Rescues - Easter o Christmas?

[Denny]

I am running this poll to see which holiday period is the worst although it will probably be even because, I was wondering, with so many rescues stating Christmas and Easter as some of their worst times, whether, discussions with petstores regarding impulse buys at these times would persuade pet sellers not to sell at these times?

If the petshops selling the animals really do put the animals welfare first then surely they would agree to this :D

Although I still agree that petshops should not sell animals full stop, in the mean time, by not selling animals at certain periods of the year may slow things down a little and with more education being readily available, it just might deter people from buying on impullse.

What does everyone think?

[Tamsin]

I've spoken to half a dozen or so rescues in the last couple of weeks that say they are full and have waiting lists. Many rescues perminately work at full capasity with a couple of hutches for emergencies and a waiting list, so as soon as one bunny goes out another from the waiting list goes in!

Seasons as well as holidays play a part I think. Less people want a bunny in winter time cos the weather is horrible.

Tam

[Tamsin]

RR has had 82 rabbits listed so far in November!

[Denny]

RR has had 82 rabbits listed so far in November!

Do you think certain area's have worse or is it pretty even through out the country :?:

[Denny]

Tamsin

do you think I should change the poll to seasons instead of Holiday periods :?:

[Tamsin]

Devon is very bad at the moment, the rescues there are busy. Scotland seems to have less rescues to start with so they are also quite busy. Surrey/London area is also quite busy too at the moment, as far as I know both Furrey friends and Bobtails are full.

Its difficult to tell really, I don't know whether areas that are quieter just seem so because I haven't heard of problems and/or there are less rescues to report problems.

Tam

[Denny]

I agree, South of the country in exceptional bad, had a sad message from Siobhan from ratty haven :( :( about how bad it is down that part of the country.

[Andi, Boy of Destiny!]

Surrey/London area is also quite busy too at the moment, as far as I know both Furrey friends and Bobtails are full.

Bertie and I are planning on relieving Bobtails of a resident fairly soon... :)

[Jaypot]

Although we take in the elderly and disabled all year round we do find it particularly bad over the winter period - that is when we see a larger number of rabbits coming to us who need help. Rescues always get full in the winter as people just don't want to be bothered going into the garden and feeding the rabbit :evil: All the excuses come in then, I'm moving, I am emigrating, I've got asthma ........... :?
Because the rescues get full so quickly some then contact us to see if we can take any of the disabled or elderly buns - we wish so much that we could take them all but we can't :cry: If I had a bigger house you could bet your life we would take far more - as it is by the end of this month we will have 29 buns - we have been up to 36 but it was so hard to cope with. The difference with us is that the buns stay here forever - they are also more prone to illness etc with them being old or disabled.
It's a sad state of affairs - why people can't just stop buying rabbits for their kids is beyond me :roll: And as for keeping them in hutches at the bottom of the garden - well :evil: Poor wee things are little lives, not flipping ornaments that you put away for the winter :shock:

[Jaypot]

Bertie and I are planning on relieving Bobtails of a resident fairly soon... :)[/quote]

Ooooh, which one :?:

[sgprescue]

Although we take in the elderly and disabled all year round we do find it particularly bad over the winter period - that is when we see a larger number of rabbits coming to us who need help. Rescues always get full in the winter as people just don't want to be bothered going into the garden and feeding the rabbit :evil: All the excuses come in then, I'm moving, I am emigrating, I've got asthma ........... :?


I have to agree with this. The winter is so much worst than any other time of year. I have been full to bursting for weeks now and it wont get any better for a long time yet. I have around 30 rabbits and 6 guinea pigs on my waiting list at the moment :cry:

I remember at one point a few months back I had 18 empty hutches which was fantastic but I knew it wouldnt last long.

Cheryl

[Adele]

I completely agree with what has been said by Cheryl and Jay...there are lots of bunnies seeking homes all year round, but this time of year is definately the worst.
I am turning away many rabbits a week at the moment, as we are already full. The trouble is most of the other Rescues/ sanctuaries are full too :cry: Poor bunnies, what a rotten Christmas some will be spending, despite all our great efforts to help.

[bunnytales]

Oh Folks - this makes me soooooo sad and mad to read this - what is wrong with folks that they can just abandon animal responsibility.

Zac has just coming bounding into the room while I'm typing this out and I look at him and think - matey you could have been another statistic!

