The Rabbitat

It's sort of hard to see the set up here. In the distance is the enclosed part (3 cubes by 3 cubes) and in the foreground is the "yard". There's a door there that I use to separate Charlie and Eleanor at mealtime because otherwise Eleanor eats Charlie's food. It also gives me a way to separate them if one is sick. They have separate little boxes and water bowls but when they're together, they both use both of them.

The floor is a piece of linoleum, edged with tiles to keep it down--and to keep the rabbits from chewing on the edges of the lino.

Mr. Tops and the Casserole

 

The First Rabbit

This is Mr. Tops. It must have been December of 1987 that he first appeared in the yard. It was cold, my sister's Russian husband had been visiting, and when we drove home from Galveston it was dark. We saw this rabbit outlined against a bush as we parked. In the days that followed he hung around. I went to buy rabbit food and eventually set up a feeding station in the yard. Alex tried to coax him in with a long cage with food at one end and a door he could spring sitting in the side doorway. Didn't work. Rabbit was too fast.

He was scared of Alex but came up to me if I sat out there with the food. Eventually we got him in and he ate several wires to the stereo the first day. He litter trained himself pretty quickly, put the bad cat in her place pretty easily and made himself at home.

Eventually we discovered that Mr. Tops was a girl but Alex never changed his name.

The Rabbit Hutch

Alex and I got seriously into rabbits after Mr. Tops came to live with us. This cabinet was the first piece of furniture I bought on my own after I was divorced in the 70ies. I suppose it had glass in the doors originally but when I got it someone had nailed pieces of peeling oak veneer on the inside. I figured I'd eventually replace it. Alex got this idea after he'd spent some time restoring old metal objects we had around and finished with a layer of shellac to keep the finish bright.

Alex drew the rabbits and the flowers were my job. I used stencils. We made paper patterns and taped them to the sheet of copper and then used nails to make the lines.

I sometimes muse on what someone might think a hundred years from now when someone finds it in an junk store. Will they wonder what this was? Did it belong to a fashion trend? If so, when? Is it a kind of pie safe (because of the nail holes)?

Rabbit Food Pyramid

If found this at the web site of the San Diego House Rabbit Society. You can download a full page-sized copy as a .pdf file from their website if you click here.

It's important to remember that rabbits are not only vegitarians but scrouge for their food and need lots of fiber in their diet. First feed them as much grass hay (such as timothy, orchard or oat grass) as they want. Not alfalfa hay, except in small qualitities as treats, though immature rabbits can have free choice alfalfa while they're growing.

Rabbit pellets should be based on grass hay too, with high fiber.

Treats should be mostly green, leafy veggies. You can get details at the House Rabbit Society. Like Bugs Bunny, rabbits LOVE carrots, but should not eat too many. They're sweet, more like a fruit. But cereal, crackers, pretzels, cookies, Doritos and other "people" snacks are not appropriate for rabbits. Too rich or too sweet. Or both.

A couple of cool rabbit photos

These are not my rabbits, but they do look at lot like Eleanor and Topsy. Probably why I like the photos—which I found on the net. I think the composition is interesting and not too “cute”. I really hate it when people think of rabbits sentimentally—as little, furry, innocents, designed to get an “Oh…. How sweet!” response. You know what I mean.

If you’re thinking about a rabbit as pet you should start looking at the House Rabbit Society website (see link in the left hand column of this blog). It all started with a book called The House Rabbit Handbook: How to Live with an Urban Rabbit when a woman named Merinell Harriman detailed several “life styles” of people living with rabbits, from rabbits in traditional hutches, to rabbits with cages who roamed the house some of the time, to rabbits who had the run of the house. I got the book when our first rabbit—a Chinchilla like Topsy and the first of these two photo rabbits—appeared in the side yard and we invited it in. Had it not been for The House Rabbit Handbook, I’d not have known you could litter train a rabbit. I’d not have known to protect the electrical cords either. As it was, the first day in the house the rabbit got behind the stereo and chewed several connecting wires.

The “life style” I remember most from that first edition was the student who didn’t have much furniture and bought a bale of hay every couple of months for a coffee table and for the rabbit to nibble.

