I think I need to explain a few things; we let Coco have the run of the garden because she simply got out of everything (Should have called her Houdini really). She used to be together with the Guinea pig ( I know, I know don't berate me on that...) and I was afraid she'd be paving the way for him too, so we tried supervised runs in the garden and it seemed to work fine initially until she discovered the way through to the neighbours. They have five male rabbits, that are left out periodically during the day. My neighbour didn't mind Coco coming in and at the time we believed she was a male. My neighbour loves rabbits and has years and years of experience. For some strange reason theire was no obvious mating behaviour and we just picked Coco up again after her adventures and had a good old rabbit chat. We always locked Coco into her hutch at night and after the visits to the neighbours garden became to frequent we blocked it off with heavy duty stuff because after all she was our rabbit. By the time we realized that Coco had had babies they were already about six weeks old and the next litter was on the way which we didn't know. I am still baffled how shwe managed to raise all these youngsters without us noticing. Her visis under the shed were extremely short and with the second litter she always came willingly back into her hutch. When she had the fist lot we had real trouble catching her at night and I still feel bad retrospectively because only two survived (i assume she had more but we'll never know) That's why we named them Magic and Miracle because they survived despite the odds.
At present Coco isn't able to get out of the garden anymore and she doesn't appear to want to go anywhere. In fact she hops back into the hutch whenever I open it to clean it or add food etc... The only problem is that when she is in a hutch for a few hours the bedding is so destroyed that I have to change the whole lot and I am not fastidious. I am talking about the absobant pellets soaked up with urine and the entire floor covered in pops. None of my other rabbits make such a mess. Whenever I keep her in one spot at the time she completely destroys the place and I have to keep changing every half an hour or so. Have you ever heard of a rabbit with such an active metabolism. She is getting spayed on wednesday and I can't wait. I still think it is safe to let her run in the garden for certain periods during the day. We have no predators as such. There is the odd cat but they keep a respectful distance from the rabbits. My neighbour's rabbits go out frequently and there's never been an incident. I quite like Coco following me around in the garden and taking an interest in all the activity. Despite being a Wild Thing she quite likes her domestic comforts.
By the way my neighbour's rabbits have never ever left their garden and I hope that Coco will be more attracted to our place now with more rabbit company. I think with her being spayed I'm happy enough with the set up because she comes back into her hutch whenever I entice her.
