We have a small herd, which is good since it’s just my husband, my toddler and I raising them. Perhaps our toddler isn’t of much help with the rabbits, but she tries. For example, she once tried to help feed the rabbits.. she just opted to feed them water balloons as opposed to those boring ole pellets. And then of course she has also tried to ‘clean’ the rabbits, by spraying them with water. I suppose she actually creates more work than she helps with, but she does love them and does claim responsibility for them J (Note: No rabbits have been hurt by my child, but we have taken precautions to keep her from trying to ‘help’ us in the future.)
My day starts at 6:30 in the morning. I get my husband out of bed and make sure he stays out of bed until he is out the door and on his way to work. Then, I go around and feed and water all of our animals. We have dogs, cats and English Angora rabbits. Now, feeding the Angoras is not a quick task. No, no.. everyone must have their love and kisses. Rotten little things they are. It is during this time that I let my bucks out to exercise, and by exercise, I mean follow me around and occasionally trip me. They have a large area sectioned off to play in to keep them safe. I try and leave the boys out for at least an hour before I put them back up and let my does out. It might seem silly to most people that I keep mine on an ‘exercise’ schedule like this, but I’ve found that frequent play time prevents them from chewing on their coats, which promotes their overall health, and not to mention, their show prospect. I try and have it all wrapped up by 9 am, because, by this time, the rabbits are feeling pretty lazy anyway, and my kiddo is on the verge of waking up at any time. By 9:30, I have breakfast ready and if my little one isn’t up, I wake her up. From here til 1:30 pm is all momma duties, which sometimes overlaps with rabbit duties (like when she wants to see or ‘groom’ her rabbit.) 1:30 is that time of day when all parents rejoice and are thankful that they DIDN’T go through with pulling their hair out earlier- NAP TIME! Except, momma doesn’t get to take a nap, Momma has rabbit duties to do. I have a bad back, so I try to clean 1-2 cages each day. Our set-up is small. It’s not the most practical, either. It involves taking a pan, carrying it down 8 steps and then about 100 feet away from the building and into the woods. We dump our droppings in the woods to keep the odor away from the rabbit area and our own home. We’ve tried a few other ideas to make this trip more practical, but they failed in the long run. We tried trash bags.. until the day one busted and droppings from 5 rabbit cages spilled everywhere.. right in the rabbit area. . YUCK. The wheel barrow didn’t work so well in the rocky terrain of our woods.. the little red wagon seemed perfect.. til I realized have of the crap was bouncing out on the way down. So, alas, we carry each pan down to the woods. Then, I line whatever pans I’ve carried out, up , and hose them down good. Then they’re returned to their appropriate cages where a little pine pellets and Sweet PDZ is added for odor control, and the task is complete. At this time, I head over to the play area and clean it up if I didn’t have time to do that in the morning. And then, it’s grooming time! I try to plan it to where I only have to groom 1-2 rabbits a day. My brood stock is very low-maintenance. I usually groom them once every other week, as a preventative type thing. Grooming involves blowing their coat, which takes about 5 minutes a rabbit, combing their faces and clipping their nails. All in all, I spend about 15 minutes a rabbit grooming my brood stock. I have 4 brood rabbits so I groom about 2 brood rabbits a week, usually on the same day (as I said, I have a very small herd. Our numbers are constantly fluctuating, we’ve had as many as 30 here in the past, be it because we were helping others or growing some of our own out for a while before evaluating, but currently, we only have 4 broodies.) On the other days, I groom my show stock. I currently have 2 show rabbits, one which is going through transition, and one which is not. The one that is going through transition is groomed daily. It takes about 30 minutes a day to get rid of all of that webbing. I suspect that since he’s transitioning so hard, it will not last as long as it does in some rabbits. Oh dear, I forgot, most of you reading this have no clue what ‘transition’ is. Allow me to enlighten you.. you have 2 main types of English Angoras (EAs,) molters, and non-molters. Molters will completely blow their coats every few months, and grow in a shiny new one. Non-molters do not molt, except sometimes after kindling. They do, however, go through transition at around 4-6 months of age, give or take a few weeks. During transition, they shed out a decent portion of their baby coat and grow in their adult coats. A more-typical description of ‘transition’ by EA breeders is “HELL.” The shedding baby coat gets wrapped around the parts that do not shed, and then the new coat is growing in at the same time.. all of this chaos causes ‘webbing’ near the skin level.. and it has to be carefully removed. If you’re too rough with it, you can actually pull out some of the wool that isn’t shedding, which destroys density and isn’t very comfortable for the rabbit. Grooming a transitioning rabbit usually takes me about 30 minutes a day, but can easily take an hour or longer, especially if they get wet- and since this is also when your bucks are hitting puberty, getting wet is highly likely (for you non-rabbit folk, bucks like to spray themselves, at all the wrong times, in all the wrong places.) No matter how hard you try, a determined buck will cover himself in urine. I have spent days trying to figure out how a buck was managing to soak his own back.. never did figure out the answer to that one. Anyways, when they manage to get wet, you then have to deal with felting. Felting is when the webbed/matted parts are turning into felt. Once felted, it is impossible to untangle and must be cut out. This can absolutely ruin a coat. This is why, if a rabbit gets wet, I gently comb the affected area and immediately blow dry it.. but blow drying can take a very long time, depending on how large of an area is affected. If the rabbit is not transitioning, and is not wet, then grooming normally takes me about 20 minutes a day, per rabbit and I usually groom them every other day. By the time I’m done with cleaning cages, and cleaning the play area, and grooming rabbits, nap time is about over, so I switch back over to mom gear.
