| Q005.com |
|
|
|
|
Do Rabbits Make Good Pets?
written by: Helen Dowd
DO RABBITS MAKE GOOD PETS?
What child would not like to have a bunny as a pet! Well, the good news is, the responsibility of having a bunny as a pet isn’t as impossible as you may think. “But you can’t have a rabbit as a house pet,” I hear you say. But that is not true. You can. There are small breed rabbits which make excellent pets. Two types of miniature rabbits have replaced the “Dutch” breed as most popular. “Mini Lops” are the type with the long floppy ears; and the “Netherland Dwarf” have become the choice of many who want to own a pet bunny.
In the sixties my husband and I raised rabbits. Actually, we began the project to raise them for meat, selling some, and keeping some for our own use, to help with the ever-short cash flow at the time. But as with everything else on our mini-farm, the rabbits soon became pets. I ended up naming them. Well, now let me ask you, “Can you kill Clara or Susie or Daisy or Betsy, or Peter, and turn them into food?” Of course not. So my husband made a rule. I could name only the rabbits that we would be using as breeders. All the others had to remain nameless.
But the problem was, our nieces and nephews would come to visit us. The first thing they wanted to do was go see the rabbits. We must have had about fifty at the time, all in cages, according to what we were planning to do with them. And usually Clara and Susie and Daisy, as well as Betsy would have babies in different stages of growth. There was never any shortage of bunnies to pass around to the little ones. But it made us uncomfortable to know that those rabbits being cuddled by the children would someday be dinner on the table. My explanation to the children, whenever they asked was, “Well, you don’t eat bunnies. Bunnies are pets. Rabbits are to eat.” Of course, the next question they would ask, holding the bunny of their choice closer, would be, “Is this one a bunny or a rabbit?” So it wasn’t too long before we phased out the “meat” raising end of it. And because not too many people wanted a pet bunny, we soon dropped the rabbit-raising all together.
But we do have some special memories of some of our rabbits–or bunnies.
We had a Netherland Dwarf who ran around the house with the cats and dog. Her name was Dora. She and Mocha and Simba, our Persian and a Siamese cats, would play tag for hours. Then, exhausted, she would curl up beside them and sleep. Training Dora to the litter box was no harder than it was to train the cats. She never ever urinated anywhere but in the box. Very occasionally, when she got carried away playing tag, she would drop a few pellets, but they were easily swept up. We had many enjoyable months with Dora. She would sit curled
Click Here To Go To My Favorite Link
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
