Okay, been quiet too long with blogging. I am here today to share a super cute bunny rabbit video. It is five minutes long, but you have to stay to the end to see how this bunny really herds these sheep.
Here is the link just in case the video isn’t working here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeuL5IGimCQ
Monday, I will explain the quiet time here.
Sometimes I just sit and watch, take pictures and enjoy having them with me still …
 Nap time |
 Stretch ... |
 Good grooming |
 Shadow makes it to the hay bowl first |
 Everybunny bellies up to the hay |
 Ready, set ... |
 Taking turns, Shadow first |
 ... and now Tigger's turn |
Ready, set ...
And she is off in a total freakazoid run. What set of the hare trigger, er Tigger? We sure haven’t always figured it out right after more than 10 years. It could be a noise, a movement, almost anything with Tigger. Tigger has the shortest fuse from relaxed to full-blown panic of any animal we have ever seen.
We have learned that it is possible to have a bunny stampede with only two rabbits. Something sets Tigger off and she is off at top speed. Shadow then thinks something bad is going down and he better start running too. So, off they both go. Sometimes they are running top speed together side by side in such tandem you would expect to see a little harness or yoke on them. Sometimes it is one following the other. Sometimes they take off in completely different directions and yes they have run into each other head on once.
Whatever direction they take off, it is the fastest flurry of movement to see with the pounding sound of racing rabbit paws. Two of them can sound like a herd as the run and run and run. We end up furiously talking trying to calm them down and try to follow them carefully. We want to be able to see where they are to make sure they aren’t smashing into things or each other without following them in a way that makes them feel followed which accelerates the stampede rather than slowing it down. We have to come at them from the side or angles, not directly from behind or the front.
After a few minutes, the frantic racing stops. Sometimes it is like throwing a switch back to calm. It is hard to say sometimes what starts it and also to know sometimes what makes them suddenly realize they are safe again.
Tigger never does anything halfway. One time something set her off while she was in the makeshift tunnel we have of a sheet draped over several open-ended boxes. It lasted less than a minute and ended before we could even reach her. The hare trigger went off and she started to run. Tigger got herself wrapped up in the sheet, managed to free her feet enough to run herself and the sheet into a hay bowl. That rolled everything over so that hay and bowl went flying up and then down. Tigger crawled out from underneath the sheet covered with hay, blinking and teary eyed. We called the vet and watched that the eyes cleared up by the next morning. She had just gotten some dust in her eyes. We think that happened with the roll through the hay bowl which would leave the actual cause of the freak out a mystery.
There have been many times along her ten years that we wondered if the hare trigger would allow her to make it to senior bunny status. Tigger is living proof that panic attacks alone don’t kill. However, lots of padding and soft corners in rooms do help to keep rabbits with little hare triggers safer. We have also noticed that Tigger stays calmer if we are talking to her as we come in to a room or approach her.
Perhaps in Tigger’s case, the hare trigger could be related to poor eyesight. Since she has always stayed calmer if she hears our voices, maybe she has had visual problems a good part of her life. We know she does now as a senior bun, some eye issues can now be seen by the vet, but maybe they have been there for quite some time before they could be seen.
So if you too have a rabbit with a hare trigger, see if lots of talking to your rabbit as you move around lessens the problem.
I was so proud of myself this week. I finally got all my supplies properly organized into containers and used a label maker to put nice clear permanent (I thought) adhesive labels on the containers.
Then Shadow decided to show me a completely new rabbit trick yesterday evening. He hopped up to one of the plastic containers, grabbed the adhesive label somehow with his teeth and ripped it off. I had to grab him and wrestle the label away from him immediately so that I wouldn’t have to find out how bad an adhesive label might mess up a rabbit’s digestive system.
What on earth was he thinking and why would he go after those labels? Shoot, now what am I going to do? If I take all the labels off, I am back to not knowing what is in the containers. If I leave them on, Shadow now knows he has something new to mess with.
Arghhh! Clearly as long as the he is still breathing, Shadow will continue to find new ways and means of getting into things I would never have dreamed of! The labels weren’t even on a week. Does he notice new things or what?
