Our Rabbit Story

So, I have been asked why we have gotten into rabbits.... here is the story.

About 6 years ago, Sissy asked me for a bunny. Knowing how much work a pet is, I gave her an opportunity to prove that she could handle it. I gave her the responsibility of taking care of feeding and watering our cat. If she could remember to do that without having to be told then I would get her a bunny.

It never happened and the other year she gave the responsibility to Curly with the same promise. Curly must have been determined to have a bunny because she accomplished the task. One day Curly came to me to let me know that she was ready to have her own bunny because she had been taking such good care of our cat.

As a mother we know full well that we will be the ones to take care of any animals that our children want but have lost the desire to tend to. With that in mind, I informed Curly that I would get her a bunny but that I would be the one to pick it out.
 
That led me to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website: www.albc-usa.org. I wanted to help a rare breed and my first choice was the American.

The idea of having a blue rabbit was so amazing to me that I knew that it was the type for us..... until I found an on-line community specifically for that breed. They were having so much trouble getting the breed to produce offspring that were to standard. Being very new to rabbits the last thing that I wanted was to get involved with genetics of a rare breed and messing things up. So we moved to the next type on the list.

That brings us to the American Chinchilla Rabbit. What a great opportunity, a heritage rabbit that was produced in the good old USA. Now we just had to find someone that had them close enough to drive to. I found a family about 2.5 hours north of us and they were getting ready to go to thier county fair so I wished them luck and looked forward to hearing all about it when they got back..... I never heard from them again?

At the same time there was this gentleman from the Chinchilla Rabbit group that encouraged us to look a the giants. He had some and knew of another gentleman that had others that were unrelated and they were both within 1.5 hours to the west of us. We took the drive.

That is the beginning of our rabbit story and it is still going. We are planning on a trip next month to get at least one more Giant Chin and I am starting to look at a new breed called the Silver Fox. We are well on our way to having a full blown rabbitry of our own filled with rare, heritage breeds.

By the way, the kids love the rabbits... our chins are just a bit big for them to handle. The Silver Fox should be more manageable for them..... and/or the next breed we find after that! :)

Good day to all,
Mother Dean