How did you get interested in rabbits?

[Michaela]

Well I've wanted a rabbit since I was about fouryears old but my parents always said no. We weren't allowed anypets.After years of pestering they finallyagreed,so two years agofor my 13thbirthdayI was allowed to get one. I really wanted ablack one so we looked around for a while and found a beautiful blackrex in a pet shop. I named her Blackberri (Berri forshort)and I absolutely adore her!! Earlier this year Berrihad a litter ofkits.I was allowed to keeptwo.Inow have three buns,Pebble is analbino and Ebony is alsoblack. I am forever in love withrabbits!:inlove:My mum now loves animals and we also have twocats and two hamsters!!

 

[allison]

My cousin gave me hers when I was about 7 or 8.The rabbit was a mini rex and it's name was Angel. She wasn't spayedand was horribly cage aggresive, but once out of the cage she was thecalmest rabbit. It was like Dr. Jeckle, Mr. Hyde. I used to dress herup in doll clothes and push her around in a toy stroller. She was sonice. She died while we were on vaca, when we got back the people whowere babysitting her called and told us that she had died.

Then Halloween 2004, I had my mom take me to the humane society "justto look". Dusty came hopping up to the bars and let me pet him so webrought him into a room to play with him. He was on the bench, my momwas sitting on the ground with the back of her head facing the benchand he started humping it. He had just gotten neutered sohe must have still had some of the sexual urges. She jumped up and helooked confused.Well, after that I said "Now we have to gethim" I was just kidding but mom said "What's one more pet?":shock:"Really?" I asked and she said " yep" so we filled outall the paper work and brought him home. We already had the cage andthe humane society sells food and other essential so we bought all thatstuff there. I'm so glad we went to the humane society that day or elseI would be bunnyless.

 

[naturestee]

I'm a major animal lover. No holdsbarred except for spiders and I'm not much of a dog person.I'm serious, I even love bats and insects!

I'm also the kind of person that can't survive well without apet. I grew up with a cat, and when she died when I was 10 mymom didn't feel right getting another cat right away. So Iresearched and she let me have hamsters and fish. Followed bya rescue kitten a few months later.

Fast forward to age 15. A friend of my sister's was going toIreland to study for a year and needed somebody to take care of arabbit. Since I'm the animal person, I was asked.She said that if I could take care of hamsters, I could take care of arabbit. Riiiiiiigggghhhhht. So she gave me her beautifullittle mini lop named Sonora, a bag of pellets, and the caution thatshe was very old (at a whopping five years) and that she doesn't expectus to pay vet bills if Sonora gets sick. I read books fromthe library, including the HRS book House Rabbit Handbook.Mom said no to bunnyproofing the upstairs so Sonora had to live in thebasement. I tried to let her out to play a couple times aweek, but she was hard for a cat/hamster girl to handle. Ithought she was insane! Attacking a ball, running figureeights around my feet, and she was unspayed and very cageaggressive. She was different from what I thought rabbitswere, but she scared me. She did die in my care a few monthslater and I thought, due to misinformation, that it was oldage. Now I recognize the illness as GI stasis and Iunderstand her behavior.

Fast forward ten years. I'm married and living in a no-petsapartment with two fish tanks and a hamster, all allowed by mylandlord. But I really felt like I needed an animal thatenjoyed my company and my landlord said absolutely no cats or dogs but"cage animals" might be considered. James and I were talkingabout getting chinchillas. My hubby and I went to the petstore to pick up fish supplies and we saw the cutest littlenearly-black dwarf bunnies! Unlike most petstore rabbits Ihad seen, they were actually interested in us. James hadraised rabbits as a kid and told me I might like them. Iwasn't sure because I remembered Sonora, but I also wanted to researchand find out more. We went home and I went to bed so I couldwork my 3rd shift job. When I woke up, there was one of thoseteeny bunnies in a cage in the spare room, with James cooing overher! He had gotten permission to have her from the landlordwithin minutes after I went to sleep. We named herMocha.

Mocha was even more insane than Sonora, at least until she was spayed,but I loved her. I did so much research, and finding forumslike this one and the HRS website really helped me a lot. NowI have four rabbits and the other three were rescues. Theyhave their own bunny room and are totally spoiled.

 

[katt]

well, when i was younger ( i would have been inthe 7th? grade) i wanted something different then a cat, dog, or fish.i thought and thought, asked my parents for llamas, and horses, moredogs and more cats, but nothing worked. so i asked for chickens. myparents agreed, mostly because they thought that i would get sick ofhaving smelly chickens and that they would benifit from the eggs andthe bug control. they were right about the bugs and about the eggs, buti was in love with my 5 chickens (cricket- a 15 pound mix cock, jose-my sultan hen, henrietta- mix hen, wilber-spanish hen, and willow-silver lace cochin hen). they were my babies. that year we joined 4-hbecause i wanted to do fair. that spring we added more chickens, mostlyrhode islands and a very specail chicken named sunny. sunny was asilver laced polish female, the only polish we had and she was like adog. she would sleep in our laps at the camp fire, came to our callsand would fallow us down the road if we didn't lock her up before ourwalks, she was the apple of my brother's eye.

