MrJackRabbit
New Member
Hi there! *Waves*
So I want to start in saying that I'm not a rabbit owner, that is to say I have a rabbit but I wasn't planning to have one and I've never owned one in my life!
I'm predominantly a rodent owner and more specifically a hamster owner so please forgive my serious lack of knowledge when it comes to rabbits as you will see from my rabbits story why I didn't have the time to do any research before getting him!
My partner and I live with my mother and two days ago she returned from work with the oddest surprise of all - two beautiful 4 month old rabbits!
The story behind it will seem odd and a little horrific to some given that I live in Cyprus where the culture is very different. So a friend of my mums, named Alex, bought these two baby rabbits at just a few weeks old however shortly after getting them his landlord decided he wanted his house back and Alex had to move out. His new home would not accept pets and his landlord response to this was not to worry and give them to him so he could eat them.
This was not him joking, like in many countries rabbits are a very popular meat here but its actually much stranger to keep them as pets than it is to eat them. There is also no line between meat rabbit and pet/fancy rabbit. People either buy them from the pet shop to fatten up/breed from then eat or they can buy them ready from the butcher - for these reasons its also very hard to find pet rabbit supplies including food, toys and vet care!
There are no rescues for anything other than cats or dogs (small animals are disregarded as not worth the time) so this wasn't an option for Alex but he was very lucky that a family he knew were able to take them.
Unfortunately the family had to move back to the UK unexpectedly this weekend and so Alex was again in the position of finding them a home that night or sending them to the landlord to become a meal. Like any animal lover my mum didn't hesitate to take the rabbits - my 11 year old sister already has two females so her and my mum have some experience with buns as pets.
So that's where we were two nights ago! Two beautiful bunnies has suddenly leaped from the pot and into our lives.
We were told that they were both females, Snowflake and Pepsi were their names but it only took minutes to realise 'Snowflake' was a boy! They were subsequently renamed Mr Jack and Pumpkin.
Pumpkin is currently going through bonding sessions with my sisters two other 4 year old females, Candy - an English Spot cross, and Spice - a lionhead cross (also rescued from the dinner table). So far this has been going very well and Pumpkin will be living with them in the near future.
So what was going to happen with Mr Jack? Well he suddenly became my rabbit and I couldn't adore him more! He is currently living in a spare commercial rabbit cage we happened to have which is very small but is only temporary while we get the money together to build him a large hutch from scratch with a 6-8ft run that he will have access to at all times except when I go to bed at night when he will have to be padlocked inside his hutch to prevent anyone stealing him to eat (not as uncommon as you would hope!) Rabbit sheds, which I think are amazing, are not an option as the extreme heat would cook the poor lad even at night!
When we get a place of our own he will become a free-ranging house rabbit but right now we aren't allowed to keep him inside so we are trying to press on with the building plans as soon as possible - due to financial reasons he will likely be living in the cage for 1-2 months but with time spent out each day I am hoping he will be ok.
He is currently being fed on hay, daily fresh greens and other veg and some home made natural pellets that I made after advice from some top rabbit owners as the only rabbit food you can buy here looks identical to hamster food - basically seeds and biscuits! There is no way I would have him eat something like that so I though home made was better than nothing! Customs won't allow me to ship any decent stuff over from other countries either
Oh and the icing on the cake is that grass and weeds don't grow here because of the extreme dry heat!
>.< Is there any kind of grass supplement I could give or are green vegetables an ok alternative?
He has a mix of wooden parrot toys, jingly cat toys and homemade paper/cardboard toys.
Anyway I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have, being a small animal owner is very hard in a country where even dogs don't have animal welfare laws and rights! We couldn't find anyone who would consider spaying female rabbits which is why my sisters older rabbits and now Pumpkin are intact still but as it's a simple external op' we are hoping that someone might consider neutering Jack to help prevent the health problems that can occasionally occur for intact bucks. Sadly there are no rabbit vaccines available in Cyprus at all so there is no option for us there - on the plus side there are also no wild rabbits so some diseases like Myxomatosis currently don't exist here due to not being able to spread between rabbits.
My main question is identifying his breed. We know he is a mixed breed but we don't know what with! He's a medium sized rabbit who resembles a Belgian hare in body shape but he is white with grey tickling on his ears and snout and blue eyes. He has huge feet, huge ears, a very long tail, long legs and is much bigger than the other three rabbits. The rabbit he came with has been identified as an English x German lop and he is bigger than her as well.
This is my beautiful Mr Jack in his temp cage - he does have hay for substrate (as well as a hay rack) until I can get him some fleece to sleep on but he's pushed it away so he could lie on the cold plastic! I don't blame him as its currently 100F+ at the moment!
