Binkies in the Drawing Room is a weekly journal, filled with rabbits, binkies and the challenges that is the learning curve of raising a new pet.
WEEK ONE
DAY ONE
SO LET’s go back a few DAYS to last week FriDAY, FRIDAY EVENING to be exact. Coming home from work I built up all my gumption to do something I’ve been thinking on and off about for years. I was going to buy a rabbit. Why a rabbit? Why not a rabbit? I had upgraded from a hamster and downgraded from a cat (sorry kitties, still got nothing but love for you), but somehow a rabbit seemed feasible. I had pleasant childhood memories of cuddling rabbits a quarter my size in an outdoor cub that was big enough for me to sit on the end of at the entrance.
Every time I mentioned getting one again I was told of how hard it would be to build a cub and how nasty rabbit droppings were, but something told me, ‘your parents are saying that because they had to take care of them last time and they don’t want that hassle again, just get the damn rabbit and everything else will come’. Eventually, hopefully, yeah sure. So I walked into the pet store that I had checked several times before during the year and they always seemed to be ‘getting more rabbits soon’ (which I took as a sign). However as faith would have it, TODAY they had three pleasant looking bunnies.
There was no instant attraction, no eye ball to eye ball owner meets future pet and love at first sight. I saw the rabbits. Two white and a grey, walked the length of the store and looked at the hamsters, the budgies, the million and one fishes and then walked back. The grey slept lazily to the back of the cage, the larger white sniffed the air and went back to eating but the little white one propped up curiously on its hind legs and really took a long sniff at me. I guess you’re the one, I thought. The pet store clerk went in search of a box, grabbed the little one by the ears, I paid my grand 40TTD and I officially had a pet. My cousin came in to buy dog food and chuckled at my purchase. With a last warning from the clerk about the stench of little rabbits 'pee pee', I gently lugged the rabbit home.
Now given the fact that I basically live in an extended family and I hadn't told anyone that I was bringing home a new member, heck I made up my mind a half hour before!, there was relatively a lot of surprise. From blank stares to dropped jaws to giggles to just plain stop in their tracks, I got it all. Generally they were a good bunch about it, some even commenting that they thought we were eating turkey for Christmas this year not rabbit meat! I got little rabbit fed and in a box and went off to ponder my next move.
DAY TWO
By morning, I had woken up at 5 to clean out the box and refill the bowls with food. My Saturday morning was spent out but by the time I came back in and saw the bottom of babies box soaked and littered with droppings I knew I had to deal with this differently. So my father offered to build a cub for it the next day but I still had a problem. How could one little rabbit eat SO much. And where was I going to place the cub? Outside? Hell no! My brother had a bird he kept outside and an owl killed it one night though it was still inside the cage!
Further more, the store had no rabbit food, not that I liked that dry pellet stuff, forgive me but a rabbit should eat fresh. But where was I going to get so much fresh goodies? I didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl. I didn't even think to ask that! And as much as I hated the 1 by 2 box it was in there was nothing else to put my bunny in! And if I let it run loose I had to be running behind it with a scoop!
It was getting evident that I hadn't planned this out very well. And just in case you're wondering why I keep calling it 'it', it's because I hadn't even thought to give it a name yet! I don't even know how old it is!
By mid-day, I sorted most of my problems out. Got a name, Sarah (not my choice) my nieces. I prefer Ra Ra for short, courtesy Winnie the Pooh (watching tooo much baby shows!!). My father offered to build a cub the next day, and one of my nieces, figured out the sex for me, hence the female name.
DAY THREE
Ra Ra slept right outside my door. No, she does not sleep in my room. Not enough space with all my clutter. After being fed, I left the box open like a naive new parent and by the time I made two spins the baby was out of the box! And since my mother was having none of that, I had to keep the box covered.
'Scratch, scratch, scratch'. 'I wanna come out!' 'Scratch, scratch, scratch'.
Sorry baby, not now! Your mummy's having a nervous break down!
"Why didn't you just buy a bird?" a family member commented. That would be even worse! I can't take to keep a baby bunny locked up in a box you think I could keep a bird?! I read 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'! It's not pleasant!
So mum (bless her) decided to 'widen' the peep holes I created all over the box. It would do for now right? But by the end of the day my father hadn't even started to build the cub yet so I was forced to leave Ra Ra inside the box another night, placing my brothers old Pokemon poster on top for added weight so she wouldn't be tempted to jump out again. As I drifted off to sleep, I calculated a plan for the morning.
DAY FOUR
Escapeeee! I awoke, in fact my sister awoke to find Ra Ra sniffing around the house like she owned the place. She had used the added width of mum's holes and nibbled her way out during the night. I cut a piece of cardboard from a smaller box and tapped it over. I wondered if Alice's little white rabbit gave her this much trouble as mine. I cleaned the box, laid papers, threw in some chopped carrots, cucumbers and water grass, hoped that she would poop out any cardboard she may have ingested, and dashed off to work.
