pictures of Odin and the bunny play time pic are upside-down.
WHY MUST YOU MESS WITH MY PICTURES, TINYPIC?!?!?!? 
Lol!

Calis and NZW/R are sooo common here (for meat anyway, "pets"/show are generally Holland, ND, Rex, mini lop). 
Havanas are pretty small but as far as Dutch rabbits go, they're basically only hindquarters, which is perfectly find if they're for meat. They are pretty small, too, though. 
(Forgot to add in there, I have had Dutch as well. LOL) 

I love lops like crazy. Hollands, French, and English are the only 3 lops I would really want to own, though.

The choice for big rabbit for me is either English lop or Flemish Giant. I would prefer a Flemish though. There are some Flemish kits about 2 1/2 hours away from me. I'm considering doing an animal round up and going to get those poor cramped ratties I posted about the other day (4 adult rats in a hamster cage) as well as picking up a Flemish kit. I just had to take my dog to the e-vet, though, so I'm pretty tight on money right now... lol! 

You would've loved a rabbit I ALMOST got last year, then!! She was a harlequin/Flemish cross and was nearly as big as a Flemish with the pointier "sassier" face of the harlequin.... AND the color of it! She was absolutely gorgeous. I hit the hard summer time though, and had no interest in any money... lol.


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## RatGirl_Red (Nov 26, 2012)

ima sucker for large buns

my sexy mama...add 3lbs to her..she grew a bit since these pics. shes...erm 5.5 months here? 

















i would LOOOVE to have a heritage breed and been taking to an argent breeder i may get a pair. here in midwest they arnt very common so id place in show haha if they werent DQd

and actually your LH is a true/false charlie tri not harli  he could be purebred LH!!! prime example why they are having so many issues trying to pass them with ARBA...their type, mane, ears, and fur texture is waaay to inconsistant to have it considered its own breed. 

i would ike having a checkered giant around, but theres only one breeder around here and i know his are very....well hes had them DQd bc judge wont put up with them lol. but i absolutely LOVE the rhinelanders, but i arch breeds are such a turn off for some reason...i like my fat lazy flops lol


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Haha yeah I know he's Charlie, I just wasn't sure if lionheads call it tri or harli x3 yours is pretty! 


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## RatGirl_Red (Nov 26, 2012)

harlequins would be solid with the two basic colors, i dont think their allowed to have any white on fur or toenails without DQ even by other breed standards. Magpie is different


and omg i am hoping for a harli or magpie to throw me 90% tris. shes the only tri colored flop in midwest that i know of and a beastly 13.5 lbs lol


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Well LW.. I got a new doe today. She's a black standard Rex from a meat breeder. That's the final addition, though. All of the cages in my main hutch are now full and I like to keep the spare cages open. Ill post a pic later :3 


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

*cough* pictures or it didn't happen *cough* Man I need to get over this cold ;D

Wow I don't even have rabbits and I'm already spreading rabbitosis, or what ever you want to call it. (Am I the only one who thinks we need a laughing Smiley?)

mmm.... Red rex + Harlequin = Harlequin het rex. Then you can get Harlequin Rex! This is why I'm going to try to stay away from Harlequin and Red breeds, which luckily are not common in my area, so I don't end up doing these experiments when I do get rabbits in the future. If it was up to me I would be having Harlequin Plush/Velveteen lops (English Lop with rex coat) and Harlequin Angoras. At least I can dream.

Oh and Tri, Harli, at the end of the day it's the same exact gene. Just that Tris like to be all Fancy and have spots instead of the weird, and awesome, stripe things. Am I the only one who think that Harlequins look like Halloween Dominos?


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

Here's your proof then... (Insert much needed laughing smiley face) 

















These obviously aren't posed pictures, but she sure is a gorgeous gal, and she knows it! 
She needs a really cool name.. 

I agree.. Harli/tri, meh. Different breeds different names... Hahaha



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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

I'm out of actual names. Beautiful girl though.

Ok, maybe Llia? She's from LoZ Twilight Princess (I'm playing it again, on the second to last temple right now, I've actually never beaten the game, always get stuck on the last temple) or Midna, also from Twilight Princess.

Or, Stir fry, Blackened Chicken, Steak, Now I'm starting to get hungry ;D ok on a serious note, what about Sierra? Or Gaz, she's from Invader Zim, she has black hair (she's Emo/highly anti-social) and is actually funny especially when Gir asks her to dance with him.


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## Muttlycrew (Dec 21, 2012)

I like Sierra  that might just be the one. Kind of "punk"ish but also spunky, just like she is. 
Haha I love all of the food related ones... Yum! Just as I'm cooking dinner.. I want the food to be done now! Lol! 



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## RatGirl_Red (Nov 26, 2012)

Ah i thought about standards for meat, but i am still stuck on the champagnes lol. 

shes got some ears though! How old is she?


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