Is it wrong to be afraid of your bunnies?

Yesterday Alyssa told me she was pretty sure that Lola was having babies since there was like enough fur for a whole extra bunny in the corner.   I asked her if Lola was naked and she assured me she wasn’t but the extra bunny made of fur in the corner was a little weird.    So far Lola is being a pretty good mom, despite not liking my choice of nesting area.     I was sort of a little worried about not having a nest box to pull out to check on the babies since sometimes new moms are a little overprotective and like to bite.   Neither Lilly or Lola have yet but I don’t really want to poke their inner beast and take that chance.   So yesterday I cautiously reached in to pull the babies out, all the while watching for Lola to make sure she didn’t reach out and snack on my arm.   She watched me carefully but didn’t move too much.    I checked on them a couple of times yesterday just to make sure they were still alive and last night she had just about had it with me being in there messing around.   She didn’t bite, or even try but after I was done she gave me dirty looks and went to rearrange the fur and make sure that I hadn’t stolen her babies.   After more dirty looks ensued she finally settled down for the night.    Checked Lilly’s nest box this morning and there wasn’t any fur pulled but she was making a hole in the nest box bedding so it looks like she is preparing but she could just be faking me out.   Mainly because I’m pretty sure she finds immense enjoyment in it.   Much like the time before she was pregnant and she was preparing her cage with a nest full of hay and so I was sure she was pregnant.   She just really wanted to be pregnant and was just playing games with me.    Not nice Lilly…..not nice.  

Here's a Story, about a Rabbit Breeder (sung to the tune of Brady Bunch)

It all started with Max about 5 years ago.   He was our first bunny.   We got him as a pet and he was quite fun and quite adorable.  For some reason we decided 2 years ago to show Max.   Turned out to not be a very good idea because Max is a pet bunny and not a show bunny and Max was thrown out of the class for being overweight by half a pound and they said he had donkey ears....ok, so they didn't really say that, his ears were just a little long .....Poor Max.....I'm quite certain he was devastated and probably cried for weeks.      Max likes to make his ears go all wonkey so we keep telling him to get his donkeys up.  But even though we didn't do so well at that show, the rabbit show bug somehow bit us and it wasn't long until we were looking for a bunny that we could show.      April of last year is when Lola came along.

And she was quite the good show bunny, winning many trophies and ribbons, a couple of Best of Breed in her class and even Grand Champion at our County Fair.    We were quite pleased.    We even went to State Fair with her and had a fabulous time.    We had 4 shows at the State Fair and only did really well in one of the show because at a year old she was not in her prime anymore....who knew?   Poor Lola, a year old and over the hill.    While we were there another bunny caught our eye and even though she wasn't a show bunny, we thought she would be a good mom and had her bred at the show, having cute little baby bunny dreams running through our heads.   Here is Lilly.

But the time came and went when we should have had baby bunny footsteps running around the house but no baby bunnies.  <<sigh>>  So then we thought, hey......we have 2 girl bunnies and a boy bunny and I think that is the perfect recipe for creating baby bunnies.     So in December we had our first litters of baby bunnies.   Lola had 2 but they didn't make it.   Lilly had 3 bouncing baby girl bunnies and a bouncing boy bunny.  Pictures of them a couple weeks after they were born.

Here they are today.   Darla - Alyssa's favorite.   She is a little larger overall with kinda large ears, just like her daddy, but she's sweet, just like her daddy.....

Joy, she has a white dot on her nose which makes her not showable but she's still cute...awwwww.

Rio - the boy of the family.   I really like his color but it's not really a color in the bunny world so not showable.

Charlotte is our little show bunny for now.   The judges have said she has fairly good type just that she has a little bit too long of an ear......I don't think it'd be good to cut them off so.....I guess we will leave her as she is.   

So, that brings us to today.   We had bred both Lilly and Lola and we are not sure yet about Lilly, but Lola had two cute healthy baby bunnies.   She is quite stubborn if I might add.  I had put her nest box in the corner of the cage where she was digging.  Did she have them in her nest box?  Noooooo, she had them in the opposite corner on the floor.  I am hoping that she has made a nice enough nest to keep them warm enough.   More pictures will come but here they are, only a few hours old.  Hard to tell this early but looks like they might be the same color she is.  Guess we will see in a few weeks.