Any help would be much appreciated! I'd love to know the main breed in him x
So I want to start in saying that I'm not a rabbit owner, that is to say I have a rabbit but I wasn't planning to have one and I've never owned one in my life!
I'm predominantly a rodent owner and more specifically a hamster owner so please forgive my serious lack of knowledge when it comes to rabbits as you will see from my rabbits story why I didn't have the time to do any research before getting him!
My partner and I live with my mother and two days ago she returned from work with the oddest surprise of all - two beautiful 4 month old rabbits!
The story behind it will seem odd and a little horrific to some given that I live in Cyprus where the culture is very different. So a friend of my mums, named Alex, bought these two baby rabbits at just a few weeks old however shortly after getting them his landlord decided he wanted his house back and Alex had to move out. His new home would not accept pets and his landlord response to this was not to worry and give them to him so he could eat them.
This was not him joking, like in many countries rabbits are a very popular meat here but its actually much stranger to keep them as pets than it is to eat them. There is also no line between meat rabbit and pet/fancy rabbit. People either buy them from the pet shop to fatten up/breed from then eat or they can buy them ready from the butcher - for these reasons its also very hard to find pet rabbit supplies including food, toys and vet care!
There are no rescues for anything other than cats or dogs (small animals are disregarded as not worth the time) so this wasn't an option for Alex but he was very lucky that a family he knew were able to take them.
Unfortunately the family had to move back to the UK unexpectedly this weekend and so Alex was again in the position of finding them a home that night or sending them to the landlord to become a meal. Like any animal lover my mum didn't hesitate to take the rabbits - my 11 year old sister already has two females so her and my mum have some experience with buns as pets.
So that's where we were two nights ago! Two beautiful bunnies has suddenly leaped from the pot and into our lives.
We were told that they were both females, Snowflake and Pepsi were their names but it only took minutes to realise 'Snowflake' was a boy! They were subsequently renamed Mr Jack and Pumpkin.
Pumpkin is currently going through bonding sessions with my sisters two other 4 year old females, Candy - an English Spot cross, and Spice - a lionhead cross (also rescued from the dinner table). So far this has been going very well and Pumpkin will be living with them in the near future.
So what was going to happen with Mr Jack? Well he suddenly became my rabbit and I couldn't adore him more! He is currently living in a spare commercial rabbit cage we happened to have which is very small but is only temporary while we get the money together to build him a large hutch from scratch with a 6-8ft run that he will have access to at all times except when I go to bed at night when he will have to be padlocked inside his hutch to prevent anyone stealing him to eat (not as uncommon as you would hope!) Rabbit sheds, which I think are amazing, are not an option as the extreme heat would cook the poor lad even at night!
When we get a place of our own he will become a free-ranging house rabbit but right now we aren't allowed to keep him inside so we are trying to press on with the building plans as soon as possible - due to financial reasons he will likely be living in the cage for 1-2 months but with time spent out each day I am hoping he will be ok.
He is currently being fed on hay, daily fresh greens and other veg and some home made natural pellets that I made after advice from some top rabbit owners as the only rabbit food you can buy here looks identical to hamster food - basically seeds and biscuits! There is no way I would have him eat something like that so I though home made was better than nothing! Customs won't allow me to ship any decent stuff over from other countries either
Oh and the icing on the cake is that grass and weeds don't grow here because of the extreme dry heat!
>.< Is there any kind of grass supplement I could give or are green vegetables an ok alternative?
He has a mix of wooden parrot toys, jingly cat toys and homemade paper/cardboard toys.
Anyway I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have, being a small animal owner is very hard in a country where even dogs don't have animal welfare laws and rights! We couldn't find anyone who would consider spaying female rabbits which is why my sisters older rabbits and now Pumpkin are intact still but as it's a simple external op' we are hoping that someone might consider neutering Jack to help prevent the health problems that can occasionally occur for intact bucks. Sadly there are no rabbit vaccines available in Cyprus at all so there is no option for us there - on the plus side there are also no wild rabbits so some diseases like Myxomatosis currently don't exist here due to not being able to spread between rabbits.
My main question is identifying his breed. We know he is a mixed breed but we don't know what with! He's a medium sized rabbit who resembles a Belgian hare in body shape but he is white with grey tickling on his ears and snout and blue eyes. He has huge feet, huge ears, a very long tail, long legs and is much bigger than the other three rabbits. The rabbit he came with has been identified as an English x German lop and he is bigger than her as well.
This is my beautiful Mr Jack in his temp cage - he does have hay for substrate (as well as a hay rack) until I can get him some fleece to sleep on but he's pushed it away so he could lie on the cold plastic! I don't blame him as its currently 100F+ at the moment!
Any help would be much appreciated! I'd love to know the main breed in him
x
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