My name is Britty and I’m a relatively new but very proud bunny mommy. I’ve had Fifi for almost a year now and she is my first rabbit I have ever cared for. I’m happy to see that there are other’s who are just as obsessed with their bunnies as I am and I’m excited to get some advice and learn some new things.
I apologize if this is a long post but I wanted to share a little about my complex journey into rabbit parenthood that you guys might understand better than others.
Firstly, my husband Colt and I have 3 daughters. 2 are elementary age and my youngest will be starting Kindergarten next year. I I’m currently in training to be a Yoga instructor but my family has always been top priority and so I am home most of the time. I started considering getting a pet when I realized that my babies just don’t need me as much as they used to and I don’t really know how to just stop “momming” 24/7 if that makes sense. My kiddos are so close in age that i pretty much had been doing that for 7 years non stop. So I started thinking about what kind of pet I wanted. I had had dogs and cats and even horses before but for some reason I had always wanted a rabbit and I had never gotten one so I did a ton of research. I found myself delving into every website that I could find with any information on rabbits. I had read all the articles on rabbit parents that eventually end up surrendering them because they were unprepared to take care of them so I was dead set on not being a deadbeat bunny mom lol. And finally I started looking for rabbits for sale in my area.
Our town is not very big and our Humane Society didn’t have any up for adoption. So I was looking at breeder’s websites around our area but I really wanted to adopt. I went onto our local Craigslist just for fun to see if there were any rabbits in need of re-homing. Sure enough there were quite a few in our town and towns near ours looking for homes! As I browsed I saw an ad and I just fell in love. There was a picture of a beautiful French Angora rabbit with her long white fur and beautiful eyes! The problem was that the ad was a few weeks old and chances were she was probably not available anymore. But I figured if the ad is still up so I may as well check so I emailed the seller and got a response back telling me that she had one party already interested but they had failed to show up that day and if they didn’t show up by the next day then I could have her! I was so excited!
I broke the news to my husband that I was, hopefully, getting a rabbit. He had never considered a rabbit as a house pet before. He was a little taken a back but after I explained to him all the research and thought I had put into it he was very supportive. His only worry was that the other people would show up and take her and I would have gotten my hopes up for nothing.
That night I could barely sleep and spent most of my time researching French Angoras online. The next day I stayed by my phone and finally, around 5 pm that evening I got the email. She was mine and I sped out to pick her up. My life hasn’t been the same since.
I found out from the owner that they had sold her previously to another owner and who had surrendered her to the Humane society after just a few months of having her. She still had her microchip under the original owners’ address so they decided to take her back and re-home her themselves. When they got her back her fur was very matted and they cut a lot of it away and were keeping her outdoors in a cage they’d made for her out of wood and chicken wire. I was anxious to get her home and acclimated to indoor life so they handed her over with a half bag of gerbil food (all they had for her) and off we went.
I didn’t feed her the gerbil food however, I got her stocked up with food, hay, and toys. For the first few days I slept on the couch next to her cage where she preferred to be most of the time. I spent most those first few days bonding with her. When it came time for her first bath I noticed her fur was still very matted undernieth and her skin was really red and inflamed and even oozing and bleeding in places under the matting. It looked so sore! It was pretty clear she had been through some rough stuff so I took her straight to my local small animal vet and everyone in their office fell in love with her too. People were popping into the exam room just to have a look at her and gush over her obvious adorableness.
She ended up being prescribed oral antibiotics and I removed as much of the matted hair as she would allow me daily and slowly as she began to heal she started to come out to socialize with the family. She warmed up to the kids and my hubby so quickly I couldn’t believe it. I had read so many articles about how distrustful rabbits can become and how deeply abuse affects these animals and their behavior but in just a few months you would never guess what she had endured.
She is truly a special soul to have come out of all of that with such a sweet demeanor and zesty attitude and caring for her has been one of the most fulfilling things our family has experienced together. Every day we are learning with her. We converted our walk-in closet to her bedroom where she has a cage with a litter box inside (the door of the cage is always open so she can come and go), her food and water, and all her toys. The rest of our house is now pretty much fully bunny-proofed and she spends very little time in her room. She pretty much prefers to be part of the action now. She is just so much fun.
I’ve never bonded with any other animal the way I am to her and I think rabbits will be our family pets from now on!
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