kukupecpec
Well-Known Member
I was looking for a thread here on RO where I could hear teacher's stories and ideas about keeping a rabbit at school. It doesn't seem we have one here so I'll start it! Please share your class bunny stories, routines, and ideas!
This is my story -
I was recently hired at a school for an undefined aide position. I am not a certified teacher, however it was my major while in college and since leaving school I have been a nanny for children with special needs, and went to a medical institute to be a veterinary technician. My combination of love, experience, and interest in children, special needs, and animals is what landed me this interesting job. It's a very small private school, about 50 students, geared towards special education. We are technically a non profit organization, not an accredited school, so we aren't held by most of the regular school rules and basically just do what we feel is in the best interest of our students' special needs.
About the Bunny -
Before I came to the school, the administration staff thought it was a cute idea to take in an unwanted rabbit from a student and have a "school rabbit" that lived in the office. The story I was told is that she was a few months old, and starting to fight with their other rabbits (the more I hear, the more it sounds like this family was casually breeding "accidentally") so they couldn't keep her. They told the staff that she was spayed and vaccinated and just needed a home. One of the teachers bought all the rabbit books she could find at pet stores and truly tried to do the very best she could for this bunny. She has a nice little set up in the side office with a store bought cage as her litter box, and an xpen giving her a 2' x 5' run. She's fed hay, pellets, always has water, and has a milk crate with a door cut out as a hidey house. There's a whole other Teachers vs Admin bad blood background, but the rabbit became kind of a limbo pet with no one in particular caring for her. One teacher tried to make sure she has what she needs, but Sugar is supposed to belong to the office admin staff so THEY should be cleaning and caring for her. This teacher breaks down and cleans up after Sugar because she can only let her sit in her own filth for so long without heartbreak. She was hoping the smell would get the admin staff to break down and clean her but it's just not happening.
Now I'm no expert, but over the past few years I've been learning as much as I can about bunnies because of my own pet rabbits. So I've gotten together with this teacher to take over Sugar's care because this is just not fair, Sugar didn't do anything to deserve poor care. The students who were visiting her sometimes have given up because she's boring. She just hides in her house and looks like she hates the world. Four days per week I have the 6th graders for an hour and we have become and "animal sciences" class, building a chicken coop, learning about farm animals, and starting lots of projects to grow fodder and mealworms for the reptiles in the science room and the chickens we have in the incubator. We've set up a daily schedule for the care of Sugar, and the 6th graders are each given one day a week to take care of her. This is supervised and checked off by me. Once a week we spend a class period making new toys for sugar to play with so she always has something to do beside hide in her house. This has made a huge difference in Sugar's "appeal" because now you can usually see sugar digging in her box, throwing a toy, hoping around, finding a hidden snack, or other cute bunny behaviors.
We also found out that Sugar is in fact a BOY. I was holding Sugar and showing the 6th graders Sugars nails and teeth while we discussed bunny health and I noticed two VERY large bright pink testicles. Woo hoo! That was a fun skirted discussion with the students (we are not supposed to talk about sex body parts and reproduction with our students, we all think it's terribly needed but the parents have banned it) but it also presented a new problem - Sugar is NOT spayed (and most likely has never seen a vet so I doubt the vaccination claim is true either)
I am a HUGE pusher of spay and neuter for bunnies. I found a great local vet who can do it for $75 (same price as the low cost S/N for dogs and cats in the area) and Sugar will be a year old in November. As I understand it, if they are S/N before the undesirable behaviors like spraying and cage aggressiveness begin those behaviors will most likely not start, is this correct?
Do you guys have your class bunnies fixed?
Do any of your bunnies live in pairs? Pro's and con's of having a pair of classroom bunnies vs a lone bunny?
How do you guys handle weekend care? Sugar stays in the office, but half of the teachers live on campus (our school is actually a church, and the church owns all the houses that back up to their property so many of the teachers live in those houses) including the teacher that was trying to care for him before. She still feeds him and checks his water and makes sure the AC is on - Sugar had a horrible experience over the summer, one day the teacher came to feed him and the cleaning lady had shut off the AC completely. We live in the desert and it was 100 degrees in the room. Sugar was nearly dead from heat, collapsed, drooling, panting, poor little guy almost lost his life. There is now a huge sign on the thermostat to remind everyone never to set the temp above 80 and always leave the AC power on so they don't kill the rabbit. The teacher still checks it every time she walks in and out though. However, Sugar does not get his floor swept or his litter scooped on the weekends, nor does he get much attention, just food and water.
What kind of things do you do with your class rabbit? How do you set up interaction with the students? We've been taking Sugar to the classroom with his xpen the 4 days I have the 6th graders so he can spend sometime laying on the floor with the kids. The kids love it, but we are still working on reading body language and not snuggling him half to death when he obviously does not want to be held anymore.
