April 12, 2010

April Fools Day

About five years ago, my son wanted a pet dog. My hubby suggested rabbit instead. It doesn't bark and easy to care for. Off we went to the nearest pet shop. Told the owner we wanted two rabbits, he said he had three at the time. Some how manage to persuade us to take all three home. A male and two females. We bought a cage too. The rabbits was just few months old, short fur and in three different colors.

Time past so fast, we didn't realize they grew so fast and by the time they were about 8 months old, they start making babies. None of us really notice. We kept thinking that they are still babies themselves. One fine morning, woke up to find three baby rabbits in the cage.

That was when our hilarious journey of bringing up those babies began. That day itself went and bought another cage to separate the mum and herbabies from the other two rabbits. After putting up the cage, my hubby and I had a hard time figuring out which was the mum.

The first time, we got the dad with the babies. Notice that it keep avoiding those babies. Then we got the wrong mum. She too keep avoiding those babies. We have to Google it to find out which was the mum. The mum had not started to feed, so it's nipple was too small for us to notice, moreover they were covered with fur.

Boy, what a journey. We notice the mum would just sleep at a corner and wait for the babies to crawl to her. Me, the impatience one, had to interfere by putting those babies near the mum's nipple. My hubby even bought a set of animal feeding bottle and milk powder for them. So at night, sometime, me and my sons would take those babies out and put them in a shoe box and bottle feed them one by one.

While we were so fascinated by all that was going on, we forgot that there was another female in the same cage as the male rabbit. Few weeks later, woke up to find another batch of baby rabbits. This time it was five babies. One died of stampede. Oh my goodness. The first batch had just open their eyes and their fur just started to grow and now they had another four siblings.

I started to give some away to friends and neighbors. We gave the first mum and dad away, follow by the first batch of baby rabbits. Time flies very fast and before we knew it those babies grew and reach puberty. Gosh! The last batch of babies arrived on the first of April. My hubby was teasing me that I am an expert by now. Oh my! I told him this will be my last batch.

We should have found out more before we bought those rabbits as pet. They can breed really fast. Their pregnancy last only a month. If I didn't give them away, I would have a whole house full of rabbits in just a year. I can't imagine, all the above happen in less than a years time.

Well we gave all away except for him. He is the only one with long fur. I wonder why. We cared for him since birth. He was from the last batch, born on April Fools Day. This April, he turn four years old. We kinda missed those days when we bottle feed them. Pat them in the shoe box. So helpless and adorable.



Look at him. Isn't he handsome? Well you have got to be a pet lover to see that. We named him "Baby". He loves to sit under an umbrella. Whenever I am out side watering my plants or feeding fishes in the pond or gardening, he would come between my legs and go around me in circles. Remember the first video of how my rabbit sleeps or should I say fall to his side with a thud, that was him too. Those other photos of his parents and siblings while they were young was destroyed when my p.c broke down sometime ago. I forgot to save it in a backup file.

Hope you like my funny pet story. Thanks for reading and have a nice week ahead.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

We had pet rabbits before. But they didn't live very long. I'm not sure what happened to them, but the way I saw it, it seems fungus grew on them -- it started on their feet up to their mouth. It didn't take a long time til they both die.
I am not sure what have gone wrong. Probably because I use to bathe them and even blow dry their fur. I also used to trim their nails. :(

You must be a really good rabbit breeder.

Butteryfly

Kim@stuffcould.... said...

What a cute rabbit, under the umbrella!
kim

baili said...

wow thanks for beautiful writing and such cute pic best of luck and take great care

Aries said...

I had never bath my rabbit but still they smell nice. They can clean themselves like cats. Thanks for reading.

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