So how did we come to have a carrot colored rug in our dining room? When we first bought our home, the previous owners left behind their room sized rug. It was solid black with a border in black and cream.
We had two problems with that rug. The first became obvious the night I walked into the dining room when the dimmer switch for the light was set on low. Part of the rug ahead of me moved, freaking me out. Black rabbit + black rug = bad idea. Shadow was going to get stepped on if we didn’t do something. The second problem was that the bunnies liked it way too much and carpet isn’t good for rabbit digestive systems.
When we were investigating a replacement, our vet suggested getting a jute rug. She said that the natural fiber would be better for rabbit systems if they decided they just had to have some. So I hit the internet looking for room sized and reasonable. I wanted to find a jute rug that was reversible, meaning no latex backing. We didn’t need to worry about the rug slipping, since there would be an oak dining room table and six chairs keeping it where it belonged. We wanted to be sure it was jute through and through so that it could be flipped for double the wear.
I found an online store that had the rugs for a reasonable price, but the colors were mostly icky muddy, unappealing shades and one bright color, carrot orange. I think the catalog actually called it burnt orange, but then a catalog called our office paint color desert sunset. That really is pumpkin and we need to repaint sometime. Paint doesn’t always darken as it dries.
So what else would I buy for a rabbit friendly rug? Of course it had to be the carrot orange. This is actually the second carrot orange jute rug to fill the dining room space. Our dearly departed Portia bunny chewed huge holes in the first one while she occupied the first floor all by herself.
Tigger and Shadow are enjoying hanging out on their carrot patch. They love the sunshine that floods in the bay window during the afternoons.
Having read through BunnyHugga’s guides on How to Train Humans, I swear that our Miss Tigger was the ghost writer for the one on Vet Visits. One of the first suggestions, one rabbit to another, is to make as much mess as possible. This had been Tigger’s hugely successful MO.
In the carrier on the way to the vet, she lets loose with absolutely everything she’s got. We always arrive at the vet with the wettest, stinkiest, messiest rabbit you could possibly imagine. If they didn’t know us well, they would think we weren’t keeping her clean at all. We have started to travel with the carrier bottom filled with litter, multiple towels and at least part of a roll of paper towels. We know once we get to the vet, there is going to be a huge clean up needed to make Tigger even remotely touchable. I would like to say that I am able to accomplish this clean up without any transfer of substances or smell. However, Tigger makes sure that I get a good sample of everything. Its guaranteed that by the time we reach home between my clothing and the bunny towels I take, there is going to be a washer load needing to be done.
The second thing suggested for rabbits is to let loose on fur, so much so that everyone thinks an Angora rabbit is in the room. We have never been able to figure out how Tigger manages to open up all her fur follicles, but she does. There will be fluffy floating clouds of fur in the room by the end of any vet visit and everyone is has a runny nose and is coughing and sneezing whether they have allergies or not.
Then there’s the aftermath, where the rabbit must observe a grievance period against humans. Tigger always comes out of her carrier and thumps, does that little head toss with the look and then turns around and does the flicky feet thing as she hops off with that aggrieved hare air. It takes awhile before she forgives us and we are allowed to approach HRH Tigger again.
There are a couple of things unique to Tigger’s vet visits that weren’t in the article. So if she ghost wrote it, she held a few things back for her use only. On one visit while we were waiting, after I cleaned her up, I gave her the cardboard roll from the now used abused and discarded paper towels. I thought she would play with it or chew it and keep herself occupied. She definitely kept herself busy. She retreated to the back corner of her carrier and used the towel roll like a baseball bat to blast the sides of the carrier. Thwack, thwack, thwack was repeated on and off the whole time we were waiting. We were in an exam room at the end of a hall with the door closed, but she was making so much noise, the vet techs kept coming in every five minutes or so to check that we were okay. Yeah, no problem, just a Tigger tantrum going on. Thank goodness she isn’t a biter!
The other thing Tigger does is a huge guilt trip before we even get home. Tigger hates to be picked up and held. So at the vet, I would always get her out of the carrier, put her on the scale for the techs to weigh her and then try to put her back in the carrier until the vet would come in. Tigger fastens herself to my shirt and makes it quite clear that I am not to put her down. One time, I didn’t pick her back up fast enough and she leapt up into my arms. Now I don’t flatter myself on this, she has clearly decided that I am the lesser of two evils. However, it is a huge guilt trip having those big brown eyes looking at me as paws and claws cling. Putting her down for the vet makes me feel like a hard-hearted beast of a human.
