HI:

My name is Kim and my family currently numbers at 11. I’m married with two sons (3 and 13), two adult rabbits and five kits (4 weeks old at this time). Here is our story in a nutshell.

I grew up surounded by pets, and really missed having one. I also wanted my sons to experience the wonderful joys and responsibilities of having an animal companion. After 8 years of living in a no pets apartment, we finally bought our first house and promised our boys a pet. The condo rules of our townhouse complex limits the type of dogs that are allowed, my husband is allergic to cats, and the boys wanted something they could actually play with, so a rabbit was the perfect choice.

I spent a few weeks searching our local online classifieds and found a posting for a one year old, fixed female dwarf named Sugar. Sugar had been bought from a pet store as a baby and within the year, the novelty had worn off and the teen owner was tired of the work. We adopted Sugar in late September 2010 and absolutely loved having him join our family (yes, he, but more about that in a bit). Further research has brought us to the conclusion that Sugar is not a dwarf rabbit either (vet aslso said he wasn’t). Our best guess is that he is a Silver Maarten breed.

A few months later, I saw a posting for baby rabbits, and started thinking that it would be nice for Sugar to have a companion as we are gone during the day hours. I also hoped that if it was my older son’s responsibility to train it, then it would be much closer and affectionate with him than Sugar was. Sugar was very friendly with me, but only tolerated the “men”. We missed out on getting one of the babies; however, in January 2011, we found a posting for Cuddles. Cuddles was a seven month old, female veleveteen rabbit (akak Rex). As with Sugar, once the novelty of a baby rabbit wore off and the work became too much for the child owner, the parents made the decision that it needed to find another home. After a lengthy phone call, the family decided that we would provide a good home andthey let us adopt Cuddles. Cuddles was very affectionate with everyone, right from the start. She licked and groomed me within five minutes of meeting her.

Despite what I had read about the bonding process being potentially difficult and lengthy, Sugar and Cuddles were grooming each other and snuggling up within hours. We noticed some unexpected “behaviour” given that they were both (supposedly) female; however, research informed us that this was a normal bid for dominance between two females, and as they were not fighting or violent (in fact Cuddles just rolled over and exposed her belly), we did not worry about it too much.  We did seperate them at night though as they were not ready to share a cage, but in the open space of our living room, they were wonderful together. Too wonderful, as it turns out.

Three months later, we had just got home from work and I was starting to make dinner, when my oldest son called out form the living room “Mom, Dad, I think you’d better see this”. Rushing to Cuddles’ Cage with us right behind him, he said “There’s a baby in there”. Yep! Cuddles was kindling. We witnessed the birth of the next three babies. We also discovered that she had already had one baby about five hours earlier when she was out in the living room. Again, it was my oldestson that heard squeaking and found the kit under a cloth cube that the rabbits liked to rest in. It was still alive but quite cool, so we wrapped it in a washcloth and took turns holding it against our bodies until it warmed up. We then put it in the nest with the others (can’t tell it apart from the others now).

As we had no idea that Cuddles was pregnant (that was also our “clue” that Sugar was male, NOT female, and NOT fixed), I quickly cleaned things up, and made a temporary nest, while my husband was online researching as fast as he could about what we should and should not do.

Needless to say, I made some phone calls the next day, and Sugar had an appointment with the vet. He was deemd healthy, Beautiful (which we already knew), and in great shape for the surgery. Unfortunately, he had to wait another week to have the surgery though. After a rough day or two following the surgery (he was cold and did not want to eat), he made a perfect recovery.

The babies are now four weeks old and have taken over our living room. We have been on a very steep learnign curve this last month, but it has been an amazing journey so far. Cuddles and Sugar miss each other quite a lot and usually run right over to the other’s cage as soon as they are let out (not at the same time). We did try to let them be together once or twice this past week as they seemed to be pining for each other, but Sugar will not let Cuddles be (still humping her without relent). As she is still nursing and it has only been three weeks since his surgery, we have gone back to only letting one out a time.

I have been writing a blog about our experience: http://mitchellbabybunnies.blogspot.com/