[Ag-eq] Rabbits 101

[Jewel]

3 weeks ago:  was it only 3 weeks?  seems much much longer than that:  I got 2 2 month old Flemish
Giant rabbits.  Peter, the smaller of the 2 was so gentle while Paul, his brother, thought that it
would be fun to bite Jewel, but he found that biting  Jewel was not as funny as he thought it was
going to be.
Now all that was on Thursday, Jan 6th, and on the following Tuesday morning, they were both gone
from the little
shed that I had them in.
I reckoned that Guideon had climbed the security gate, which he had never done before and had got
into the shed by scrambling over the bottom half of the double door and had killed them:  not that
there was any sign of him having done so:  no blood or tufts of rabbit fur or bunny bits, except
that I found one of the cat collars that they wore in the hay shed where Guideon had made a day bed
for himself, but his bread basket [tum tum] did feel fuller than it should have done at that time of
the day,   and, to my fevered brain,  that "fuller", felt like dish de jour Fricassee Rabbit De
Luxe!
Now it was on the Monday night/early Tuesday morning that they  disappeared, but when I was talking
on Thursday morning to Sam, my honorary shepherd and pastor of the Grace Church which shares a
boundary with the BlanchRanch, he said that he had seen a black
rabbit: Peter:  hopping around in the paddock somewhere around Tuesday morning.
Steve Ewing who lives 2 properties from me in Oxford Street but just through the fence of my
Hamilton Street garden returned Paul to me having found him in his section on Friday.  However,
Peter was still
missing.
Guideon had not killed the rabbits with the help of happenstance that worked to the rabbits'
advantage, but it was not, I
suspect, for lack of will on his part.
What I think happened was that as he scrambled over the bottom half of the stable door, it had leant
inward, and the bottom of the door which was hinged to a very rotten frame had pulled free and
opened a gap, and a gap at eye level was all they. the rabbits meeded and they beat a hasty retreat.
Over the few days since Paul's return, he had changed his ways and become a very nice pet.
I put a hot wire above the security gate so that if Guideon tried to climb it again, he would get a
nasty welcome at the top, which, I think, may have happened yesterday morning as I heard him give a
startled shout, and when I checked the hot wire, it, definitely, had been disturbed, so I replaced
it with a piece of steel rod rather than a strand of wire.
Yesterday, Jan 22nd, my sister, Deslie and I were to visit, my good friend,  Kirstan in Winton and I
intended to take
Paul because I
thought that she would like to meet him.  However, when I went to get him, I found that the was
another gap at the bottom of the door, and Paul had gone.  I could not hold Guideon responsible this
time because there was no way that he could have made that gap.  It was as though :Paul had pushed
the door until it had moved sufficiently far from the jamb to create that gap, but he was only a
baby Flemish Giant, and, although such an action may, just may, have been possible if done by a
fully-grown FG, I cannot see a rabbit of Paul's present size being able to do it.
Kirstan says she has a feeling that I will get Paul back, but she also had a feeling that I was
going to win big on Keno, and I didn't/haven't, so I don't have too much faith in her * prophetic
feelings!
Jan 23 11:10pm:  Oh me"  of little faith!  Kirstan!  forgive me, if you find it possible within you
to do so, for Paul was returned tonight by
the same chap who caught him in the same place as he had before, thanks, in some degree to his
sharp-eyed cat.
Steve and Eryn, his wife, had been attending a wedding but by good luck, or divine intervention:
take your
pick! They returned home earlier than had been planned and heard the message that I had left with
their call minder.
When Steve went out the back, he noticed his cat staring,
fixedly at something in a bush, and that something was Paul.
I have barricaded the door of Paul's sleeping quarters to the extent that one could be forgiven if
the
thought went through his/her mind that I was keeping a serial killer under lock and key.
Hopefully, Paul's adventures are at an end, but the batteries on my electric fence energiser have
gone flat so, until I get them replaced, Master Guideon's movements are going to be, somewhat,
curtailed.
There is, to date, no sign of Peter so, I fear, his days of freedom may have come to an untimely
end, or, on the other hand, he may have been found by a charming girl angel, "now Jewel! we will
have no sex stereotyping around here!"  OK!  boy angel--girl angel--what the hell: who pestered and
pleaded until his/her weary parents said "alright already!  Anything for a quiet life!   Keep the
damned
rabbit, but remember, the pest is yours and if you don't look
after it, you will find Fricassee of Rabbit De Luxe :in your school lunch !"
Oh no Jewel!  Don't even think such dreadful thoughts!
  No parents would be that unkind:  would  they?
It occurred to me that in retirement homes and villages where the keeping of pets:  pets being cats
and dogs: is not allowed, keeping a rabbit as a companion animal [pet] would fill the bill for many
of the residents who are feeling lonely having had companion animals when they were in their own
homes.
Rabbits do make wonderful pets, they can be enclosed:  I have had a stumble or 2 on that path, but
don't measure me as being representative of the ease of enclosing a bunny:  they do not smell:  they
do not make a noise:  and they don't drag dead animals and other unwanted refuse to your back door!

        Jewel