New Zealands - The St. Bernards of the Rabbit World!!

This big guy is Peter, who is at Huntsville Animal Services looking for a home. What a guy! He is just a handsome hunk who is laid back, big and beautiful!!

I've spent a lot of time with Peter over the last couple of days. He was surrendered to the shelter by his people, who, as I understand it, had been keeping him in a hutch in the backyard for the last four years. This makes me nutty, as I personally think it is impossible to give an outdoor rabbit enough attention. Not to mention the risk of ear mites - which Peter had (and we treated him for).

The poor guy is obviously hungry for loving, as he spent much of the time we were together with his head in my lap while I petted and loved on him. When he wasn't working away at his greens he was bumping my knee, putting his paws in my lap, and generally saying, in his rabbity way, "Please love me, I'm a nice guy!" I was happy to oblige.

I also gave him a good grooming. His fur is quite plush, and he had some serious mats around his tail that I had to carefully clip out. I also brushed and brushed his gorgeous fur as he was shedding like crazy. Now he looks like a whole new boy!

I am hoping some wonderful person will come along and scoop him up, but I'm worried people may be put off by his size. New Zealands are the St. Bernards of the rabbit world, and while Peter doesn't drool like a St. Bernard, he is one biiiiiig bunny! Even his ears are so large they kind of flop around as he hops, which is quite endearing, and he is just one solid rabbit.

So I am hoping people can see beyond that big body to his personality, which is just not to be believed. This is one sweetheart of a bunny! He would be great for a first time bunny person. This last photo is of him on my lap when I was grooming him. It took about 45 minutes to clip the mats out, and he never fussed, just bumped my hand once in awhile for petting.

Come on folks, you know you want this big guy!! Maybe instead of calling him a New Zealand, we should advertise him as a "St. Bunard"!!

And by the way, thanks to shelter folks Josh and Joleen for helping me with my flat tire this morning - !!! You two rock!!

Happy News!

I'm headed off to Dauphin Island and New Orleans with Bruce for a little vacation but before I go I have two pieces of happy news. The first is that Shalimar is being adopted, and she will have a new husbun named Sesame.

Sesame Bun - get it?!! I think his parents have a wonderful sense of humor!!

Here they are on the sofa together. He is a very cute Holland Lop, and Shalimar seems very taken with him. She has been grooming him and follows him around. He is still mounting her and trying to assert his authority, but I'm sure she'll set him straight! I know they'll be happy, and Sesame's parents are wonderful, wonderful people. I couldn't ask for a better home for my dear foster bun!


The other happy news is that dear Kim, our graphic artist friend, has done a logo for the group. Wow!! Look at this! I am so impressed!! Is she not the bomb?!!

As my grandfather would say, Kim, you are the bee's knees and the cat's pajamas!!!

Huntsville Animal Services Open House

Who are these lovely ladies?!!
Why, my fellow Huntsville Friends of Rabbits, that's who!
Here are Angie, Heather and Kim at our information and adoption table at the Huntsville Animal Services Open House and Adoptathon, held yesterday. Don't they look happy?

We had a great day doing education about rabbit care, convincing mothers of young children that getting a rabbit is not a good idea, and even talking to a wonderful veterinarian about the rabbits she sees in her practice. I'll be taking over some bunny care packets to her practice this coming week - it's so heartening that more and more vets are getting saavy about rabbit care.

And check out our wonderful Huntsville Friends of Rabbits signs, made by Kim. It's so nice to have a graphic artist in the group!! It's hard to see from the photo but the background is made up of photos of rabbits, most of whom are either rabbits who have come through the shelter or our own bunnies. It's wonderful! Kim also surprised me with a logo for our group which I love - I'll get it scanned in and show you all next week. So exciting!!

And in the crate next to Angie is Frobie, who seemed to actually have a good time doing the "meet and greet" thing. I must say, Angie and Frobie got on like a house on fire! I really thought she might take him home at the end of the day! Frobie got lots of gourmet veggies and visited with some cute children, and curious adults. Next to Angie, he says Officer Esslinger was his favorite. He loves a woman in a uniform!!