I really admire you folks it must be sooooo hard to have to say no when your constantly bombarded with appeals to take in bunnies and on a night like tonight when its pooring with rain you wonder how many are left in Gardens just unattended as folks carn't be bothered to go out a feed the little bunsters.

The sooner there is tighter regulation the better but I think there is a long way to go.

[Denny]

From what people have posted, would it be right to conclude that, the spring/summer sales of bunnies contribute to the winter problem of rescues being full with long waiting lists :?:

[Tamsin]

Probably. More people want rabbits in summer so rescues have better luck with rehoming. There are also more bunnies brought tho. Those bunnies hit the 6 month hormonal phase at the same time the winter bad weather starts and adoptions decrease.

Tam

[Andi, Boy of Destiny!]

Bertie and I are planning on relieving Bobtails of a resident fairly soon... :)

Ooooh, which one :?:

They're supposed to be getting a French Lop in. We have our date to move to the new house now so we can actually get on with things a bit. :)

[Rspca Medway]

:wave: Hi Just found your poll, I think this is a very intresting subject. Although over Christmas we were full to bursting having over 60 rabbits in. :rabbit2: We close the centre for rehoming just before Christmas and re-open in the new year. Unfortunatley between the 26th-30th december we had another 12 rabbits dumped on different occasions by our gates. :evil: This pushed us to bursting using every possiable cage, our isolation, our operating pens and even pens set aside for wildlife, filled with a bunny. After lots of advertising we are now down to just over 50 rabbits. :bunny: :D

We have found in the past few year Easter has been no better for us, as rabbit owners breed, to have cute bunnies ready for Easter and then as the market get flooded with baby bunnies, they cant find them homes and we suddenly get all the young bunnies that wasn't sold for Easter. Plus you get the unwanted presents come in, as its amazing how many people become allergic to rabbits over the Easter period and so many get signed over to us. :roll:

As a small branch we deal mainly in rabbits and also have a few guinea pigs, rodants and other small creatures and reptiles that come through the door. But the amount of rabbits that came into the centre last year has doubled than previous years and we are finding it very hard to keep up with the waiting list of rabbits coming in. Although we are extremly busy in the winter it doesn't seem to get that much quieter althrough the year. :|

[Denny]

that was very interesting reading Amanda :)

does the rspca's do statistic's as to where the bun originally came from :?: eg: named petshop, newspapers etc

I would love to see a map of the uk of all the rescues pinpoint and all the larger petshop chains listed that would maybe show which areas are worse than others and it would be interesting to see if the areas that are unindated with unwanted buns are the areas that have a more petshops than others :)

I have had a look at the BIG petshop chains map and noticed that some of the areas have more of their shops than actually listed on their website map :wink:

[Rspca Medway]

The problem we notice is owners who do not do their reserch before mating their rabbits. They think they can just walk into a pet shop with a litter of bunnies and they will buy them. It when the pet shops wont except them the problems start. Pet owners must reliase most big pet shops breed their own rabbits or come from a main breeding supplier to provide the pet shops with rabbits all year round, and a lot of these shops wont take in other rabbits. Pet owners then try to sell them privately with adverts and when this doesn't work and the bunnies start to get that little bit older and grow then many people will sign them over to us for re-homing. :(

Our aim this year at our branch is to educate rabbit owners not to breed for no reason. Yes to watch a rabbit bring up a litter and have young baby rabbits is cute, but unless they are sure they can home all of them its very unfair. We are try and discourage the need for breeding rabbit for the purpose of trying to make money over Easter. It rarely works and it means it put more pressure on the rescue centres. There are too many rabbits in rescue centre and most are full to bursting. We are lucky we have had a good month of rehoming and can now transfer many rabbits from Rspca Brighton Branch, to our branch to find them new homes.

Education needs to be the answer. :wink:

[Denny]

How would you like things to progress with rabbit welfare Amanda :?: In what ways would you like things to change for the better :?:

Mr T had a good idea here, what do you think and do you have any suggestions in putting Mr T's idea into action :?:

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1234

[Rspca Medway]

I read Mr T link and I think he has some great ideas. The problem is knowing how to set that sort of scheme up and it would be wonderful to get something like that up and running, but how I dont know. (its going to take some thinking).