Eventually, my darling husband arrives home from work. After dinner, it’s that time of day when my child is bound and determined that her daddy is hers, all hers, and by golly I’d better not try and take his attention away from her! This makes it the perfect time to make my evening rounds. Everyone is fed, pet, kissed and watered. Either the guys come out with the family and the girls go to the play area, or vice versa. We rotate this around, and try and do it around dusk, as the rabbits are pretty active at this time and tend to chew more at this time. This is actually one of my favorite parts of having rabbits- spending time feeling that amazing wool, letting them hang out with the family, lay in my lap as I’m on Facebook, undoubtedly talking with someone about rabbits. When they’re done being held and cuddled, they’ll let us know by pawing at us, and that is usually a sign that they need to potty, so off to their cages they go. After they do their business, we switch them out with the rabbits in the play area until the same cycle is repeated, but we leave them all in their little bunny condos to eat their little bunny dinners, say their little bunny prayers, and doze off.
Unless they’re up to be sheared. When it’s time to shear them, they have dinner just a wee bit late.. in fact, they don’t get their normal dinner at all (I’m mean like that.) As soon as we put the kiddo to bed, we bring the rabbit in question out, get out our handy-dandy clippers, and buzz away the fluffiness. The rabbit is usually lying on the grooming table, unrestrained, during this time. If they’re a bit fidgety, we give a handful of greens (which is why they skip dinner) and my husband will help out by petting the fidgeters to keep them still. To shear their bellies, I will hold them in my arms like you hold a newborn baby, and slowly place them on the grooming table, while stroking their heads. I do this with the clippers on, so the noise doesn’t startle them, and I rub their bellies a bit too, so the touch doesn’t startle them. Then, I slowly run the clippers over their bellies and chests, just like I did the back. The end. When shearing is all over with, the rabbit gets a heaping helping of hay, some oats and, if they didn’t already get them, a nice plate of greens, and they are returned to their cages to enjoy their feast! We reward our rabbits for their patience!
The truth about EAs is, they’re a lot of work. I mean, a LOT. You don’t just have poop to clean, you have wooly poop to clean. You don’t just have pee to scrub, you have fuzzy pee to scrub. You don’t HAVE to let them out of their cages daily, but you also don’t know who’s going to chew their coats either, and you really don’t want to do all of that work and then not have a coat to show. And then of course, there’s always that chance that you’re going to do all of that work and no matter what you do, they chew anyway. Or they do something else to ruin that gorgeous coat that you worked so hard for. But they’re so wonderful, too. They have puppy-like personalities, full of character and curiousity, craving attention and loving to be your shadow. I love taking them out and about to visit random strangers. You haven’t truly lived until a burly looking cowboy, or a leathered up biker, have handed you their phones and asked “Can you just take my picture with you rabbit? I’ve got to show my buddies this! They won’t believe it!” And the rabbits truly seem to enjoy it as much as I do. I’ve had them kiss judges before (they’re little suck ups) and I’ve seen them kiss babies. When well-kept, they have a unique beauty that is unsurpassed by any other animal (okay, this is my opinion, but to me it is also fact) and I really just enjoy being around them. I am blessed to be an Angora breeder.