Good luck fellow humans. House rabbits think it’s a bunny world, and we just live in it!
Well, I expected to be back much sooner today, but nothing has gone as planned. So I will stick with something amusing to follow.
I could really use an end of day laugh. How about you? So BunnyHugga has this great guide – How to Train a Human: A Guide for House Rabbits
Then if you dare you can continue on to see what your rabbits have been up to in the other training areas:
Tigger & Shadow on the hop
Its morning and I just let the rabbits out and now have the pitter patter of roaming rabbit paws around the house. They are here and there, up and down, chewing this, checking that. Oops! I left open the door to one bathroom and there they are ready to zoom in …
Be back later today …
Oat Hay + Rabbit = Cheeripoos ?
As a cottage industry, seriously. I have often fantasized about getting the bunnies to earn their own keep. I had read at one time about a how-to book that had information for using bunny poo to start a worm farm and then sell the worms to fishermen. Blaine has a wonderful green thumb and we use bunny poo in our garden. So I have always been aware of the rich fertilization in the poo since it is already composted veggies and hay. It is also nice hard dry little marbles that are easy to pick up and don’t have much of an odor.
However, I had never heard or thought about the possibility of actually selling bunny poo online. I had just recently joined the Creative Breakroom forum. In one thread I learned about a challenge they had a while back for “Jars O Crap”. Everyone was to take a Mason jar and fill it with whatever, take pictures and then list their jars online.
Looking through the challenge thread and the very creative responses had me laughing myself silly. This is the one I loved the most: Un Bocal des Peaux D’Oignons. Oh so very special, I am almost tempted to buy it myself. If I had been there at the time to take part, the title had me thinking quite literally about my most available free item here, a jar of bunny poo!
So I got into a discussion in the Breakroom on the topic of bunny poo. What do you say the expiration date is on a bottle full of bunny poop? What kind of shelf life does that have? Or does it become vintage at some point? Rapid thoughts were running through my head as to whether that would be tagged as handmade or a supply. Do I say I made it myself or it was created by my rabbit collective? Some pointed out that a bottle could have explosive gas issues and that holes in the top or a plastic bag with a nice label might be better.
As we were verbally flinging the poo back and forth in this discussion, one member asked another if they had heard back officially on this. That is when I found out that someone had investigated whether selling bunny poo on Etsy was allowed. They were told that it was, as long as local laws and regulations in regards to animal compost are met. Hey, I am living in a farming community! I will just bet I can find out about that! That is where hysterically funny idea meets up with actual business opportunity. Too funny!
I suppose I should be incredibly alarmed with myself that the idea of selling bunny poo has generated more creative marketing ideas in my head than anything else this year. Perhaps there are whole huge cottage industries out there for the unemployed to sell pet waste and help feed their families. I did check this morning on Etsy and there are current active listings there for both Rabbit Manure and Llama Beans.
Objectively, the picture for the Llama beans was a great deal cleaner (does that term ever apply to compost?) than the Rabbit Manure. The Llama Bean title is also more appealing than Rabbit Manure which sounds a bit too down on the farm for eco conscious urban viewers. So I sense an opportunity to upscale the market for rabbit compost / fertilizer. I am intrigued in my research today on Etsy to see how many people have tagged their items with fertilizer when they aren’t selling compost ??? I am not at all certain about the thinking on that one for SEO keyword searches.
At this point, I have no idea where I am going (is that a poor word choice?) with this. The minimum I expect is to have some great fun and laughs here for the blog. Since laughs have been in short supply at many points this year that will be oh so welcome. So stay tuned for poo!
I just love this photo from istockphoto.com!
It is Saturday, a day to unwind, review, mull … zzz. Whoops have to catch myself. Actually, I have been hopping and bopping around the internet to various sites. I am always on the look out for great bunny things or funny bunny ideas.