Pet shops are one of the main problems we have. My personal thoughts are the staff in pet shops need better training, they need to know how to sex an animal, basic knowledge of the animals they are selling and to be able to give the customer information and advice and its just not happening in many pet shops. At the end of the day the customer ask them for advice and most stand there with blank faces. I actual heard a conversation in a large pet store where a women asked for flea treatment for her rabbit and she was told "rabbits don't get flea's, only cats and dogs do".

I still think if we are to progress on animal welfare it needs to be done through education. Once we can educate staff in shops, then it will be easier to educate the general public. The old wives tale about every female animal should have one litter, why? Why does it benefit the animal? How many unwanted animals do we need?

I do have a fear in a few years time, many animal centres like it or not will have to put animals down because there wont be the space. At our branch nothing gets put down unless the animal is ill and its kinder for them.

It seems that we are starting to see a small (very small) differents in people being more responsible with cats and getting them neutered with the various neutering schemes around, but the small animal population is getting larger.

Its a very hard subject, but its one I think needs tackling, but it is knowing what to do and how to put idea's in to action. Im just not sure how to start. Any ideas?

Amanda

[Rspca Medway]

Sorry its a bit long, I do go on a bit when I have a bee in my bonnet :lol:

[Tamsin]

I think its something that needs tackleing locally. Ideas that focus nationally are often hard to spread but if you take a single shop like Debbie is doing with the one she works at you can make a big difference. If you get all the single shop improved then hopefully that equates to better all around.

One thing I think may be worth trying is for rescues to record very specifically where a rabbit orginally comes from when they get a phone enquiry or take a rabbit in. If you can make a list of which places are responsible for the most rabbits that come into that particular rescue you have a more specific target to focus on. Not only can you then go into a shop with hard evidence there is a problem and information on how to improve it you can also measure whether those improvements work by seeing a reduction in animals from that particular shop. I think it would be most effective for rescues taking large numbers of rabbit/enquiries or by combining the data from several local rescues.

Tam

[Denny]

Its a very hard subject, but its one I think needs tackling, but it is knowing what to do and how to put idea's in to action. Im just not sure how to start. Any ideas?

Amanda

Hi Amanda

Not knowing fully what legal force the rspca has but what about the rspca's working with their local petshop licensing councils. If the rspca could run along side the councils who issue these licenses then maybe the rspca could produce leaflets and RWA leaflets that maybe the council could enforce the petshops to give with the relevant information to every potential purchaser in order to gain/ keep thier livestock license.

As an animal should not be sold to make a profit, petshops might think twice when they realise that they have to purchase this literature in order to get a license. This would be one step closer to maybe bringing Mr T's ideas forward

I think that many petshops probably fear being visited by the rspca and so, if they were aware that, a spontaneous visits to make sure that the advice and literature as well as checking on the health of the buns would be carried out in order for them to keep their licenses, this might make a difference to a rabbits health and welfare :D

I know that a certain petchain store :wink: requires a name and address and phone number when purchasing a bun, (for the 30 days money back :roll: ) but if all petshops were to do this with a view that this list would be handed to either the rspca or there local council so that these buns could be traced and checked as to whether 1/ the bun is ok and 2/ that the petshop gave the relevant advice upon purchase :D I dont mean that everyone on the list should be contact but a bit like a customer service survey :) if that makes sense :wink: :?

[Towsbuns]

Some excellent suggestions there Denny - I think that could really work. The RSPCA small animal section here in Milton Keynes (where I got Honey from) has recently held a rehoming day within a large petshop - I thought it was yesterday so went along to support it but then realised it was on Saturday duh!! They are also advertising free neutering and spaying for rabbits whose owners are on benefits - which is an almighty step forward. I am not sure how that works though - whether it is animals they rehome or all rabbits. Honey was not spayed nor was her predecessor, so maybe they are only spaying those that are going to people on benefits, at least the realisation that spaying/neutering is the way forward is there.

[Denny]

thats really good news Julie and some way in making progress for the welfare of buns and helping those in resuces :D :D sounds extremely positive and I hope that other petshops would start to follow their example soon :wink: :D

Re: neutering and speying

I dont know how this works or if this this all around the country but the cats protection league over here offer free vouchers for neutering and speying, they even advertise them in the bargain pages in the cats looking for homes :) I wonder how the CPL are able to offer these vouchers :wink: does anyone know :?: would be interesting to see if a similar scheme could be set up with rabbits say through the RWA :)