Tragic Weekend!

Well, I was going to make my next post about the cute bunnies that I purchased to breed for feeders. I thought it'd be okay to show you all pictures of the parents since they will be kept as pets (for the most part). Tragedy struck this weekend and I have a sad story to tell.

First of all...Thursday when I got home from work, I discovered that the beautiful falconry glove that I had wanted for so long and had lovingly covered in protective oils had been brutally eaten by my very much in the doghouse German Shepard. I think I flipped a switch when I saw it laying there; I felt like my child had been murdered. (silly, I know). You can see a picture of the in-tact glove on the previous post. I was so sad. That glove really made me feel like a falconer. I loved putting it on and staring at it, and it fit my hand so perfectly. All that was left on Thursday afternoon was a few fingers and the lovely trim that looked like a soaring hawk. Sigh.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the next day I get home from work and start bringing things in from my truck only to discover that my rabbits are gone! Everything around where they were housed was torn up or knocked over! I couldn't believe it! I had been planning on breeding my rabbits the very next morning and finding out a way to put them up off the ground, but I was too late... dogs had gotten to my rabbits.

My neighbor has a habit of walking through my yard to take her daily walks. I haven't really had a problem with this, but she has a tendancy to collect dogs on her walk that follow her home. I am very sure that they would not have seen the rabbits that day had she just gone up her own driveway!

With that background... I get home and find my rabbits gone, the yard torn to pieces. One of the cages had been drug off and I found my poor buck (boy rabbit) dead next to the cage. One of the dogs had torn the cage open and pulled him out of it. I was furious! I went to my neighbor and asked her if something happened at my house. She went into a story of dogs going wild and her trying to scare them off, but the most she could do was to get her dogs out of the mix. It never even occured to her to pick up the cage and rescue the rabbits. I was so angry that I just had to walk away. My rabbit was dead. She did all she thought she could, but still, my rabbit was dead.

I got back to the house and saw one of the girl bunnies. She was alive and happily munching on grass. I was so pleased to see her alive that my anger just melted away. I called Hazen and told him the news, and as I was on the phone with him, my other doe (girl rabbit) came out from under the deck. I figured they had both run off, I was so happy to see that they had found a safe haven. I kept them in the house that night and Hazen and I spent the weekend making a secure place for them to keep them away from dogs.

This weekend I had to replace my buck rabbit so we went to the flea market and found a vendor who was willing to sell them to us for 5 dollars each. Now I have four rabbits, two of them are cute lop-eared brown rabbits that are just so adorable. This is just an experiment to see if I have the ability to raise these rabbits for meat. If I don't have the heart for it, they get sold!

I'll post some pictures of the bunnies tomorrow.