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Feel VERY sorry for the rabbits at a community farm...

LainiT

Warren Scout
I took the kids to a local community farm yesterday, not been there before, and as always was looking forward to a nosy at the bunnies.

Oh my gosh poor things. They had 2 singles and 2 pairs, in a big shed with 2 foot high wooden separaters to make the enclosures. 3 pens were probably 4ft square then there was a really big one. All the floors were covered in a mixture of straw and shavings, could see little bits of hay but only the odd strand dotted around, and apart from that the pens were completely empty. :cry: No hidey boxes, no tunnels, no sticks, not a bloomin thing, nada. Even the food was in a feeder fastened to the side of the pen so they'd not even got food pots to chuck around. The pens were open at the top so anyone was free to maul the poor things.

I wanted to check about the straw before I had a go, I know its fine to use for bedding but I'm not entirely sure that it is a substitute for the mountain of hay that they're supposed to get through.

Please help, whats the best thing to do...write to them/go back? I want my facts straight and some CHEAP suggestions to give them. Its just a local community run venture, so they're not going to have mega bucks (me neither else I'd be going shopping for them all right now!) but I can't stop thinking about those poor bunnies, what a miserable life. The 2 singles were craving human interaction, perescoping up to get someone to stroke them :love: feel really sorry for them. Plus, what message is it giving out to the thousands of families that see them like that...:evil:
 
If they just gave them a mountain of hay to eat, hide in, throw around, dig in etc it would be a step in the right direction. A bale from the farm costs very little and would last them a month.
 
If they just gave them a mountain of hay to eat, hide in, throw around, dig in etc it would be a step in the right direction. A bale from the farm costs very little and would last them a month.

Exactly. In my experience, favourite rabbit passtimes are shredding newspapers, chucking kitchen roll tubes around, destroying cardboard boxes and rummaging in mountains of hay. Hardly expensive or difficult to provide! :(
 
I would imagine the straw may wear the teeth to some extent but it doesn't have the same nutritional value as hay so wouldn't cover the fibre aspect.
 
Hay doesn't cost that much, surely they could afford that and maybe stuff some toilet roll/kitchen roll tubes with hay as well as boredom breakers for the poor buns.
 
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