I should take sleeping pills. I think too much when I’m lying in bed.
After several months of no rabbits, (I had put all the ones left after the Great Escape in the freezer for dog dinners) I decided it was time to try again. I missed the possibility of raising my own meat… So I began churning over in my mind the pitfalls so far. The babies would get out when I lifted the pen to move it or the babies would get crushed if I just pulled the pen along the ground. Everyone dug their way out even in a matter of hours some days, so some sort of bottom on the pens would be needed. Wire did not suit me as it would rust quickly and when the pens were moved I was worried the rabbits feet and legs would get tangled in it and broken. It needed to be open enough to let the grass pop up thru it and allow poop to drop thru it.
Nothing seemed to suit perfectly, but I got the brainy idea that rather than move the pens, I should move the rabbits…. “If the mountain won’t come to Mohammad, then Mohammad….” well, you get it…. That would alleviate the problems with the little ones for sure. I pictured a long row of pens with connecting doorways in the wire that could be opened when it was time to move the rabbits to the next area, and a floor that would allow the grass to GROW thru openings. I wouldn’t have to worry about the grass getting squished by whatever flooring I used because the pen wouldn’t move, grass could grow straight up. In order for that to happen there could be no roof on the unused pens or insufficient rain and sunlight would hit the ground. One moveable roof to follow the rabbits. Not hinged but held down by some sort of bungee cord or metal clip or clamp and SLID from pen to pen. That would avoid the roof getting blown over when it was opened. The flooring, I decided would be the plastic 4×8 lattice-work, as it wouldn’t absorb urine, had holes small enough to prevent rabbits from getting out but allow grass to grow thru. God, I’m a genius!! How could this POSSIBLY fail?!?!?!
So I started 4 rows of pens using what I already had. I figured that was small enough to be able to get going… 4 long rows of pens…..
Then winter came. The wind that blew the rain horizontal, the rabbits eating whatever grass had been there faster than I could build more pens, the holes in the lattice-work too small to offer enough grass even in the best of seasons, the mud I had to slip thru to get supplemental feed to the bunnies, the freakin’ roofs that wouldn’t slide from pen to pen without multiple adjustments, the poo that built up too fast and had to be raked out. Carting 3 gallon waterers out to them because the hoses freeze. I remember standing there one day, staring out to the far end of the field and thinking about how many more pens I’d have to build and thinking how flippin’ nuts I was to think acres of pens was a sane project.
The next day I ordered rabbit cages.
I think I’ve learned my lesson about rabbits out in the winter. TOO MUCH WORK!!!!
Then late one night, in bed, as I listened to the wind howl thru the pine trees, for all the world sounding like it had hit hurricane force, and I am grateful I no longer slog thru the wind and rain and mud and muck to visit my rabbits daily. They are safe and sound in my far-from-new metal barn. It leaks here and there, it moans, it groans. But the rabbits are dry. The barn is close to the house with all the feed and hay right there. If the hose freezes I’m close to the kitchen faucet. I congratulate myself on doing the practical thing. To stop worrying about how happy the rabbits are. After all, I’m the one doing the work. They just sit and eat and poop and drink and sleep, and hopefully have babies. I sleep well that night.
But spring comes, and the grass is now lush and green. And I think of hot summers in the barn and freezing pop bottles for the rabbits. S**T!! This is where I started 5 years ago!
I tell myself that obviously, rabbits outside on pasture in the winter is a no-go….. but… but…. surely I can have them out in the good weather…. can’t I?!?!?
About Linda Medero