Kim had a fling with a whole 'nother kind of animal altogether. Here she is with two of the SARTEC K-9 rescue dogs. We all fell in love with these beautiful guys, and Heather volunteered to be the "missing person" in their search and rescue demonstration. The sweet little guy on the left had just gotten his 20th "find" - he had found the body of a person who was missing and was underwater. While it's very sad, I keep thinking about how that person's family was able to have closure because of the amazing work of this dog.

And what was the coolest thing about these search and rescue dogs? All of the ones that we met, with the exception of this St. Bernard, were rescue dogs. All of them had been dumped - and some of them had been literally thrown out like garbage. They were rescued by members of the SARTEC team and trained as rescue dogs. It's a powerful lesson that no animal is garbage!!

What to plant?!!

Ok, I'm not going to talk about what a whirlwind couple of weeks I've had! You all will just have to trust that I've had good reason to be so awful about updating this blog!

I've been anxious to add an entry though, because I realised that over the years we've tested out a lot of lettuce varieties. Since my last entry was about figuring out how much space you need to garden for two bunnies, this entry should probably be about what to plant once you've got your space laid out. So here's a chance for me to spill my knowledge of what lettuce varieties really make the grade!

Most of these varieties have come from seeds we ordered from the following companies: Terrritorial Seed Company - a really wonderful organic nursery. They sell biodynamic as well as organic and conventional seed (http://www.territorialseed.com).
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds - I mainly love this company because they also have bulb catalogues that are to die for - ok, I confess, I'm a daffodil fanatic! - but their veggie seeds are wonderful, too (http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com).
Renee's Garden Seeds have great lettuce and mesclun mixes for those who don't want to order whole seed packets of any one variety, but just want a small amount of each lettuce's seed. My favorite is was their "European Reds and Greens", but it doesn't seem to be available this year. Try out "Paris Market Blend" instead! (http://www.reneesgarden.com
Ok, here's my absolute favorite - Flashy Trout's Back lettuce. It's a wonderful heirloom Romaine type lettuce. It performs fantastically in our garden, even in the heat of Alabama summer. Honestly, it didn't bolt until August - now that's a heroic lettuce! I don't think the bunnies care one way or another - but as an artist I really appreciate the pretty red speckled leaves. It's a good sized lettuce and very sturdy. Seriously, it's all I could ever want from a green, leafy vegetable!

My second favorite is a lettuce called Italienischer. I think there was a photo of it in my last entry. It's an oak leaf type lettuce that is about 12 inches high and grows like crazy. It doesn't quite have the staying power in the heat that F.T.B. lettuce does, but it does almost as well. The bunnies are crazy about the big, crunchy leaves. In fact, if I asked Slidell, I bet he would tell me that this one wins for him paws down! And it's pretty in the garden - big, pretty leaves that kind of look like rick rack. Nice!!!

Winter Density comes in a close third. I assume it's called "Density" because of the well-packed shape of the head - the leaves are really jammed in to a beautiful little lettuce. They are very crunchy, too - the bunnies definately give points for crunchiness and this lettuce has it! I started it very early last year - in January - and it went through some bad cold snaps and lasted well into the summer without bolting.

Green Deer Tongue is another winner. It's probably the prettiest loose leaf green lettuce I've seen - a really minty sort of green. The Territorial catalogue describes it as olive green, but....they lie!! Or they just have a bad sense of color....The leaves spiral a little, and it's just very...cute. It's a smaller lettuce and would look nice in a container garden with some nasturtiums and frilly endive. Now there's a bunny's dream dinner!

Red Sails, shown here with a baby carrot, was probably my favorite red lettuce last year. It's not the darkest red lettuce I've ever seen, but it was a nice color and grew quite large (always a consideration when you are feeding 10-15 rabbits). It was not as crunchy as the rabbits really like, but they weren't complaining either! I really liked this lettuce a lot, and it was slow to bolt, too.

So those are some of my favorites. Now, what lettuce would I not grow again?

Well, I love Salad Bowl, a loose leaf type, but not for a bunny garden. It has wonderful, frilly leaves that are great for people salads, but just not crunchy enough for the buns. They always seemed to leave it for last! It's also a very small lettuce, and seemed to be among the first to bolt. I do grow it, but for me, not the bunnies. If I had a small garden that was just for rabbits, I would leave it out.

