I'm really liking how the indoor colony for my rabbits is working out. And the buns seem pretty happy with it, too. Here's Solstice's bunch, they're just about four weeks old in this picture. They are, all six of them, lounging on top of their nest box. They are at that awkward age, wanting to be independent but not wanting to be too far away from the safety of the nest. So they sit on top of their home, all big and independent in the world until a strange noise sends them diving inside the box. A real perk of the colony is I'm able to give them much bigger nest boxes that have a bit more resemblance to a burrow. The doe will often collect hay and wood chips and build a bank up to the opening of the nest box, something that was impossible in a cage. Now the the nest boxes can have much higher sides, little kits don't fall out before they are ready to cope with the great big world. And the nice mound that Mama Rabbit makes up to the nest box makes it much easier for wee ones to manage to get back in.I have also found it to be much less time consuming as far as cleaning goes. Rabbits are by nature, tidy and neat animals, leaving their droppings in corners. So I have put cat litter pans in the corners. It's a simple matter to dump into the worm bins, rinse the pans and pop them back in.The mature does get along well together. I think there may-be some shared nursing going on but all the kits are roley-poley, alert and happy. I'm hoping to be able to expand on the colonies as time and experience permits. One thing I'd really like to do is have openings from the colony to enclosed areas outside so the rabbits could go out in the warmer weather. It's still in the planning stages and there's a few kinks to work out.
I know we're more than halfway through April, but I'm going to talk about March.You got to feel sorry for March, everybody hates it. March brings occasional warm spells and things soften up and melt. On the island, that means mud. Squishy, splashy, jump-up-and-cling-to-your-clothes mud. And it's red, and it stains and you can't wash it out. But like the blood it so resembles, mud means life, but we'll just ignore that because it's so messy. Everyone complains about the mud, it looks ugly, what a mess, tracks everywhere and so on and so forth. On top of the red mud, there are the snowbanks hulking by the roadsides, leftovers from storms past. The snowbanks have lost their pristine white and have taken on the grey pallor of death. On muddy country roads they begin to form black edges that spider-crawl over the bank's skin, making deep inroads into that once impenetrable crust. As the grey and black snowbanks melt, the red mud leaks out beneath them. Then March, probably fed up with all the human whining, freezes up and coats everything with a nice layer of new, so-glittering-it-hurts-your-eyes snow. Everyone complains about the snow. It's cold again, it's icy again, and so forth and so on. Poor March, it's either warm and ugly or cold and pretty and nobody appreciates either.But the days are longer, the suns' smiles are a little bit brighter, the wind's lost its teeth and doesn't bite anymore (I'm not saying it's not nippy, it's just not painful). Things that I thought would never thaw out again, actually do; the river, the ground, my sense of humour... So welcome, March, uncover the yellow, dead grass and the good, black squares of my garden so April can revive and green them up. You may not be loved but you're needed.
