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Rabbit Rescues: HOW DO YOU DO IT?!

adoptafosteredbunny

adoptafosteredbunny

Warren Scout
A few questions to rabbit rescues! We're having a tough time getting our heads around how you manage to run a rescue full time and still live normal lives!

How do you make money to live on? Can you earn a wage from a rabbit rescue, or are you self-employed or working elsewhere?

And how did you start off?

What advice would you give someone trying to start up a rabbit rescue?

It's not something I'm thinking of doing at the moment (not settled down at all yet and I'm not fed up of being a chemist just yet :p), but since fostering and seeing so many things on here it's definitely something I would consider doing! You all do such amazing jobs so it would be interesting to hear your stories!

So yes, basically....how do you do it?!

:D
 
I can answer one of those questions - No you most certainly can't earn a wage from it. You end up spending most of your own money and going without many of the things most people take for granted!
 
ive only ever rescued rats as its still not the right time for my first buns but basically no, you could not make money from it. Id imagine its the same for a lot of people whatever the animal they rescue, I fell in to it all by accident. I started off rehoming from other rescues, then offering to foster, then having local people know me as the crazy rat lady so telling me about so and so who wants to rehome thier rats and in some cases just having them dumped in cages on my doorstep :roll: Im not actively rescuing now as we have had some contagious illness and im currently unemployed so even just feeding the rats is stresssful, and thats before vets bills. January alone saw two major operations (you'd think with rats being small it would be cheap but both ops were well over £100 each)
The cost that you can never estimate though is the one on your heart. It can get very depressing because you cant save them all :/

Sorry for the miserable post!
 
no you cant make a living ... not if rescue properly .

Barc started small ... doing car boots to raise funds and taking in 2 and 3 animals at a time ... then grew bigger yntil we now have our own charity shops ... its taken 15 yrs to get where we are now .
and still theres never enough money .

most people running rescues also have a job elsewhere .

rescue eat money ...they don't earn it
 
you can't make money if you do it properly..that means properly for the animals

Started by accident

It takes over your life..unless you have a lot of cover..holidays are a no go..we have had the odd night or two away but last year was the first for ages that we actually went for 4 nights..and it was a major operation to arrange and such stress not sure if worth it.

You do not get a day off..remember animals do not know or care that it is your birthday or X mas ..they still need cleaning and feeding. You can plan to get numbers down for special occassions but plans rarely work out..you could have 3 animals dumped on you on X mas eve.
Also a rabbit or rabbits could become ill very near or at X mas..we have had that happen more than once..this can mean emergency vets and no drinking for you as you need to give meds and be able to drive in case vet needed again.

People often see the lovely comments we get on here and other places praising our work. These comments do help to lift morale and keep us going....but they don't pay the bills and they don't find homes for dental bunnies, ect

Take a look through the sticky thread at top of general chat about the sad rescue stories.. you will see comments saying " I don't know how you do it " That is something to keep in mind...the emotional toll is high. When you have nursed an animal for days and days and you think you have managed to save it only to have the rabbit pass away in your arms...that is the time running the rescue is hardest...and it will happen time and again .

Joe Public has no respect for your time or your feelings..you will get phone calls at 6 am and midnight. You will get verbal absue regularly and may even get physical threats.
it costs financially, emotionally and physically and will take its toll on your family life ..and once you are doing it it is so hard to give up
 
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I am not a rescue, but I have worked in one, I agree with everything Honeybunnysaid, the hours for the owners are cruel, the stress immense and the breaks non existent. The owners of the rescue I worked at also fell into rescuing by accident.

But the rescue was self funding and their was the money for paid staff and the owners took a wage (I think, but it certainly wasn't a large one, enough for house upkeep and essentials really). It is possible to live off the rescue. However this was a big rescue, it had been in existence for over 26 years and has 3 charity shops and several huge fundraisers every year. (The summer fair had probably about 1000 visitors and raised a lot of money. They also had a Christmas fair which was of a similar size) I think it was only in the last few years that this had been the case, it took them about 20 years to build the charity to a self sustaining size, and they had a sizeable pot of money to start with (the sale of a house and I think riding stables).

At any one time the rescue had from 200-300 animals on site (occasionally more in mid kitten season). I honestly think a rescue needs to have grown to that sort of size before they can draw a wage. Even then there is no spare money, everything needs to be raised. We need new hutches? Ok, how will we raise the money. There was a network of probably close to 100 volunteers that did so much, from paperwork to fundraising to cuddling the puddy tats!

So it is possible, but only just. I know now from seeing the inner workings of a rescue that I could never do it. I'm not strong enough.
 
honeybunny said:
you can't make money if you do it properly..that means properly for the animals

Started by accident

It takes over your life..unless you have a lot of cover..holidays are a no go..we have had the odd night or two away but last year was the first for ages that we actually went for 4 nights..and it was a major operation to arrange and such stress not sure if worth it.

You do not get a day off..remember animals do not know or care that it is your birthday or X mas ..they still need cleaning and feeding. You can plan to get numbers down for special occassions but plans rarely work out..you could have 3 animals dumped on you on X mas eve.
Also a rabbit or rabbits could become ill very near or at X mas..we have had that happen more than once..this can mean emergency vets and no drinking for you as you need to give meds and be able to drive in case vet needed again.

People often see the lovely comments we get on here and other places praising our work. These comments do help to lift morale and keep us going....but they don't pay the bills and they don't find homes for dental bunnies, ect

Take a look through the sticky thread at top of general chat about the sad rescue stories.. you will see comments saying " I don't know how you do it " That is something to keep in mind...the emotional toll is high. When you have nursed an animal for days and days and you think you have managed to save it only to have the rabbit pass away in your arms...that is the time running the rescue is hardest...and it will happen time and again .

Joe Public has no respect for your time or your feelings..you will get phone calls at 6 am and midnight. You will get verbal absue regularly and may even get physical threats.
it costs financially, emotionally and physically and will take its toll on your family life ..and once you are doing it it is so hard to give up
Click to expand...


All of the above it took 13.5 years before I couldn't take anymore and closed at the beginning of this year.

Although now I feel lost and guilty for giving up I know if I hadn't I may have become part of the problem.
So it was better to get out while I could
 
A friend of mine who has run a rescue for years has had to scale things right down on the advice of her doctor as it started to affect her health badly.She now just takes the ones that are literally dumped:( in her front garden,bringing them back to health and rehoming them.The emotional toll has been huge but she has managed to help hundreds of bunnies(including 2 of mine).She has regular donations and works part time to fund her work but holidays and treats are a thing of the past.
 
I can also vouch for no holidays or days off. We got married 6 years ago and still haven't had a honeymoon. We haven't had a day off in those 6 years and we never leave the house together for more than a couple of hours. In fact I can't even remember the last time we went out in the evening, it has definitely been years unless you count the emergency vet!!
 
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