Ranger and Lily RIP

[Hyatt101]

So, I wanted to give Ranger and Lily, a bun couple, a good tribute.

Part 1: (I will do this in several parts over the next few days to get everything in there)

It all started when we went to a farm to pick out two baby bunnies. I instantly fell head over heels in love with a lovely female, black and white dwarf lionhead. Sean, my little brother, liked a Dutch male. We brought them home, and named them Ranger and Lily. :heartbeat:

The two bunnies were wonderful! Lily formed an instant bond with me, that she shared with no one else. It was just me and Lily; she was skittish around everyone else. Ranger was a wild one, who LOVED food like no other rabbit on earth! He was playful and crazy!

The above is a picture of Lily the first day we got her.
Thank you for reading the first part of this, and tomorrow I'll continue their story.

 

[Ilovemyrabbit]

What a pretty bunny.

 

[Hyatt101]

What a pretty bunny.

Thank you. I miss her dearly :heartbeat:

 

[Hyatt101]

Part 2:
About a year after we'd gotten them, we decided to breed Ranger and Lily. Lily delivered 4 kits, 2 of which died instantly, and the other two died the next morning. I was devastated. I told myself that we could never breed them again.

But, that plan was foiled.

One stormy night, while I was at my moms house, Lily broke her cage and hopped free! My dad had a very tough time catching her, and when he finally did, it was very late at night, and he was exhausted. Not being able to repair the cage till morning, he put lily in rangers cage. Now, my dad loves the rabbits, and he's great with them, but he hasn't done as much research as me, so he didn't know they could possibly fight, (but they didn't of course). A month later, when we knew Lily was pregnant as she had been building a nest, we decided we wanted to move her to another cage for her to deliver the babies.

I didn't want to pick her up, for fear of hurting the babies, so I tried to make her hop in by herself, and we would move the nest, but she wouldn't budge! As my brother was carefully poking through the nest, (we had already checked it, twice, to be sure there weren't babies yet) when he suddenly felt a warm, wriggly little thing jump into his hand. He jolted back, and said, "There's a baby in there!" Our dad helped us dig all the way down the nest, where we finally discovered 4 healthy, wriggly babies! We quickly repaired the nest, and Lily was content. Sean and my dad didn't want to touch the babies, for fear lily wouldn't trust them, but I knew she'd trust me. And I was too eager to hold them! Still, I gave lily and the babies the day to rest once we saw there were no dead babies. The next day, though, I went and held each one! I marveled over how healthy they were, especially in contrast to the last litter she'd had. I was so proud of my Lily! She raised them well! Ranger got extra treats anyway, just because he was a cute daddy

 

[Hyatt101]

This is the nest, with babies inside!

This is the baby that most resembled Lily:

And this is the baby that most resembled Ranger:

These are all the babies, though this picture is a little blurry:

 

[HEM]

Awww, they are all so cute

 

[Hyatt101]

Thanks

 

[Hyatt101]

Part 3: shorty after the babies went to their new homes, we were planning on keeping 2 of them, my bullmastiff scared Lily so badly that she had a heart attack, and passed away. She was my baby, my heart bunny, and I was utterly devastated. Not long after, Pepper, one of the babies we were going to keep, suffered a heart attack when the same dog busted her and her sister, Taz, cage, and she passed away. Now, this is the SWEETEST dog you'll ever meet, but, being a bullmastiff, when he sees a little animal like a rabbit running around, his instincts kick in. However, it was hard to not hate him for a few days, but today, I love him so much. These two deaths were really tough.


Lily the day I got her:

Unfortunately I don't have good pictures of Pepper, since she was solid black, and an energetic little thing! Part 4 soon to come!

 

[Ilovemyrabbit]

I still can't get over how pretty Lily was. And her babies are sooo cute!

 

[tonyshuman]

What a sad story. I'm so sorry you lost your sweet bunnies. Keeping dogs and bunnies is hard because of all the instincts both species have built into them. For instance, my brother likes greyhounds, and I can understand the desire to rescue a retired racing greyhound, but there's no way you could have both pet rabbits and a greyhound because of the instincts built into them, and for the retired racers they have learned to chase rabbits too. I want to have both dogs and bunnies one day and I know it's possible to keep both but it takes a lot of training of the dogs, not letting them be alone together, training the rabbits not to be afraid, etc. I have a special fondness for Dutch bunnies because of my Tony and I love to see the little fluffy dutch-looking baby.

 

[Hyatt101]

Thank you! Lily was gorgeous! Her coloring was my favorite. Yes, keeping dogs and rabbits can be tricky, although with my little dog at my moms house, we have no problem, except for the fact that he seems to think rabbit droppings are a delicacy!

 

[Hyatt101]

Part 4:

Ranger died just a few weeks ago. He was a beautiful Dutch bunny, with on blue eye and one half brown half blue eye. We miss him very much! We love and mourn our Ranger and Lily!

Currently we have 4 rabbits: Cocoa, Pockets, Taz (Ranger and Lilys smallest baby) and our newest addition we got in October, an ND named Ruby.

This is my personal favorite photo of Ranger and lily.




Here's Pockets:

Here's Taz:

http://s1160.beta.photobucket.com/user/Hyatt101/media/GEDC2390_zpsb0f0e05c.jpg.html?sort=3&o=45

And here's Ruby:

 

[HEM]

That picture of Lily and Ranger is adorable.

 

[Hyatt101]

Thanks