Now.....the question will be, will we find homes for the other babies we have before these get old enough, will we get any show bunnies.....are we doomed to have wonkey ear babies....<<insert ominous music here>>.......stay tuned for the future adventures of  Bunnies, Bunnies and more Bunnies.

Mango!!!!

Mango, Mango, Mango. (Sun Conure)  I think sometimes he just picks days on the calendar to just be super naughty and scream all day.  Today was one of those days.   He had food, he had water, he had a fresh apple and plenty of toys.  Not enough evidently.   When he knows he is being naughty, he will scream and scream and then say his name very sternly.  Like he is scolding himself.     He has now started to imitate when we cough or sneeze.   I am not sure if he is trying to play along or make fun of us.   He is also starting to learn Alyssa's name, especially when I am trying to call to her from another room.  He is not very good at it yet but he will get there.  He has learned that whenever the phone rings, we say hello so when it rings, he does the same.   And many times he will call out Hello to us while we are in another room.   He is worse than a grumpy old man.   It gets to be dark out and he is ready for bed and crawling into his sleep tent.  At that time all lights in the area must be turned off or he will scream constantly.  And if you walk by his cage when he is in his tent, and disturb him, he will grunt at you and grumble at you for disturbing him.    He has also taken to arguing with me.  I will tell him to try a bite of something new and he will look me straight in the eye and tell me NO.   I will say yes, he will say no so finally I give up because I know I won't win.   Then lately if he is screaming a lot I will just stand by his cage with my hands on my hips just looking at him and he will look away for a second and then look back at me and say...What......all innocent like he wasn't doing a thing wrong.   A few months ago I got his wings clipped because he seemed to be getting too big for his britches.  He came out and realized he could no longer fly very far.  He was very mad and was stomping across the floor.   He has since refused to come out anymore because he cannot fly.   It is definitely a battle of wills with this one and who knew a bird would win that fight???  ACK!!!

Here We Go

So, with all of my pets going crazy most of the time, I thought maybe it would fun to keep track of all of their fun capers.

It has been awhile since Houdini has decided to stalk the counters in my kitchen but the other day I believe he was mad that I evidently didn’t feed him canned food before I left for work or who knows what reason.   But he decided that the Chex mix that I bought to send to the troops needed to be thrown on the floor and ripped up.   But he didn’t rip it up to eat it because none of it was on the floor, just the bag was shredded.  For those of you that don’t know the history of Houdini, when he was younger he would get on the counters and hunt down bread products and make them pay for any grievances they have committed which included dragging them into the living room and ripping them to pieces.  I had to learn to hide all bread products in the microwave.  When I foiled his evil plot against said bread products, he moved on to chips.   He wouldn’t ever eat them, but he would make sure they were destroyed beyond belief and scattered all over the floor.   Of course it became quite a pain to unload the microwave of bread products and chips whenever I wanted to use it and I am quite certain the Houdini sat by with a  smug look on his face for causing such a commotion.

Cooper on the other hand, has a fondness for raw chicken and can instantly smell when I bring it home from the grocery store.   He will come running out to the kitchen sniffing out the source of his meat pleasures.   If I don’t hide the chicken or put it away right away and I run out to the car to get more stuff, the chicken package will have Cooper teeth marks on the package and the chicken will be half eaten.  He won’t even wait for you to leave the room before he is rooting through the bags trying to find it.   If anyone ever loses a chicken in their house, Cooper can find it for you.

Ok, who wants to tell the 2 little female finches sitting on eggs that they will never hatch.   I hate to burst their bubble and ruin their dreams but, it’s just not gonna happen.  But they sure have been diligent sitting on them, waiting to be mommies.  At what point do you break their heart and steal their eggs away.   I don’t want to be a dream killer, sheesh.    Alyssa keeps telling me to be patient, that maybe they were pregnant when we got them.    Uhhh, by my calculations we got them several months ago?   <<counting fingers…..and toes>>   Uhh, the math isn’t adding up.   Our female cockatiel, Cicsco started laying eggs again and didn’t want to wait for her egg to hatch and wanted an immediately family so she pecked open the egg within a day of laying it.   Is that classified as murder or manslaughter.   Was it pre-meditated or was it just an act of frustration.  She has since laid 4 more eggs and has kept those all in tact so maybe it was just an accident.