What First Got You Into Rabbits?

This thread is inspired by the lovely Capel.. have just had a lovely chat on phone with her about Caramel and Floss and their nodular Myxi. I have only had rabbits for 3 years. A friend of mine wanted rid of hers.... she had bought it on a whim 6 years earlier and had just basically had him in a cage in the out house. I heard about this and immediately said I would take him. I knew nothing about rabbits and.. can you believe had always thought they would be boring pets?????? :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

Before Bugsy's arrival I found out as much as I could about rabbits (which was not much) and on his arrival.... immediately fell in love. He was a beautiful dutch bunny with an amazing temperament for an animal which, living in those conditions, should surely have gone mad by that stage. I got him out of his cage and we lay on the sofa together for around 2 hours. He was licking me the whole time. I was instant love

I know many of you will have heard his story, but that amazing rabbit sparked an addiction that I can't shake. He died 18 months later, with me by my side, after fighting an abcsess that eventually beat my brave little baby... Everything I do now, for bunnies, has been inspired by that amazing bun!

Now lets hear your stories about the beginning of your obsessions?

Bugsy.... my angel xxxxxxx

I saw Miles in a pet shop in Staines (yes, I know - I didn't know about rescues then!) and I just fell in love with his face, and his mad antics (throwing his toys about his cage!). I reserved him for a week whilst I researched all I could and begged my landlord to let me have him. A week later we got him, and then we got Miffy from a rescue centre as a friend for him. It was once Miles and Miffy were bonded that I went totally rabbit mad, then the other four "happened" for various reasons! :lol: :lol:

AMETHYST

What inspired that first decision to get a bun? I couldn't believe how amazing they were when I got Bugs!

I had a bunny when I was young, but I wasn't mad keen - I shared him with my sister and swapped my half for the rest of her fish! :roll: :lol:

A few years ago me and the OH decided to get some more animals (we'd had lots of mice), and thought about bunnies, but decided on piggies instead. Then in 2006 someone at work had some bunnies she wanted rid of, that we eventually decided to take in. They were Clover and Dusty. So, I guess if I'm honest, I wasn't that mad on the idea of bunnies, and I was a bit scared of them, if the truth be told, but I've fallen under their spell.

Watership down was he thing that set me off wanting a rabbit of my own. I was only 6 at the time so pested my parents for one. So on my 7th birthday they got me, Mickey, a black netherland dwarf. my parents looked after him mainly, but we were all so clueless back then. Poor Mickey died before he was one of the dread myxi our next rabbit Lucy a french lop, lasted 18 months with us, but got caught out by the fox one day. My parents ouldn't stand to see my upset when they died so I didn't have a rabit after that for some years.

It was when I turned 19 that I desided the time was right to get another bun. I carfully reasearched for a 6 months and then in July last year, I fell in love with a Dutch cross rabbit, I named her Bunnykins and I loved her to bits. Unfortunetly Bunnykins died this year of GI stasis, I didn't notice in time A couple of weeks before her death I purchased Chocolate and on the day Bunnykins died I was asked to take Lily in.

Theodore (who now lives with wiggle) i rescued from a breeder and nursed him to full health, he was so underfed amd had ite makrs and fur missing when I got him.

vikki:wave:

i had buns when i was little but didnt really remember them all that well. my friend had loads of bunnies and vred a couple of litters of belgian hares i had really wanted a BH but wasnt allowed one because i had ratties. when i lost my last 4 biys within weeks of each other i just couldnt face getting more rats so my mind turned to the bunny i had wanted i read up as much as i could (but not enough) and brought home my beautiful rogue he was like a little wild bun but after just a few days i noticed he waasnt right (unfortunately i dodnt recognise the signs of stasis) i took him to the vets but not soon enough and he died whilst in their care we told the garden centre just in case ther was something wrong with the litter (we didnt know the cause of stasis was foos change) well they immediately offered me a 'free replacement' :evil: didnt say yes but wandered down to see the bunnies (please note i knew nothing about rescues) and there was teegs and i just had to have him and then i was shown this website and got my gorgeous duchey girl from cheryl and that is how the obbsession started :lol:

I went on holiday when i was about 11 and saw a house full of bunnies. I begged my mum for one for weeks but she said NO. So i looked in the local paper and bought one from a lady, I took him home and told my mum i had found him, that was tod. My mum tried looking for his owners but noone came forward so she let me keep him. i had five more after that, i bought 2 more and had a accidental litter of 3

This website has probably saved so many bunnies. I remember finding this and for months I couldn't get on.. there was an admin problem at time and eventually Tamsin managed to add me. But I had read it from afar for a long time. I have learnt so much and thank this forum for that and for the wonderful work it does for buns whose owners use it!