I am thinking about bunny poo today, lots and lots of bunny poo. Part of that is because I see lots and lots of bunny poo. Even when I don’t see the bunnies, I see evidence of the existence of bunnies here.
We didn’t realize that the careful leaving of rabbit droppings in specific areas is part of rabbit territorial marking. Now we do. However, we keep telling Tigger and Shadow it really isn’t necessary to mark the area around their litter box as theirs by ringing it with poo. No one else is going to be claiming those boxes. We have found that a kitchen skimmer (dedicated to the bunnies, no going back to the kitchen now!) is a great tool to scoop those up and drop them in the litter boxes. The cat scoops always had holes too big and allowed the poos to drop right through.
So where am I going with all the poo? Oh that would be telling today and I am going to make you wait and come back another day to find out.
Okay, I swear sometimes the bunnies read the blog and Twitter feed. It was only a couple days ago I wrote about The Things I Do For Bunnies and how I really gag over the smell of Cilantro. Someone on Twitter asked if I really hated it that much and I replied that I found the smell of Tigger’s SBDs sweeter than the smell of Cilantro. Tigger’s SBDs tend to smell like a skunk has invaded.
Last night, Blaine washed up a pile of Cilantro for the bunnies while I was working in the office. I came into the living room after the rabbits had finished eating. I got down on the floor and Tigger hopped over. She stopped right in front of me and yawned, sharing a cloud of Cilantro scented bunny breath.
With Tigger, I do have to wonder if she was addressing me with bated breath wanting to know what smelled the worst: Cilantro, her SBDs or the new entry, her Cilantro breath. I have to admit, I fled the room so quickly that I am not sure where I would rate the Cilantro breath. However, I know I don’t need to try it again just to be able to fine tune that answer. I now have a completely new Haiku idea for the folks on IHateCilantro.com. If only I could remember how a Haiku is supposed to be written.
Sigh … where is a good gas mask or respirator when you really need one.
Today is a day of reflection and there are a couple of things that come to mind on this topic. The first is T-shirt sacrifices. There is no T-shirt color that can properly hide the discolorations that come from spit out bunny food, bunny pee and bunny poo. Portia and now Tigger have both needed syringe feedings and would soil themselves and have poopy butt while really ill.
Portia was pretty good about holding still to be taken care of and cleaned up. Tigger however, has always been a bit like holding the Bugs Bunny style Tasmanian Devil. You might hang on, but her position changes regularly and rapidly. I try to use baby style drop cloths to cover me up while Blaine feeds or cleans her, but she twirls around all over me and I always end up wearing whatever she wants to share. Immediate laundering doesn’t always get out the ground in stuff that comes with all her wiggling around. So, there goes another shirt designated to bunny care only. I know someone out there is thinking, just bunny burrito her in a towel. I cannot describe how fast she moves, there is no getting her wrapped up into a towel like that, even at a slower ten-year old speed. Only at her very sickest will she hold that still and then the towel burrito isn’t necessary.
Second, the smell of Cilantro makes me gag. I don’t know why, but I really hate it. So of course, the bunnies love to eat Cilantro and want it for variety in their diet. For me, the only thing worse than the smell of Cilantro in the room is the aroma it leaves hanging around on my hands when I wash it up for the rabbits. I cannot get it off no matter what I use. It follows me everywhere.
Usually, I get Blaine to handle the toxic veggie. I have trouble even being in the same room with it while the bunnies eat it. I went looking for info on Cilantro to see if there are any kill the odor suggestions. Instead, I found there is a member website for Cilantro haters with over 3,000 members: http://ihatecilantro.com/submit.php. Amazing, I am not alone. I will have to look over the haikus of my fellow sufferers.
Back to Tigger for the third, SBDs. Tigger can clear a room with her gassy issues. She is the sweetest, fluffiest, cutest most beautiful rabbit and yet if she lets loose, you would swear there was a skunk in the room. I cannot believe how much toxic gas a five pound rabbit can hold. Now this isn’t just because she has been sick lately. Tigger let loose her first SBD right in my face when she was just a baby. I thought I was going to find a huge pile of poo underneath her and was really surprised to find nothing at all and realize my cute little bunny could let loose a silent stinker like that. It was a very teary eye opener into the dark secrets of fluffy bunnies.