Merlot, shown here with a standard Romaine, was also a disappointment. It was the darkest red lettuce I have ever encountered, but it was just not a vigorous grower. You can see the Romaine next to it is growing robustly, but Merlot just kind of piddled along. The flip side is that it was very slow to bolt, and the rabbits loved what little they got of it. It did look great in people salads, too. I didn't invite it back - this year I'm testing out Mascara as our red lettuce. I'll let you know how it goes!

Red Devil's Tongue, a Romaine lettuce, was not really red, but kind of a wimpy burgundy/brownish. It was not very large, but made up for this by being nice and crunchy. It was ok, but not ok enough for me to invite it back for another season.

My all time least favorite? It has to be a tie between Little Gem and Jericho. Jericho is advertised as having been bred to take the heat, but it bolted way before my other lettuces. Little Gem did ok, but it is just too small, and I feel like there are just too many larger lettuce varieties that more than fill the bill. I mean, I have some big, hungry rabbits here!!

How Much Garden Does It Take To Feed Two Bunnies?!!

I got an inquiry last week from Anne, who wondered how much garden space it would take to feed two bunnies. Anne says she just wants to feed her two bunnies, not the whole state of Texas!

I've been asked this question before, and I never really know what to say. We are usually feeding between six and ten rabbits (although we've gotten as high as twenty two!) as well as eating salads and other veggies ourselves and giving away veggies to our rabbit-and-salad loving friends. We produce a lot of veggies!

Since our garden is oddly shaped (a spiral with some adjacent rectangles) and since we have some odd gardening techniques, it's hard to figure out an easy answer. However, since this question keeps coming up I decided to try and figure out how much space would probably work for two bunnies, and if there was anyway we could simplify our methods for those who are not insane, oops, I mean overly-enthusiastic bunny gardeners.

So, this weekend I took Bruce (who is a scientist and therefore good at math) out to the garden to figure out how much space we really use per bunny. After all sorts of mind bending calculations involving the circumference of our spiral and subtracting for pathways and adding for some other technical thingeys, we came to the conclusion that our spiral is about 1300 square feet. We decided not to try and figure out the rectangular gardens as they are mainly planted with ornamentals, and just have herbs tucked in here and there.

Then Bruce did some more calculations involving the number of bunnies we have had at various times and how much of the garden we had planted at those times and how large each bunny was (big bunnies eat more veggies - !!) and a million other factors that made my head ache, and at the end of it we came to the conclusion that you can probable feed two medium sized bunnies (six pounds or so) with a garden that is about 35 square feet.

Or about the size of a four foot by eight foot exercize pen.

But wait! There's more!

Before you go out and dig up your four foot by eight foot patch, there are some other things you should take into account about our wacky bunny gardening adventure. The first is that I came of age during the late seventies/early eighties, when the French Intensive gardening method was all the rage among hip, young earthy-crunchy organic gardening types.

Even though I come from a long line of New England farmers on my mother's side, and a long line of eccentric English market gardeners on my dad's, I basically threw everything I had learned about gardening as a kid out the window. Yes, the French Intensive method was for me! If you are not familiar with this method of gardening, it basically involves raised beds and plants put in very close together. There is a good article at: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1980-01-01/Biodynamic-French-Intensive-Gardening.aspx

but I warn you, it takes forever to load!

So when you are planning your garden, take into account that our plants are spaced much more closely than those in a traditional garden. They are much closer, so that when full grown the leaves of each plant will be touching those of its neighbor.

This photo kind of gives you the idea of how close plants are set in when they are young. These are collard and lettuce seedlings from last fall. You can also see our mint patch to the left of the photo - our mint is out of control! The close proximity of the plants helps to keep weeds down and also makes for a more productive garden. There is just no wasted space!

Here is a photo of some of our Italienischer lettuce and other lettuce varieties (and some salvia just for looks!) that will give you an idea of how really closely we plant. I know, it looks like it would be too much, but it isn't. We do replenish the soil with an organic fertiliser and of course, composted bunny poop!

