RABBITRY BUSINESS: PROTECTING YOUR RABBITS/ BARN FIRES

[TinysMom]

A friend and fellow-lionhead breeder - Lisa Brown - had a barn fire this week. This is the fifth barn fire I know of in the lionhead community in the last four years. The first one was at Gail Gibbons - I think they lost most or all of their herd - that was four years ago (shortly before I got into lionheads). Another one was Dawn Guth - I think that was before the Gibbon's fire...but I don't remember fo rsure.. The third one was a couple of years ago to a woman in Tennessee if I remember right. The fourth one was to Mossy Possum lionheads a couple of years ago.

The Gibbons lost a lot - Dawn Guth lost a portion of her herd but some survived - the woman in Tennessee lost everyone (and that was a freak fire) and Mossy Possum lost every bunny too.

Lisa? She didn't lose any bunnies at all - even though the neighbor's barn close beside burned to the ground - and the car between the two barns exploded.

Why didn't Lisa lose her rabbits?

Their cages were on wheels. Her 14 year old son and 12 year old daughter - got in there with her and started wheeling them to the door and getting them outside into the yard. By the time the firemen got there - most of the rabbits were out and the firemen were able to get the rest out.

Lisa has pointed out some things on the lionhead list that she is going to be doing to change her barn - and I think these are points we all might want to consider...

• She's going to build a ramp going into and coming out of the barn - that way the cages will wheel over the threshold instead of having to be LIFTED over the threshold. That is a lot of what slowed them down.
• Because they suspect this was arson (not sure if it was directed towards her or her neighbor) - she is going to get a motion sensor to put on/in the barn to light up whenever someone goes in there.

On top of all of what she went through - she lost all her hay and litter and I'm wondering if she lost all her food too.

Anyway- I wanted to share this story with y'all. I may try to get Lisa's permission to share her emails to the lionhead list here - because it truly is amazing.

Fortunately - Dawn Guth is helping her with getting the animals to eat again and helping with dealing with the smoke damage to their lungs, etc.

I am going to share one paragraph from Lisa's letter - because it reminds me of why I respect her so much as a breeder - and how much she cares for her rabbits..

For those who have never had this experience, please take the proper precautions and make evacuation not only possible, but FAST. For those who have been there and done that, I know now just how horrible it is. When I saw the fire on the side of my barn, went into the rabbitry and saw how frightened they all were, I knew I couldn't just let them there. And when I went through them all afterward, I was sure to give them all hugs and kisses and tell them I love them. I'm so thankful Ididn't lose any of them, at least thus far. I don't know what I would do without them.​

 

[SilverBirchRabbitry]

That would be terrible. That totally makes you want to take every precaution possible. I will post here later after I have thought about it a bit more

 

[TinysMom]

I thought I'd point out that I think Lisa has something like 60 or more lionheads - not sure if she still has other breeds...but she got all but 9 of them out before the firemen could get there...and it was less than 10 minutes.

I'm really REALLY going to be talking to Art about this because we were going to build our own cages for the flemmies - and I still want to - but I am going to make sure they are on wheels...

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

How weird that you put this up, Peg. We actually just almost lost our rabbits to a field fire today. Really quite the scariest thing. They are all fine and the rabbitry wasn't touched. The firefighters saved everything in our backyard. And the fire came about 6ft away from the shed and our house.

Their was hardly any smoke in the shed, as one fireman told us and he was watching them the entire time. A spectator first on scene was told my by mom that we had rabbits and he dashed through the smoke to get to the rabbitry. He and my mom started spraying the shed to prevent the fire from spreading there, and to keep the smoke out. They are all doing fine and we are watching them closely.

Emily

 

[TinysMom]

I'm so glad your rabbits were ok - the thing to consider is - due to the stress from this - they might go off their feed.....so watch out for that.

I'm assuming that no smoke blew into the shed - if it did - you will need to watch for respiratory issues too.

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

TinysMom wrote:

I'm so glad your rabbits were ok - the thing to consider is - due to the stress from this - they might go off their feed.....so watch out for that.

I'm assuming that no smoke blew into the shed - if it did - you will need to watch for respiratory issues too.

Yes we are watching out for both of those things. The fireman said that there was some smoke in there, but they got it out quickly. We have fans on in their to clear anything else left.
I will let you know if they eat when we go out to feed them We'll also give them plenty of hay to keep them from getting too stressed.

Emily

 

[Blaze_Amita]

OMG Hang in there guys. It is scary and I haven't had to worry about fires at all. Hose stays right next to my shed and it stays on all the time and the motion sensor porch light reaches my shed. Fires do freak me out though. I'd hate to loose my rabbits, any one of them to a fire. I think when I build a new rabbit barn in Kentucky I will keep that in mind.
At my horse barn it burnt down a few years back, we lost a couple of sheep and 3 ponies(including 'mine')but we've finally rebuilt and moved on, it took 3 years to be able to move on.

 

[TinysMom]

I think the fire that creeped me out the most was when the gal in Tennessee lost her herd.

I normally expect fires to come from frayed cords - old heaters - you know - pretty much electrical issues.

In her case - and I don't remember all of the details - but it had something to do with the sun reflecting off the windows or something - onto something in a pile of leaves - and the leaves caught fire.

It was a really freaky thing that happened - I don't think I still have the information - but it was something that there was no way to protect against...I wish I remembered all of the details.

Those are the fires that freak me out - because there really is no way to prevent them.

 

[Karlie]

Oh, I'm so sorry to here that, I hope your bunnies are all okay BlueSkyAcres!
Fires can be so devestating, luckly I have not had to deal with them yet.
Praying for you,
Karlie