I had a glove puppet called Honeycombe when I was 7. It was a fawn lop with a squeaker and my favourite toy because I wasnt allowed a real bunny.

One day my mum (who was a vet nurse) found a free-ad in the paper for a fawn lop, 5 years old, who was no longer wanted.

Beany became my real life Honeycombe and I adored her, she had the run of our garden and I did everything for her.....despite my reward being a constant attack of scratches and bites (I still have scars). Honeycombe lived another 3 years and died at the grand age of 8. We then moved house and a few months later I got my second bunny Rowan a x breed black & tan.

He was the total opposite to HC and the sweetest natured, friendliest rabbit ever. Unfortunately for him he arrived at that transitional time of life....puberty. Once I reached 14 he no longer got the attention he so deserved and he eventually died at 5 years, alone, in the hutch at the bottom of the garden.

He is the reason I started rescueing.....I still very much regret the way I treated that lovely little bunny, to the point I sometimes cry to think how lonely he was......and if I can make up for that in any way at all then I want to try.

My obsession started 37 years ago, when I was 11 years old. My Mum's brother showed up at our house one evening with a gorgeous New Zealand White bunny in a cardboard box. He said that someone had given the bunny to him, and he immediately thought that I might love to have him. My parents weren't keen and swore I WOULDN'T take care of him.....but I pleaded, cried, begged unashamedly......and my Dad finally caved in!:lol: So 'Fluffy' (VERY original, huh?Q?:roll: :lol: ) joined our family. We lived in a big house with big gardens and a barn with stables in. In the summer time, Fluffy had a big box stable all to himself, and my Dad built him a big run for going outdoors. In the winters, he moved into the house and lived 'free range' in the basement/recreation room. And much to my parents shock, I did INDEED look after him myself.....I cleaned up after him, fed and watered him, took him in and out, brushed him, and basically babied him ridiculously. After school I would go down to the local shop on the corner and beg their day old veg and trimmings from them to take home for Fluffy's dinner. We had three blissful years together. Then one day my parents announced that they had decided to buy a summer place on the lake, which meant that the big house would have to go, and we would move to a flat in the winters and live at the lake in the summers. They said that due to living in a first floor flat during the winter, Fluffy would not be able to live with us anymore. I was heartbroken and horrified.....I could not IMAGINE life without my beloved bunny. This time my pleading and crying did no good.....and one morning I awakened early to the sound of my Dad's car coming out of the garage. I ran to my bedroom window to see where he was going, and when I looked down into the car, in the backseat I saw a box with my beautiful Fluffy in it. My Dad was on his way to the animal shelter with him, figuring that if he left early I wouldn't have to see Fluffy go. I remember VERY vividly standing in my bedroom, pounding on the window and screaming and crying for him to come back, but the car carried on going down the road, and I watched it in hysterics until it disappeared. When my Dad arrived back home a couple of hours later, I raced out to have a HUGE go at him, still in tears.....but my Dad was feeling VERY bad, and was in tears himself.....and on the way home he had stopped in the pet shop and bought my a golden Syrian Hamster and a cage and all of the acessories to try to cheer me up a bit. He said he was SO sorry, and he knew that it wasn't Fluffy, but that he hoped it would help cheer me up a bit. My Dad looked as miserable as I did. My next bunny came VERY shortly after me leaving home when I turned 18. Over the next few years, I ended up with 8 bunnies, mostly New Zealand Whites. During the course of all this, I got married, and it unfortunately ended up being a VERY abusive marriage, which ended horrifyingly with my near demise, and the demise of my beloved bunnies, and my pet goats and my dogs. For a long time I would not allow myself to be close to anyone or anything. Eventually I started getting my life back together, and met my current husband. He knew all about my very unpleasant past, but was determined that my future would be a good one. After we had been married for about a year, `we drove past a farm one day with a sign out front for New Zealand baby bunnies. He pulled into the drive and shut the car off. I was panicking......I just wasn't ready.....or so I thought!.....for that again. But he said, 'Let's just go have a look.' So in we went......and as soon as I saw these 10 week old bundles of white fluff, I melted! Needless to say, one of them came home with us that day! I named him 'Benjamin Bunny', and I held him and sobbed into his fur all the way home! That was nearly 20 years ago now......and the rest is history!!!!!