You should also be aware that we double and triple crop, and that here in Alabama the growing season is year round for at least some kinds of veggies. We start out the year in February/March with tons of lettuce, endive, escarole, both planted as seed and as "starts" from our local nursery. A few weeks later, I'll start the plants that need warmer weather and carrots, beets and some of the "people-veggies" like squash and tomatoes.

Usually at least some of these veggies will be put in between the now-grown early-spring crops, so that as they are harvested the younger plants will take over the space. Than in the fall, we put in things like collards, spinach, more lettuce, and usually a cover crop in some parts of the garden. We use Crimson Clover as a cover crop, since it edible for bunnies (and pretty, too!)!

So anyway, if you are not planning to use such an intensive method, you'll need probably double the space. You should also be aware that we don't harvest whole heads of lettuce, etc, all at once, but just harvest the larger leaves off of the outside of the head. The plants keep producing longer this way.

Whew!! Is all this confusing or what?!! I'm suddenly realising what a lot of work this gardening business is!!

Snowballs in April

Whew, what a week! Do I say that every week? I think so!

Two bunnies have come in to Huntsville Animal Services this week. The first was this little guy, and I do mean little. His name is Snowball, and he's a Britannia Petite, one of the tiniest of rabbit breeds. He looks exactly like my sweet bunny Pooh, who passed away several years ago. Brought back some lovely memories of her!

I really fell in love with him, and fortunately someone else did, too - when I came in to the shelter this morning he had been adopted! Hooray!

The second bunny was not so fortunate - she was brought in as a stray, and evidently her past owners moved away two months ago and dumped her outside to fend for herself. She seemed a little shakey healthwise, so the kind folks at HAS allowed me to take her as a foster .

If you are holding your breath - don't worry, the story has an ok ending!

We named her Cadbury (she came in the day after Easter and I wasn't feeling very creative!) and took her to Dr. Atlas. Unbelievably, upon x ray it seems she has a broken leg and three or four broken ribs! However, they have all healed, so those injuries happened at least six weeks ago. She also has bruising on her stomach, and we have no idea what that is from. And she has coccidia. And she has ear mites!

Poor thing. This is why I absolutely go berzerk whenever I hear of bunnies being kept outside, or let outside to "go free". It is just too dangerous for bunnies out there!

Anyway, needless to say Cadbury will never go outside again! We are keeping her confined to a small quarantine cage and in two weeks she'll go back to Dr. Atlas. I have really fallen in love with her. She is a very small bunny, white with pink eyes. She looks like Miss Ginny's little sister!

I took some photos but her pink eyes glow with the flash, so she looks like some sort of alien space bunny! Hmmmmm......maybe after she is healthier I can take her under some lights and get non-flash photos.
Not only have I been bunny-busy, I've been garden-busy as well. I have most of the garden weeded out and have started planting the "bunny-food". We have tons of little lettuce plants coming up as well as Swiss Chard, onions, beets, arugula, kale and collards.

With all of this I definately need to stop and smell the flowers. Here is one of our patches of "money plants". We have tons of these all through our woodland. They're a bit unruly, but they smell great and they are very easy to care for. they also glow a little after dark, which is always nice when we're sitting out on the patio.

Our wisteria is blooming, too. I love it, but it attracts dozens of bees. A little scary when you're innocently trying to weed a patch next to the vine and are constantly gettting buzzed!

Nifty Hay Holder!

With a house full of rabbits, cats and a biologist who specialises in pond scum, sometimes I despair of ever having the kind of home that would be featured in, say, House Beautiful magazine. In fact, I dare say I expect Ty and the crew from Extreme Home Makeover to be here any second! So I'm always happy to get tips on controlling our mess in ways that are somewhat eye-appealing.

A couple of weeks ago I was visiting Angie, and noticed she had her bunnies' hay in...a pop-open laundry hamper! Why have I not ever thought of this - it's a great idea! So much tidier, lightweight and easier-on-the-eye than the cardboard boxes I have littering the bunny room, and it even has handles!

Yup, it's just one of those "pop-open" laundry hampers that places like Target and Wal-Mart sell - I think they are mainly made to appeal to students. It's made of some kind of mesh, and folds up into a flat little package. Opened up, it holds a lot of hay, but is easy to carry around.

Wow - thank you Angie for this wonderful idea!! Maybe there is hope for my cosmetically challenged house after all!