This site vs. other sites, on my soapbox

[dmh426]

You know, I really just have to thank all you out there. I belong to a couple other sites, like Yahoo! Answers, and even other specific house rabbit sites. I get so frustrated with the other ones, that I don’t go to them anymore. I try to help the occassional person on Yahoo! Answers when they are asking the same old "how can I tell if my bunny is pregnant" and "why is he humping and peeing everywhere" questions.  But, this is the only site where there are other house bunny slaves like me, who care about their babies and take the time TO RESEARCH AND READ A BOOK OR TWO ABOUT HOUSE RABBIT OWNERSHIP. It’s just so frustrating that people think that owning a bunny is like having a goldfish or something. Yes, I know spaying and neutering is expensive, but it’s the BEST thing you can do for you bunny.  How many times must I post that on other sites?!?!?! I can’t tell you how many times people were flabbergasted when I told them about the benefits of Timothy hay to a bunny’s diet.  Flabbergasted. I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. So….

the purpose of this little rant from the soapbox was to see if other people out there are as frustrated are me. I honestly believe that this is the ONLY site where knowledgeable house rabbit owners come together to discuss problems, insights, and little tips we’ve learned along the way with each other.  So, thank you for proving to me that there are other people like me out there who treat rabbit ownership like parenting.  Gotta keep up with the new inormation and keep your bunny learning and growing, which keeps them happy   

[wendyzski]

I am also pretty active on a couple of other forums for rabbit people.

For those who still have usenet or can access thru Google groups, there is alt.pets.rabbits.  We have people from all over the world on there, with a lot of first-hand knowledge – specificaly about medical conditions and what their vets have tried.  We even did a big international card exchange with pictures of our buns.  Some people got really creative. I made a collage of all the pictures I got!  We have a couple of lists of links for first-time adopters that get posted regularly.  I carry it on my Palm. 

I am very active on LiveJournal, and in addition to my personal and group blogs I am pretty active on the bunnyowners community. Our tag line is "Slaves to the Urban Rabbit".  Gravehearted is on there too, and there is a similar community called houserabbits. 

There are also specialty mailing lists for breeds, local areas, and special-needs buns.  A couple of the women on alt.pets.rabbits teamed up to  cobble together what appears to be the first bunny-wheelchair.

I think that online bunny communities are so popular because there is so much bad and outright dangerous information being given about rabbits, particularly from pet stores.  Online is really the only way to get any kind of real info, so I’m sure the same questions keep coming up over and over.  I always feel like I’m a bunny-ambassador every time I take Pepper on the bus with me.  I carry flyers for the shelter she came from and tell people about how she lives with me.

[BinkyBunny]

Well thanks dmh for the kind words about this site.  In the very beginning, I did have to  to "weed" out breeders and even meat breeders who didn’t read the rules, as well as sneaky spammer type members.   But now I feel extremely fortunate to have members who really know their bunny stuff as well as members who are really willing to listen and learn from what everyone says, and then pass what they learned along to another new member. 

Though I know there are groups and forums that amaze me with incorrect information (in my opinion), but then there are great sites that I also check out.  Etherbun for medical stuff (that a yahoo group),  The Ontario Rabbit Education Organization. I haven’t been on their forum in long while so I don’t know what’s going on with it now, I also was a community leader  for years at the rabbit message board on iVillage.com before starting binkybunny.com.  And I know live journal is a popular place!

I am all for great places to connect, exchange ideas, learn and have fun, and I’m very happy to hear that you think BinkyBunny.com is also a great place to come.   It’s comments like those that help put fuel in the engine.  This site doesn’t make much $$.  Only enough to pay for itself right now, and if it ever did make a profit, I’d share a percentage with rescue groups, so the real reason it even exists at all is because people have had such a positive response to it, and it really runs on the wonderful energy everyone puts into it. 

We will actually be doing another update at the end of this month for the site, the gallery and the forum, which I hope will be filled with fixes and additional member benefits. 

[dmh426]

I’m going to check out those other sites listed above too. It’s just so frustrating to me that people go and buy their kids a cute bunny for easter, only to have it live on a diet of pellets and sit in a cage and never leave. There is no much mis-information out there, that i do keep returning to these other sites to put my widom out there to people who could really use it. I’ll have to check out other bunny slave ones though. I really do love this site though. Make me feel like I am not a freak because as a single 26 year old girl, my bunny is my baby.

[Gravehearted]

We really are lucky to have such a supportive community here!

I really try not to go onto yahoo answers very often – it makes me SO angry and frustrated.

Since Hareiette has about 300 rabbit friends on myspace, together we answer a lot of people’s bunny questions there. As Wendyzski mentioned, I’m also active on several livejournal bunny groups. I like the livejournal groups – there are a number of repeat kinds of questions, but for the most part they’re pretty helpful communities.

[KOKKINIKLOSTI]

Posted By dmh426 on 03/16/2007 8:57 AM
I’m going to check out those other sites listed above too. It’s just so frustrating to me that people go and buy their kids a cute bunny for easter, only to have it live on a diet of pellets and sit in a cage and never leave. There is no much mis-information out there, that i do keep returning to these other sites to put my widom out there to people who could really use it. I’ll have to check out other bunny slave ones though. I really do love this site though. Make me feel like I am not a freak because as a single 26 year old girl, my bunny is my baby.

I could so much be in your shoes! It’s like you describe me! Anyways, i live in Greece, where for the most of the people the phrase "house rabbit" is just a joke! That’s why no publishers have sent on shelves any book about house rabbits! So, although i am pretty new to rabbits i am considered sth like a bunny expert to greek pet forums! And that is because months before i got Aftias i took care to find many good bunny information sites on the Internet! So, what pisses me off is that most of the people here will just ask me to send them everything i know about rabbits! It is so frustrating, because most of them will not even bother to google the word "rabbit" for anything! Anyway i had to write everything down for a girl that thought knew everything about bunnies, although she changed nothing (that’s a whole subject) and so whenever someone asks me about it i just email my article! So, dmh426 maybe it is hard and a bit of a headache to write down anything you know about rabbits and then just email it, but i think it is worth the shot, as you won’t have to write the same things again and again!

[Theresa Moan]

I like to browse past answers on allexperts.com on pet rabbits, but a lot of the “experts” don’t know sh#t. The only decent ones are Dana Krempels and Mr. Lee Myers.

[dmh426]

Kokkinilost- tell your peeps asking for info to go on ebay and buy rabbit for dummies. It’s the bible for bunny ownership as far as I concerned. I like to think that every person I educate will turn around and help someone else, and so on and so on. Keep up the good work!

[Author]

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