Awww I hadn't heard Bugsy's story before - very sweet and sad too.

I was looking for a rescue cat, but found a rabbit forum (not this one) and got interested in rabbits - I like a challenge and learning lots of medical/health/dietary facts - and rabbits didn't disappoint me there :lol:

Sadly I rescued and kept 20 guinea pigs shortly afterwards, and have never had time to spend with my bunnies since They seem happy enough though, so my reward is seeing them thriving and content - even if they do pretty much ignore me (and visa versa) - they are lovely bunnies the lot of them and I feel very lucky to have adopted 6 bunnies with such sweet temperaments, having read some horror stories

i wasnt allowed a bunny as a kid... my dad said it was cruel to keep a wild animal locked up in a hutch (part of why i cant bear to put Alvin outside)... i wasnt really allowed anypets, we had one dog and i had a hamptser..... soon as the old bloke died i went out and got a kitten and named him after my dad..... pet craze slowly started from there..... when i moved out (only around the corner) george stayed with my mom as there was no way hed relocate with me at such a short distance, and my mom got upset when i suggested taking him .... chipmunks came along and all was ok... then my george died couldnt get a cat because of the chippies so i decided to try a bunny as a replacement...... now im obsessed :lol: :lol:

Teressa

i was 12 at school my friend had 2 bunnies and was bunny mad!! i looked after them when she went away once and it was so much fun, so i asked my mum and dad and we went and got Thumper!! lol!! a little grey netherland dwarf...he was a bit of a stroppy so and so..i got a paper round job to help pay for his vaccines and things..lol i only got about £16 a week lol :roll: :lol: then my neighbours knocked on the door 2yrs later telling me that 2 rabbits where on the lose in their garden....so i spent about 3hrs tryin to catch this gorgeous bunny tht someone decided to release into the wild because they moved away and could quite obviously not be to take the bunnies to a rescue centre...sadly a fox got one that was a bit too timid to let us catch but i got Smokey and had him for a furthur 6yrs xxx bunnies r da best!!

I was never bothered about them until someone was giving away a lovely male black lop, he came to stay at our house for a couple of nights until we could take him to my auntie's, I wasn't allowed to keep him because I was going away to uni.

He was named Magic and absolutely doted on my auntie and followed her everywhere.

I've always had cats growing up and my special boy Henry died shortly after my 20th birthday, I moved in with my boyfriend shortly after and was craving a pet, I don't think a house is a home without one. We're on the top floor of a mill building with a roof terrace and both out too much for a dog, a cat would have to be shut up all the time with supervised access to the roof terrace to stop it into other peoples homes so the only obvious option was a house bunny. I begged and pleaded and threatened to move out but my bf stood his ground.

On valentines day this year I was sat dolling myself up ready to cook a nice meal for us both when he came home early with a big bunch of flowers, I was really pleased to see him but before I could say anything he told me to be quite and stay where I was. He went out of the bedroom and brought a cardboard carrier in and opened it up to reveal Charlie- I was absolutely gobsmacked and welled up. He'd done his research on how to look after him and I did some more and eventually joined this forum.

Charlie's favourite past-time of chewing emerged and he had to be moved outside I felt sorry for him living on his own, posted a poll on here to see if people thought he should have a friend then fell head over heels for Jet (now named Poppy) and adopted her from Chloe.

If space permitted I'd have loads of them but I'm more than happy with my two for now.

Great topic!