This is my story -
I was recently hired at a school for an undefined aide position. I am not a certified teacher, however it was my major while in college and since leaving school I have been a nanny for children with special needs, and went to a medical institute to be a veterinary technician. My combination of love, experience, and interest in children, special needs, and animals is what landed me this interesting job. It's a very small private school, about 50 students, geared towards special education. We are technically a non profit organization, not an accredited school, so we aren't held by most of the regular school rules and basically just do what we feel is in the best interest of our students' special needs.
About the Bunny -
Before I came to the school, the administration staff thought it was a cute idea to take in an unwanted rabbit from a student and have a "school rabbit" that lived in the office. The story I was told is that she was a few months old, and starting to fight with their other rabbits (the more I hear, the more it sounds like this family was casually breeding "accidentally") so they couldn't keep her. They told the staff that she was spayed and vaccinated and just needed a home. One of the teachers bought all the rabbit books she could find at pet stores and truly tried to do the very best she could for this bunny. She has a nice little set up in the side office with a store bought cage as her litter box, and an xpen giving her a 2' x 5' run. She's fed hay, pellets, always has water, and has a milk crate with a door cut out as a hidey house. There's a whole other Teachers vs Admin bad blood background, but the rabbit became kind of a limbo pet with no one in particular caring for her. One teacher tried to make sure she has what she needs, but Sugar is supposed to belong to the office admin staff so THEY should be cleaning and caring for her. This teacher breaks down and cleans up after Sugar because she can only let her sit in her own filth for so long without heartbreak. She was hoping the smell would get the admin staff to break down and clean her but it's just not happening.
Now I'm no expert, but over the past few years I've been learning as much as I can about bunnies because of my own pet rabbits. So I've gotten together with this teacher to take over Sugar's care because this is just not fair, Sugar didn't do anything to deserve poor care. The students who were visiting her sometimes have given up because she's boring. She just hides in her house and looks like she hates the world. Four days per week I have the 6th graders for an hour and we have become and "animal sciences" class, building a chicken coop, learning about farm animals, and starting lots of projects to grow fodder and mealworms for the reptiles in the science room and the chickens we have in the incubator. We've set up a daily schedule for the care of Sugar, and the 6th graders are each given one day a week to take care of her. This is supervised and checked off by me. Once a week we spend a class period making new toys for sugar to play with so she always has something to do beside hide in her house. This has made a huge difference in Sugar's "appeal" because now you can usually see sugar digging in her box, throwing a toy, hoping around, finding a hidden snack, or other cute bunny behaviors.
We also found out that Sugar is in fact a BOY. I was holding Sugar and showing the 6th graders Sugars nails and teeth while we discussed bunny health and I noticed two VERY large bright pink testicles. Woo hoo! That was a fun skirted discussion with the students (we are not supposed to talk about sex body parts and reproduction with our students, we all think it's terribly needed but the parents have banned it) but it also presented a new problem - Sugar is NOT spayed (and most likely has never seen a vet so I doubt the vaccination claim is true either)
I am a HUGE pusher of spay and neuter for bunnies. I found a great local vet who can do it for $75 (same price as the low cost S/N for dogs and cats in the area) and Sugar will be a year old in November. As I understand it, if they are S/N before the undesirable behaviors like spraying and cage aggressiveness begin those behaviors will most likely not start, is this correct?
Do you guys have your class bunnies fixed?
Do any of your bunnies live in pairs? Pro's and con's of having a pair of classroom bunnies vs a lone bunny?
How do you guys handle weekend care? Sugar stays in the office, but half of the teachers live on campus (our school is actually a church, and the church owns all the houses that back up to their property so many of the teachers live in those houses) including the teacher that was trying to care for him before. She still feeds him and checks his water and makes sure the AC is on - Sugar had a horrible experience over the summer, one day the teacher came to feed him and the cleaning lady had shut off the AC completely. We live in the desert and it was 100 degrees in the room. Sugar was nearly dead from heat, collapsed, drooling, panting, poor little guy almost lost his life. There is now a huge sign on the thermostat to remind everyone never to set the temp above 80 and always leave the AC power on so they don't kill the rabbit. The teacher still checks it every time she walks in and out though. However, Sugar does not get his floor swept or his litter scooped on the weekends, nor does he get much attention, just food and water.
What kind of things do you do with your class rabbit? How do you set up interaction with the students? We've been taking Sugar to the classroom with his xpen the 4 days I have the 6th graders so he can spend sometime laying on the floor with the kids. The kids love it, but we are still working on reading body language and not snuggling him half to death when he obviously does not want to be held anymore.
