Monday, September 13, 2010

Family Time

The last time I posted about my bunny family, they were only a month old. Now, they're over two months old, and almost ready to be weaned from mom!
They have names and very distinct personalities, and they've grown up quite a bit. They've gone from roly-poly balls of fluff to lean, mean, bouncing machines. And wow, do they have energy!
Emily (formerly known as Stripe) was named after Emily of New Moon. We wanted to tie their names to their mom by naming them all after children's books. Emily is very adventurous! She loves to explore and she's not a big fan of being picked up, although she'll put up with it if she has to.
The babies really love their greens! There's a lot of online debate about what age is best for introducing greens. People get really passionate about it, and there are quite a few who argue that you have to wait until 6 months. This litter has made me believe that they can start eating greens whenever they want, as long as they start eating hay a little bit earlier (hay helps them digest). The babies were stealing greens from their mom when they were only 3 weeks! They grew super fast, and their coats are shiny and fluffy, and they're very active. Clearly, it didn't harm them.
Stellaluna (from the book of the same name) is one of the blackies. We can finally tell those two apart! They grew up to have very different personalities. Stellaluna is the shyest of the litter, and needs to be handled quite gently or she gets squirmy! Like the rest, however, she would never bite and can be cuddly if you take your time with her.
Magic here is definitely my favourite. Not that I would ever play favourites. We were going to name her after some specific witch or wizard (doesn't she just look mystical?), but eventually decided Magic did the trick. She is the sweetest little thing, friendly and happy to cuddle.
Isn't she the prettiest bunny you ever saw? She has these gorgeous blue eyes and really amazing markings. She's very unique looking.
Munchkin (from The Wizard of Oz) is the other blackie, and she is hilarious. She's the complete opposite of Stellaluna, eager to be picked up and say hello. She's so outgoing! As soon as you open the cage door, she's sticking her head out to investigate.
Look at those big ears! I love their ears, they look almost too big for their heads.

It is going to be really hard to say goodbye to these guys! But they are healthy, with incredibly soft fur, lots of energy, sweet personalities, and they never bite. In the next few weeks they'll be separated from mom, then in the next month or two they'll be spayed. I think we've set them up for some pretty good lives.

Speaking of good lives - all five of the baby boy rats were adopted last week! They were adopted together to a rat-experienced home. Amazing! Woody the rabbit was also adopted, to the home of a woman who's had rabbits all her life. Hooray!

4 comments:

Grace R. said...

I am so happy that the rest of our little rat babies were adopted together! Can you believe the entire family was adopted so quickly?! Wow! Good work THS! :D

Caroline said...

Great job Laura, you have some real sweet babies! If you ever need a sitter for a vacation let me know as I'd like to help you out for all the good work you do.

Caroline said...

Hi Laura,

just a note to suggest that you reinforce the ramp of the purple cage, I think it is the same one I had and my rabbit got his foot stuck between the rungs and dislocated his hip when he tried to pull it out. After his surgery I reinforced the ramp by putting a piece of solid wood behind it.

Laura HP said...

Hi Caroline,

Thanks for the offer! I may take you up on that :)

I would reinforce the ramp, except there is no ramp, so there's no worry :) It's lucky your rabbit had such a good owner to fix his hip and his ramp!