The first voyage of the Rabbit Tractor

Today, the Small Buns are officially pastured rabbits, having made the transition from tiny alien newborns to weaned youngsters. It seems astonishing and not really possible that they’re already five weeks old.

Over the last few days, there’s been an amazing jump in size as well, going from a hutch comfortably housing a mama and her babies to hutches TOTALLY FULL OF RABBITS. Crazy how that happens. So today, after a totally insane couple of weeks for both us, full of life-changing news, we popped them into their new home. And of course, I took some video to share, as they stretched their legs and explored their spacious accommodations.

They’re settling in well, and had started mowing the grass in earnest shortly after this video was taken. We’re excited to see how this experiment in rabbit husbandry works out, and their mamas are VERY excited to have the hutch to themselves again. Were we not leaving for the summer in just a few weeks, we would have rebred them 2 weeks ago, and would be well on our way to another litter. But that seems like quite a lot of ask of housesitters, and so we’ll wait until september to get rolling again.

Snack time.

The funniest moment in the move came when, despite the fact that they’re only 5 weeks old and thus are far too young to get it on- and particularly given our previous difficulties with rabbit mating, (see here, here, and here), one of the little guys decided to celebrate his new spacious accommodations by jumping his sisters. All of them, one after another.

I think her tractor’s sexy.

He didn’t really get anywhere with it, being too young and yet without functional bunny balls, but he was sure trying. One after another. It does make me feel hopeful about our future matings.

So. That’s what’s up with the buns. And as for me, I’ve got a new job (very exciting, more on that later), and am slowly acclimating to the knowledge that my life is changing in some significant ways over the next few months. Mostly positive changes, but some very hard and sad…a situation helped by the bouncing of little rabbit feet, the tender green growth of spring, and friendly chickens. Look how beautiful it is here, right now:

Spring busting out all over.

More later, including an update our new Russian bees, which should be arriving at the post office any day now (and moving into their new top bar hive), but right now there’s a garden that needs to be weeded, an audiobook to enjoy, a chicken to roast.

Until next time,

~Fae