Rabbits!

I'd been wanting to get into raising meat rabbits for years. When I moved into my current location, I realized that the existing old animal pens could be easily converted into rabbit pens. Still, I kept putting off acquisition of rabbits until I had time to do more research (LOOOOOLL), and I worried about how they would do in the heat.

Last week, someone posted on a Bay Area homesteading list about old rabbit hutches and supplies they were giving away. Even though I wouldn't need the hutches while I'm living here, I decided to pick them up.

Last week, someone else posted about needing to sell a few rabbits, and were offering them for cheap. I decided to bite the bullet and got a male and female pair. It turned out that they were already second hand to the original owner, so I don't know their age or breed or whether they're fertile, but you know, they're rabbits so that's probably fine. On the downside, it's probable they're siblings, and they're a bit worse for wear. But they were cheap and I realized that I needed to just start, or I would never get around to it, and they needed a good home.

Two days after I brought them home, we have our first 100 degree days of 2018. So far they're weathering it better than I expected. They're set up in separate pens. They prefer to push the straw away to lie on the cool concrete floor. They have frozen water bottles to lick at or lie against. The doe has been drinking from a typical hanging rodent bottle but I realized that the buck hadn't figured it out and I gave him an extra bowl of water. They'll take treats from my hand. I'm giving them at least a week to acclimate before I try them together for breeding.

The buck has damaged ears from fights with other rabbits.

Look at that cat peeking in.

The doe has healthy ears but patchy fur from either overgrooming or fights.

Enjoying a strawberry on top of a frozen water bottle.