When I was in Canada visiting my mum two Christmas's ago we went into a huge pet shop. I saw a beautiful beige lionhead and that was it. It wasn't until this year that I thought about bunnies again but when I did I knew I had to get one. I ended up getting Bobbin from a breeder (yes, I know!) - I now know that if I got any more in the future I would definitely rescue, but I wouldn't change Bobbin for the world. They all need a good home after all

you could say 2 years ago Crystal was an impulse buy and the fact i refused to leave the pet shop without her before i got got Crystal id had Guinea Pigs and one of my Guinea Pigs passed away and one was left by himself so when i saw Crystal i begged my mum for her she was origionally going to be a friend for the Guinea Pig that was before i knew it was bad to housethem together but a week later my Guinea Pig had to have a dental and he sadly passed on after being under teh aneasthetic so i went out a got another rabbit as a friend for Crystal and i just kind of turned into an obsessed rabbit freak after that

Mine started more than 6 years ago when I saw my first rex . I was in a garden centre picking up some doggy stuff for my beautiful red setter Kelly, when the most gorgeous rabbit I'd ever seen was doing a meercat impression in one of the pens. He was a beautiful Black Otter Rex and it was love at first sight for me, but I didn't take him as I had a very lively dog and knew very little about rabbits anyway. Massive regret there . However I started reading up aboout rabbits, and when Kelly died I put my name down at various rescue centres specifying a rex. 2 years later the rspca contacted me about Floss, and then the obsession really began, fuelled by finding this forum!!!!:lol:

There's some really interesting stories here , and a good thread!
I was raised on a farm, and from about 4 - 9 had my own 'animal hospital' in a spare shed; it had rejected lambs that had to be hand reared, and a few other wild animals that the cats had played with & weren't going to make it, so had a bit of comfort in their final moments. My farmer dad and the vets helped out when needed, and it was quite a place!
Someone dumped this gorgeous Blue Giant at our door in the night, he was called Blueberry and lived in a hutch in our garage (which wasen't used for cars), for 2 years befor a dog took him He became the family pet, and was allowed in the house at will. We loved him lots, and missed him more.
For lots of ugly reasons I left home at 15, and never saw those people again, lived homeless and on floors for a few years in various countries and places and eventually ended up here with and somone who loves me, and wants to share their life and home with me (mad, impetuous fool!)

We both wanted an animal that could live with us, be a part of the home and share it's life here with us, and I knew that a bun would be ideal for this, and my OH, who has no bunny experience, went along with it and is now incredibly devoted to Berts.
If I'm honest with myself, getting a bun was and is the completion of a cycle for me; I can now take care of an animal, and give it love, time and a home, and although I can not yet do this for another person, a life in need is a life in need, and I hope that I am giving back some of the good stuff that's been given to me. It's unlikely that there will be kids as we're same sex couple, and Buns are loads easier to tame! and he's nibbling my foot as I'm writing this :lol:

JayUK said:

There's some really interesting stories here , and a good thread!
I was raised on a farm, and from about 4 - 9 had my own 'animal hospital' in a spare shed; it had rejected lambs that had to be hand reared, and a few other wild animals that the cats had played with & weren't going to make it, so had a bit of comfort in their final moments. My farmer dad and the vets helped out when needed, and it was quite a place!
Someone dumped this gorgeous Blue Giant at our door in the night, he was called Blueberry and lived in a hutch in our garage (which wasen't used for cars), for 2 years befor a dog took him He became the family pet, and was allowed in the house at will. We loved him lots, and missed him more.
For lots of ugly reasons I left home at 15, and never saw those people again, lived homeless and on floors for a few years in various countries and places and eventually ended up here with and somone who loves me, and wants to share their life and home with me (mad, impetuous fool!)

We both wanted an animal that could live with us, be a part of the home and share it's life here with us, and I knew that a bun would be ideal for this, and my OH, who has no bunny experience, went along with it and is now incredibly devoted to Berts.
If I'm honest with myself, getting a bun was and is the completion of a cycle for me; I can now take care of an animal, and give it love, time and a home, and although I can not yet do this for another person, a life in need is a life in need, and I hope that I am giving back some of the good stuff that's been given to me. It's unlikely that there will be kids as we're same sex couple, and Buns are loads easier to tame! and he's nibbling my foot as I'm writing this :lol:

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AAwwwww what a lovely story well done you :thumb: