Lib_n_bunny
Wise Old Thumper
Dear friends of The Rabbit Residence rescue. An urgent but painful announcement i have to make to you all.
In 1994 when i was 16 i started keeping rabbits on the below plot of land. Whether blessed or luck it was like a peaceful haven, a child's fantasy as bundles of bunnies bounced and binkied everywhere. Each morning i would jump out of bed and feed them their breakfast, open up their hutches and sheds for them to play all day on this wonderful 1/3 rd acre plot of land, a far cry from the places they had been rescued.
As the rescue became more needed going from 30 to over 100 residents at any one time, still homing at least 2 a week with a wonderful volunteer team expanding we seemed to be doing so well. But tragedy and anguish struck as in May 2009 over a period of 2 weeks 3 bunnies went missing- Spongebob, Dollie and Ginger. Farmers reckoned it was a fox. We then spent around £700 on electric fencing, foxwatches and other deterrants and seemed to succeed as peace was found again. But then in november 2009 Malachai had been left out all night long, which was nothing entirely unusual but the next day he was found killed. Hoping it was a one off but playing safe i stopped leaving domestic bunnies out all night long but i still had Toffee, Twix, Sally and Mikey my wild x bunnies who were impossible to catch and lived semi wild at the rescue. Over the next few months things turned from bad to worse as Twix and Toffee lost their lives. With the short days of winter and busy days i had running the rescue often i had to clean out in the dark or wasnt home till dark to put them to bed. We were learning our lessons the hard way as chiquita, mandy and hopkin were taken from us too.
Mikey and Sally dear god seem to have found away to suvive and still live free day and night but things have changed drastically at the rescue and after 15 years of the same routine it was a challange for me to learn to change my ways but a necesity for the bunnies precious lives. I gave up my job as a careworker, shortly after being extremely sick from the stress of the whole situation.
Eventually my health and strength recovered and I knew I had to keep running the rescue and find a solution. I have a wonderful team of volunteers who come most days to stay with the bunnies whilst they are exercised. We now only let them exercise when we are there and ensure they are all locked up safely by dusk but i am ofcourse anxious that spring and them summer are coming and there is no way the rabbits can stay in the hot sheds. The only solution is to redesign the whole rescue.
To summearise the viewing path will be going down the centre of the field and then enclosures will be built either side. We have 16 sheds, 16 hutches and 3 wendy houses, all that will need runs building and attaching to them. They will have concrete bases and roofs and each run will be made from strong welded mesh. So what ever this predator is be it mink, stoat, weasel fox cat or rat the rabbits should be safe. They will all each still have free range enclousures that guests can sit and play with them in but they will only have access to these when of course people are about.
This project urgently needs to be completed before the warm mornings start. t will be costing us between £5 and £10,000. We can not do this with out your support so if you can offer a small donation every penny really will count. You can contact Caroline at rabbit_residence@hotmail.com to find out how to make a payment and updates will be put onto the facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/rabbitresidence?ref=ts#!/rabbitresidence
Thank you for reading
love Caroline and the bunnies xxx
In 1994 when i was 16 i started keeping rabbits on the below plot of land. Whether blessed or luck it was like a peaceful haven, a child's fantasy as bundles of bunnies bounced and binkied everywhere. Each morning i would jump out of bed and feed them their breakfast, open up their hutches and sheds for them to play all day on this wonderful 1/3 rd acre plot of land, a far cry from the places they had been rescued.
As the rescue became more needed going from 30 to over 100 residents at any one time, still homing at least 2 a week with a wonderful volunteer team expanding we seemed to be doing so well. But tragedy and anguish struck as in May 2009 over a period of 2 weeks 3 bunnies went missing- Spongebob, Dollie and Ginger. Farmers reckoned it was a fox. We then spent around £700 on electric fencing, foxwatches and other deterrants and seemed to succeed as peace was found again. But then in november 2009 Malachai had been left out all night long, which was nothing entirely unusual but the next day he was found killed. Hoping it was a one off but playing safe i stopped leaving domestic bunnies out all night long but i still had Toffee, Twix, Sally and Mikey my wild x bunnies who were impossible to catch and lived semi wild at the rescue. Over the next few months things turned from bad to worse as Twix and Toffee lost their lives. With the short days of winter and busy days i had running the rescue often i had to clean out in the dark or wasnt home till dark to put them to bed. We were learning our lessons the hard way as chiquita, mandy and hopkin were taken from us too.
Mikey and Sally dear god seem to have found away to suvive and still live free day and night but things have changed drastically at the rescue and after 15 years of the same routine it was a challange for me to learn to change my ways but a necesity for the bunnies precious lives. I gave up my job as a careworker, shortly after being extremely sick from the stress of the whole situation.
Eventually my health and strength recovered and I knew I had to keep running the rescue and find a solution. I have a wonderful team of volunteers who come most days to stay with the bunnies whilst they are exercised. We now only let them exercise when we are there and ensure they are all locked up safely by dusk but i am ofcourse anxious that spring and them summer are coming and there is no way the rabbits can stay in the hot sheds. The only solution is to redesign the whole rescue.
To summearise the viewing path will be going down the centre of the field and then enclosures will be built either side. We have 16 sheds, 16 hutches and 3 wendy houses, all that will need runs building and attaching to them. They will have concrete bases and roofs and each run will be made from strong welded mesh. So what ever this predator is be it mink, stoat, weasel fox cat or rat the rabbits should be safe. They will all each still have free range enclousures that guests can sit and play with them in but they will only have access to these when of course people are about.
This project urgently needs to be completed before the warm mornings start. t will be costing us between £5 and £10,000. We can not do this with out your support so if you can offer a small donation every penny really will count. You can contact Caroline at rabbit_residence@hotmail.com to find out how to make a payment and updates will be put onto the facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/rabbitresidence?ref=ts#!/rabbitresidence
Thank you for reading
love Caroline and the bunnies xxx
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