Rabbit barriers

Since the two girls don't get along, there's always a fence separating my rabbits. Sure wish I could convince those two to make it up. They do chat (or spit) over the fence, but they do a lot of biting at each other too. And growling--Eleanor that is. She's a growler. Topsy wants to be friends.

Eleanor Roosevelt Rabbit

Eleanor's relaxing in the rabbitat after dinner. Much as she loves Charlie, she relishes her time alone when he gets confined to his own room to eat. (She used to eat his food when they ate together. Now at least she's got a better figure.) Eleanor's a rescued rabbit (left in a restaurant parking lot I was told), picked out as companion by Charlie. She wasn't too sure about him to begin with—his attention was kind of annoying—but she likes the accommodations and when no one's watching she cuddles with Charlie. She's part lop—you can tell from her face and the ears which go up or down or straight out in front, like the horns of a bull.

She's been peeved though since Topsy came and got part of her space. I can't get them to make friends; they've never been together without the fur flying. Eleanor tends not to make up to visitors and even I have to catch her to pick her up, but once captured she's more than willing to be petted and coddled. It may be that she takes her illustrious name too seriously.

Speaking of which (her famous name) these days she's using her political acumen to try to convince her cousin Archie (a beagle-dachshund) who's running for mayor of Elgin, TX to adopt a "furry creature friendly" platform. He's resisting because that would include cats. Though he emails Eleanor regularly, he was none to happy when he met her in person [in the flesh perhaps?] to discover she was a rabbit. Not as bad as a cat, but.... At home he has to put up with a chicken that's moved into his yard. Eleanor tells him she understands the chicken-in-the-yard problem; she's had to put up with cats and possums in her yard on occasion.

Eleanor in trouble

I love this picture. It's so hard to run and get a camera and actually get the shot when they're being bad.

Eating Hay

Not all rabbit owners understand the importance of hay in the rabbit diet. Charlie and Eleanor have just spilled the hay out of the hay basket.

Companion Rabbit

I work at home, usually sitting in the living room with my laptop. Topsy is almost always there keeping me company. For some reason she loves to lie on the crack between the two Chinese rugs. In the summer, when I'm barefoot, she comes over occasionally and sticks her head under my foot, hoping I'll pet the top of her head with my toes. 

One of Charlie's bolt holes

One of Charlie's favorite places is under this old rocker. He feels safe with a roof over his head. This picture must have been taken right after vacuuming; usually the rug has a layer of white fur. Note how the rockers have been chewed. If you share your living space with rabbits, there have to be some places they can chew.

Charlie's First Portrait

This was taken when Charlie first came to live here. He'd sit under the couch to make sure no one could ambush him. If this photo looks like a painting, it 's because it's been altered in Photoshop.

Charlie and Eleanor

Charlie is the white one. He's a dwarf albino, fastest rabbit in the West. If Charlie doesn't want to be caught, I can't catch him, though luckily I can sometimes out-think him. He's got very fine white fur that's more like hair than fur. When he sheds, like now, the silky fur gets all over everything, even up my nose when I pick him up. He's been living with me since April of 2002. I think he's about 5 years old. I got him at the shelter where they said he'd been left on their doorstep a few weeks after Easter. (I do wish parents would learn about rabbits before getting them as Easter gifts. They'd do better getting chocolate rabbits if they don't plan to care for a real one.)

Charlie picked out Eleanor as his companion. He didn't like the little rabbits his size, but fell in love with Eleanor. I'm not sure she loved him at first sight, but now they're an item. They live in the rabbitat--big enclosure with several rooms, separate cardboard box houses, hay baskets and a second floor. Mostly though they like it when I leave the door open so they can roam.

Introducing Topsy

She's a full-sized Chinchilla rabbit. Just had her second birthday on Valentine's Day. I just got off the phone with my son and grandchildren--we tried the Skype video phone for the first time so I wanted to show the children the rabbits. Tospy was the one who wouldn't sit still and eventually jumped off my lap. On the other hand, she's the first to make up to visitors. She's always curious when someone comes.

Here she's helping herself to the groceries. She knows kale and parsley are likely to be for rabbits.