Friday, November 21, 2008

A Crappy day to be a rabbit breeder


Today in a word sucked. Today I had to tell an eleven year old boy that his only Rhinelander doe carries a fatal genetic flaw that she will pass on to all of her offspring. This means she cannot be bred again and the two boys Jared had kept to breed also carry this genetic flaw. He took it better than I did really. He asked if he could keep the tiger striped one he has named "Little Java" as a pet. I said yes immediately. So Jared will have one non-showable rabbit right now. This is the second attempt at his Rhinelander breeding program -they are lovely rabbits but twice his does have been no good. So we're taking a break from this and regrouping.

I also was gifted with four rescue rabbits today -one poor fellow has part of his face chewed -he was put in a cage with two bred does as the person thought they would all "bond". The larger and more agressive doe maimed the smaller one and turned on him who fortunately burrowed a hole and stayed in there till the person could come back to rescue him. We've cleaned him up and are going to try to save him. The other three are going to be put down humanely -they are too far gone to save - chewed up and very very thin. These were some beautiful meat rabbits at one time. People really need to read more and learn more before they decide to raise animals.

I'm waiting to see how fast the kids make a pet out of "Sparky" -he's a really pretty argente d'brun which is a rare and unique offshoot of the champagne rabbits.
Or how fast this huge sucker aka me will........darn pet rabbits I'm suppose to be a cold heartless breeder right?
HUGS

2 comments:

marcia-x said...

"people really need to read more..."

agree(1,000,000)

Maggie's Farm said...

Thanks for taking them in and trying to save them...you're an angel!