when we got to the fair grounds i was walking though the rabbit barn asone of the girls in the group had a pair of new zealands that shebrought to show. it was like i had been hit with cupids bunny arrow. ..i was in love with rabbits. by the end of fair i had my heart set on acute little broken blue satin doe, but was told by every bunny person italked to not to buy from that family. so i went home (it wasn't like ihad permission from my parents either, i was just going to come homeand be like "my chicken layed a rabbit" type of deal). by that fall(fair was in aug) i had the okay to start looking into getting arabbit, so i studied, talked with breeders, and studied some more. ilooked into outdoor hutches, breeds, food, ect. i fell in love withrandom rabbits but had to pass on all of them. i started to attendrabbit shows with my 4-h club (as it wasn't justiwaslooking for rabbits but the whole club had gone bunnycrazy). and started making contacts. finally in feb. of 2001(or maybeit was 2000, i would have to check trixies DOB) i found the rabbit forme! a breeder that i had been in contact with since i had startedlooking emailed me telling me that she had a rather large selection ofrabbits looking for new homes includeing younge and old rabbits. wedrove out to her place were my brother fell in love with a black minirex that we later named "ace". i fell in love with this adorable 6 weekold holland lop female. the breeder suggest to me i get a proven showrabbit, she was selling out of her holland lops to work on her dutchand mini rex, but i said no, i want that one. trixie was mine.

we had not been near ready for rabbits, our hutch was 1/2 done, and itwas in the middle of winter. we didn't have cages or anything so forthe first week the rabbits lived in cardboard boxes (when they weren'tout running around, trixie spent a great deal of time in a plastickiddy pool and on my bed while ace- and adult male- ran the house )wesoon purchased cages from petsmart, these tiny wire cages with shallowpans "perfect for your bunny". they lived in those small cages for arather long time. and soon i was asking for another animal. i wanted agoat. i had also mentioned breeding and well, i traded off gettinggoats to start up my rabbitry. we soon made another trip (this one wasaround 6 hours) to pick up poe, another holland lop. and from theirthey grew! trixie was indoor and outdoor depending on her litters (shehad and raised babies out in the barn, but would often return indoorsbetween litters.

rabbits were a big part of my teenage years, and they are an even bigger part of my life right now!

 

[ilovetegocalderon]

When I was 18 (I'm now 22) I lived with aroomate in CT who owned a hamster. When he died she decidedto get a bunny. I have no idea why, we weren'tclose. She kept it in a fish tank for the longest time andfed it iceberg lettuce and basically did everything she shouldn'thave. I didn't know either and it wasn't my pet.Then fast forward to 21, living on my own in New York City and kindascared at night by myself, I decided i wanted a pet but not much of acat person and not enough space for a dog. I remembered myroomate had a bunny so i just decided on a whim that I wanted abunny. I got him at apet store and named him Mr.Beans. Took him to the vet and realized its a girl.So I changed her name to just Beans. I learned everything Icould about rabbits and joined this forum. Beans had her ownroom but seemed lonely. Along came Rice.Unfortanetly, they never bonded but at least there was another bunnyaround to look at instead of being completely lonely. (BTW -Rice now grooms Beans through cage bars but they still fight when bothare roaming free.) After Rice, came Marshmellow (aka Marshy)and after Marshy came Tank and who knows what's after Tank.hehe

 

[Linz_1987]

Aw I cant believe I missed this thread! So many replies!

I started off in the love of rabbits in year 3 (I would of been about8. I think!) At my school they had rabbits in the class room, and inthe summer holidays we all took it in turns to look after therabbits. I was so pleased when I got picked Inever got picked for anything. Anyway, I looked after theserabbits, 4 sisters for 4 or 5 weeks, and my mum helped me clean themout and she really enjoyed their company as much as I did.After the summer holidays I convinced my mum to get a rabbit (ortwo!). We went searching round rescue centres, and found twosisters (Bonnie and Molly)up for adoption who were perfect.

We took them home, thinking that they were 4 years old, but as theyears went buy of having them, they grew and grew and grew.But I didnt mind as I loved them to bits. And we had bought areally big hutch for them anyway! Luckily... They lived until I was17. I was so upset when they died as they were the only 'big'animals I had ever had, and I had had them for 9 years or so.Before I had hamsters and fishwhich only lived to be 2 or3. I got so attached to the bunnies. The day theydied would have to be the sadest day of my life. And fromthis day I cry when I see pictures of them.

I had such great times with them, and some sad times. Likethe time we lost Bonnie in the garden. She was missing allday and all night. I took the day off school and made postersfor missing rabbit, and posted them through letterboxes, and stuck themon lamp posts.In the evening I looked out into the garden andthere she was! Just sitting there, as if nothing hadhappened. I think she must of had a dirty stop out orsomething!

Anyway, My love of rabbits will never die and I hope to have lots andlots of house bunnies when I get a place of my own Theyreally are my favourite animal of all time!

 

[honeybunnie8]

My story is pretty simple...When I was younger Irefused to come to my name. So, my mom had to call me by animals and Iwould come pretending to be what ever animals she called me...wellbunny stuck and since I was like 4 my nickname has been Bun Bun....AndI always had lots of bunny things around...

Fast forward to much much later...I had rats for around 10 yearsbecause we lived in an apartment and caged animals were OK...but as Igot older I got tired of getting attached to an animal and then just 2years later losing them, So I got a Chinchilla and while I love mychinchillas very much they wernt as hands on as I would have liked...SoI kinda decided on a rabbit and did alot of research on rabbits andsince they could be potty trained and such I started looking... I fellin love with a mini rex mix and I named her sprinkles...She was sooolittle and cute...but she got much bigger and she loved my chinchillaJasper and they would cuddle and groom each other...After I got herspayed though she became an aloof bun and didn't like me much, but thatwas ok. But she only about a year later died of I believe some sort ofGi problem...After she was gone it took me a few months to even feellike I wanted another bunny...

I decided to not go to the pet stores this time and go looking at theSPCA...I went and saw lots of bunnies. I came home and told myboyfriend and convinced him to go with me and we went and I found abunny who's name was Cloud, but I renamed him Lancelot.

Then I was at a friend house and she said that some one she knew wasgiving away rabbits. Soo of course i had to look. I got there and I wasdisgusted at these people and took her home. They were the kind ofpeople who should never have animals...They had like 5 rabbits, 5puppies and a few kittens and a bird or two in a small 2 bedroomapt...along with maybe 5 or more people...as I was leaving they weretrying to get me to take a few more animals along witht the bunny, andthey had only gotten the puppies a few days ago...

Anyway, I named the lil bunny Camille..and she LOVES Lancelot and hasto be where he is. And now I would like to get a Flemish Giant..butthats a ways off...

 

[cheryl]

With me,my love for bunnies started when we brought Lollipop home.

My youngest son Jeremy asked so many times if we could get a petrabbit,but i kept on saying no because i know my kids and the noveltywould run out and it would end up my bunny.

Well after months of asking for a bunny and me saying no,i finally gavein,i knew i would be the one who ended up feeding the bunny and justlooking after it,so i said ok..but...only if the bunny can be white andi want to call her Lollipop..i just don't know why to this day why ihad already chosen her colour and name:?,anyway we went to the pet shopto have a look and there were three bunnies in the cage,there were togrey bunnies and one little white bunny sitting there like she knew shewas coming home with us,well within 15 mins she was in the car headingto her new home.

What an amazing journey it was to have that little girl living in myhome,before she came,everything just seemed dull,and when Lollipopcame,my home just seemed to shine,sounds weird,i know.

omg,Lollipopended up to beMY bunny,she would alwayscome to me and i remember thinking ohh wow here is thisprecious little thing,and she is finding it in her heart to trust me,itjust gave me the best feeling when she would come to me or wait for mein the mornings.

When Lollipop had come to live with us i was going through a pretty sadtime,Lollipop just madeeverything seem wonderful.

My golly!,did that little girl teach me a ton of things that i justnever knew rabbits could do,that's what i mean,it was a journey tolearn,she was my very first bunny and i doted on her like crazy,i lovedgoing to buy her vegies and going home to give them to her,and i wouldjust watch her,enjoying all her vegies and then she would come to mefor a little nose rub.When Lollipop would be relaxing on the floor,iwould just lay beside her and just stare at her furry little face andthose big black eyes,i was so mesmerized with her,she was myeverything,when we were out,i always couldn't wait to get home just tosee that adorable little face.Here i was 30 years old and i was fallingfor a little bunny,she was just the most magical little bunny

She died on march 8th 04,my heart felt like it was ripped out andstomped all over until there was nothing left,i went through helllosing her,i just could not stop thinking about her,i had lostsomething so dear to my heart,i was just torn to pieces that it hadliterally taken me months to get over,the kids had never seen melooking soooo sad before,they just didn't know what to say to make mefeel better.



I have this big portrait of her that i have hanging on my loungeroomwall,it sits in a place where everyone can see her when you walk intothe loungeroom.



I believe in fate and as i look back at when we brought Lollipop home,iwas going through a pretty rough time,with a lot of tears andunhappiness but when she was here things felt different she cheered theplace up,made me forget the sad things and just taught me who i am,iknow it must sound pretty weird,but all so true.

Lollipop was just meant to be here,she was like a gift from god whoknew that there was someone that just needed a bit of loving and hesent her to me.

I will never ever forget what that little girl done to my life,ohh andthe same year she died,a few months after my eldest son Anthony wasdiagonised(sp)with childhood cancer



So it all comes down to the sweetest little girl Lollipop,who opened myeyes to the wonderful world of bunnies,there will never be a bunny thatis to far away from my life



cheryl