Our Real Pets!

We got two bunnies when we moved to our new home in New Hampshire.

Above on the left is Flopsy, our Lop Eared father bunny. He is very shy, except around our mom bunny, Rascal. She is part Red Satin,. She is on the right above picture.

Then they had babies. Rabbits are pretty good at that. Here's the story:

May 18

Hello, my name is Karl and I have a sister named Rachel. We have two bunnies, a male named Flopsy, and a female named Rascal. Rascal has given birth to 3 or 4 babies. Some are red and white, others black and white. They were born on the night of the 7th, in May. They got their hair on the 15th or 16th of May. Their eyes will open on the18th. They will be out of the nest on the 22nd of May.

We are proud of Rascal and her babies.

Well they did just as Karl reported above for a school newsletter. The small rabbits below are Rascal's babies. They are called kittens. The two left ones look like their mom, the one right one (Blackie) looks like his dad.

And here's all of them, except Blackie (who had escaped but has been recaptured) with the 4th bunny (in the middle)who looks like both his mom and dad (he's a hybrid).

Now here's more news on the Magnificent Foursome:

June 3, 1998

I saw a brown bunny and a black bunny, two red bunnies. In all we have six rabbits. Thier names are Flopsy and Rascal, Blackie, Brownie, and others. (Well, two names to think about.) They came out one by one. They have teeth now. They can eat real food. They are cute. I like the black one like Flopsy best. They where all eating with mom. One got close to dad.

Rachel

Bunny Update

Today we saw all 4 babies near their mom. There is 1 black, 1 brown, and 2 reds. Each of them has a white streak on their heads. A red has the white breast of Flopsy and the dark red eyes of Rascal. I think the other red is the same. I don't know much about the brown, except that it's brown. The black is like Flopsy. The black is very curious. Once the brown or a red went into the nesting box to another bunny. The black is usaully in his mom's cage. The brown seems shy. Once Rascal whirled around and all the bunnies scrambled toward a hiding place.

Karl

Dad's Journal

An interesting thing about the bunnies is they seem to get messages to hide from their mom, Rascal. I think it could be by foot stomp but maybe they make a high pitch noise that we can't hear. They must all have teeth because they love to eat the stems and leaves of oak tree limbs. Also, one red bunny took some leaves back to their hiding place behind the nesting box. They don't spend time in the nesting box now, but hide behind it. I'm not sure why. They only hop in the box for short spells.

When we got back from vising at grandpa and grandma's two bunniew had escaped. They hid in the wood pile. It took a good hour to catch them. They are already quite smart. The black and a red one were the 2 who excaped. We'll see how they behave as they grow older.

Robert

One Last Word

We currently have 6 rabbits. We had a rabbit in California. Each one of the seven rabbits has been a real individual. Most have been given names by Karl and Rachel then Robert and I change the names to fit the personality. Rascal was named Cottontail when we first got her. But she jerked her cage open, dumped her food out, over turned the water dish, and unlatched her cage (although she never went out of it). I renamed her Rascal one bossy morning and that stuck.

That Rascal! Her children are just like her. Except the shy brown bunny who is more like the father. They get bolder each day. They eat and eat and eat. They drink from their mother's water bottle. They dump the food out, just like their mother. And just like real children, they are just so cute. Her kids certainly are imps and take after her for the most part. We have had a red (tan colored) bunny out of the cage one time and that black bunny has been out twice! He's too curious for his own good. I call him Curious George much to Rachel's dismay. (That one is a girl in Rachel's mind.) I believe it will be a wild bunny soon if we can't find where its escape hatch is located.

The sex of each of the baby bunnies is unknown at this time. We talk of the bunnies as he and she from habit more than knowledge. Rabbits are between 4 and 6 months before you can tell much about sex reliably and then it's still a guess. At one year it is much easier to tell the males from the females but that is 6 months to late. (We have been told all our rabbits were girls by the pet stores. In reality, we have had 2 boys and 1 girl and 4 babies.)

Janette

The children were given the 'assignment' to write about the baby bunnies. I typed in their reports exactly. All spelling errors you find are the children's mistakes not typographical errors. As a homeschooler I find it very instructional to read other children's uncorrected writing. I try to leave all their words unaltered on all parts of this web site.