Sandra's and Bibi's New Life Together

 Sandra’s and Bibi's New Life Together

This sweet creature is teaching me that even the most hard wired instincts and pre-conceived notions can be overcome. 

How is it that she trusts me? I am a natural predator! It feels like I am glimpsing heaven when she comes up to me and wants to be picked up, to be stroked, to be told that she is loved. I am so honored to experience every day, that we have broken through an evolutionary barrier.  

Today in the garden, where she runs freely and usually has much to discover and eat, I felt her front paws on my back as I was weeding. She wanted to cuddle in the midst of her precious outdoor time!

Obviously, her natural fear of humans has been bred out of her over the two thousand years that rabbits have been domesticated, but I feel like each sweet and trusting moment together is a small miracle.

She lets me know that she wants to live here with me.  Every day when I come home she hops right out to greet me. Even when she escapes,  she stays where I can see her, and always eventually lets me pick her up to come home. 

What a difference it makes in one’s life—to have a living thing to pick up, kiss and say “good morning!” and “I love you"to.

Her play instincts are so different than cats and dogs.  She doesn’t chase things.  She has no desire to catch anything at all.  If an object is moving, even a small one, she runs away – never toward it. She is not the least bit curious about let's say, pawing at large bugs the way a cat would be.

Our play involves her running in circles around me if I am sitting on the floor, or around my feet. She may pick up things with her mouth and “throw” them. Then she runs at warp speed through the house, punctuated by joyful leaps straight up in the air. I pretend to be an animal chasing her and she loves that.

Makes sense: she is born to be chased. That is her game.  The big pay off -- survival, is granted by successfully running away, not catching things.

She’s a little vegetarian at the bottom of the food chain.  With her sweet, non- violent disposition, all she asks is that there always be lots of grass, dandelion and hay. 

Of course she eats a more varied diet than that, with pellets and plenty of vegetables She discovers new things all the time: latest favorites include bok choi, wild strawberry leaves and the leaves of string bean plants.

Bananas, apples and pears are very high on her list as well.  The other day I caught her licking some dark chocolate I left laying around!

Chocolate and bananas would rank way higher on Sandra’s list than carrots in case you’re interested.  She could take or leave carrots. Don't worry, I don't let her actually eat chocolate!

Does she wonder why all these animals desperately want to eat her – can she relate to that, being a vegetarian?  Everyone’s trying to get her but she’s not trying to get anyone.  I guess she just takes it for granted by now.

Although she generally loves the darkest, smallest, most cramped spaces she can find, I set about building her an outdoor house that she can freely go and from via a cat door on the porch.  Here it is the day it was built, with architect Alex Hanewich.

It’s a huge customized hutch with a house of her own, plenty of yard space and a special ramp leading right up to the porch. All enclosed with chicken wire, even on the bottom, so she can’t dig out and predators can’t dig in.  The "yard" has plenty of grass growing through it now.

Sandra now spends plenty of time in her outside house, and it brings me great joy to see her coming and going, dozens of times a day.

She has made her main home out there, even stays there at night and in the rain. 

Basically, she comes inside only to get a break from the heat, to eat and to say hello to me!

Here she is coming down her ramp that connects our homes!

Here she is on her Deciding Shelf, where she can always decide whether to be an indoor bunny or an outdoor bunny.

Since we built her house, she is even more content, affectionate and independent than ever. When I come home she rushes out, often for a just a quick hello, and then she goes hopping right back out.  

But I know she's glad I'm home ... and I'm always overjoyed that she's home.

Bibi Farber

Sandra's Nest

                                             

Today, Sandra The Free Range Super Bunny who lives on my porch built a nest. She is going through a false pregnancy, something female unspayed rabbits do.  They pull out their fur, gather all the hay they can find and build a nest. They also have hormonal components to this experience.  They are so programmed to be constantly pregnant that they go through the motions whether they are or not! 

A false pregnancy can be triggered through being in contact with a human female who has recently given birth.  Last week, my neighbor Stephanie was here with her one-week old newborn.  Sandra must have absorbed all the Mommy spirit around us!

Today, 9 days later she has been furiously putting this nest together.  She has been so determined all day, to gather all the hay she can find, and put it in this spot. There are plentiful stashes of hay on her porch and she collected every last straw for her project. For hours she took mouthfuls and went into a big rectangular cardboard box I have for her that she never showed much interest in.

 

She went into the farthest corner of this box, protected from the outside light, and started stashing her most precious and soft things.  She brought all her fur in there. She tried to chew my sweatpants. Just kept chewing bits off of anything soft she could find. I got her a red blanket that she tried to bring in there.  I cut up a soft black sock and she did take me up on that.

Sandra’s fur pile – one of many

Hay supply before 

 

and after

This is my message to little Sandra.

Dear Sandra,

I am so impressed with the nest you built all by yourself today! I seldom see anyone work with such determination for so many hours.  You didn’t let anything distract you! Not food, not petting, not treats - nothing!  You just kept going with each hay load in your little mouth!

I never saw you approach hay like that– gathering it up in your mouth in bunches because when you eat it you only suck in one long piece like a noodle and you take your time.

Today you were building a secret nest! I am glad you could use the socks I cut up.  You even pulled pieces off the blue blanket.  That used to be my mother’s and I know if she can see you, she is just overjoyed that you are using her blue blanket for your  nest.

The only break you took was when you stopped so you could keep pulling more fur off yourself!

I know it’s going to be a wonderful cozy nest, full of all the most soft and precious things you could get.

I know you wish you had some babies coming to be in your nest that you could take care of. I would so happy to help you if you had any babies coming.  You would be a great Mama I know it.

Sandra, there are so many babies in the world – rabbit kind and people kind.   Some ladies just don’t have any and maybe that ‘s ok.

I just want to tell you – I knocked myself out just like you did .  I built my nest and put all the best things I could find in there.  I went shopping and brought home all the things. I made it as nice as I could.  My mother did the same thing, many many times. My sister did too. We worked really hard like you did today.

That is what we women do Sandra.  We knock ourselves out building a nest. 

Even if no one is showing up.