By mid-day I got a text from my mother, "yuh child escape again". Arghh! I had no intention of asking my mother to police Ra Ra, she was my responsibility but if I wasn't home it would make it increasingly hard to do so. And furthermore, I was feeling, what is it, separation anxiety. Thinking of her in that little cramped box, scratching and scratching the sides! So I decided to calm my nerves and read up everything I could on taking care of rabbits. I visited About.com, and took notes.
Ra Ra wasn't just a white rabbit but a red-eyed albino. Her eyes are more sensitive to light than other rabbits. I read everything on feeding, training (rabbits can be potty-trained ha!), understanding their behaviour and building an appropriate home. I sighed. If I'd realised that rabbits were so high maintenance... you wouldn't expect that from something so small. By the time I raced home, there was still no cub and another big hole she had chewed through on the next side of the box. So, I set about scrubbing down old wire and scoping out bits of wood to do it myself.
Given my struggling with the pliers my father finally basically told me to stop before I hurt myself and he would definitely build it tomorrow. I stopped, only because I wasn't getting anywhere, and I had planned that if he still hadn't done anything by the time I had called home during lunch the next day I was going to Amazon and order something appropriate. That night I stayed up till one, cooking, writing and letting Ra Ra 'binky' around the house to her little hearts content.
'Just making up for your prison time today,' I told her, 'but only because everyone's asleep'. I went through my notes. Rabbits can live for a long time, almost fifteen years if they are well taken care of. According to rabbit behaviour a lick means they like you (have yet to get one of those) but a chin rub means they're marking their territory (got lot's of those). And I think that's when I made up my mind that me and Ra Ra were in it for the long haul.
DAY FIVE
By now I had routine. Look, I am NOT a morning person AT ALL but it became clear that if I didn't get up earlier, I wouldn't make it out of the house on time (not that that's not always the case). So by 5:15 am, I rolled over and ten minutes after I was outside cleaning the box, and hoping it would the last time I would see the thing. I had taped plastic to the bottom inside as my mother suggested before I lined it with paper so it wasn't soaked through but it would only last so long.
Rabbit seemed to have accepted her small box, there was no more scratching, no more escapes reported by my mother that day, just a quiet rabbit, hopefully more content than sad! I put an extra bowl with food in the fridge for my mum to give her after lunch just in case. I kept up the rabbit research and as suggested located a vet nearby in case of emergencies.
So far she had only been eating carrots, water grass and cucumbers and a plant my parents called 'rabbit meat' which I have yet to fully identify in the clutter of green around my yard. But she seemed to like it. I researched what rabbits could and couldn't eat and decided to make use of the countryside for good quality grass and not just my yard. I also gave in and bought a small bag of rabbit feed from a garden store but decided only to give her two handfuls a day.
By the time I got home, the frame of a 3-4 ft by 2ft cub was standing upstairs. It WAS getting somewhere. I had drawn an example of what I wanted it to look like for my father but left the details up to him. Once it had an upper level half way across so Ra Ra could make use of as much space as possible (she is growing you know) I..we...would be happy. So, I cleaned out the box again and let her run around or rather run away from my nieces and when they finally went to sleep the two of us enjoyed some quiet time in the drawing room until I was ready to turn in.
'So if you can train a rabbit, you can just get that instead of a dog, except without the barking," my sister commented as she watched Ra Ra sprawled out next to me. Never was a dog person anyway.
DAY SIX
I have to get a hinge and a latch and that's it, Ra Ra house will be complete. So when I get home, my parents haul it downstairs, I dust it out, make sure their isn't any wire poking out inside but my fathers taken care of that, there isn't any and place her inside it. It looks fantastic!! I let her jump in an out, getting the feel of it and then I fix it up with newspaper (vinyl on top of wood underneath that) and then I put in food and put her in. She's not liking the upper level yet, and refuses to jump down, after 15 mins I have to take her off.
I make use of the Pokemon poster again to block the door for now. My father has run out of wood so the door will have to wait. As soon as I turn around she pushes down the poster. So I put a brick behind it this time. About a little less than half a foot of space is at the top. I walk back to the kitchen and turn around and see a flash of white streak across the drawing room! 'Ah!' Ra Ra refused to jump down less than a foot from the upper level in her cub but she jumped almost a foot and a half to get out?! I plop her back in and put a brick under the poster so it covers the whole entrance.
'You have to get used to it!' I say, 'if you're going to get potty trained this is how it's going to work!' Ra Ra is not happy. Next time I check in on her, she's turned over her food bowl and sat in the next corner with her back to the door. Not eating anything. Who knew rabbits could snub? By the end of the night she's nibbling and sniffing at the wiring. 'No binkies tonight,' I tell her, 'mummy's tired'. And tired I am! Who knew taking care of a rabbit was so hard! (My mums laughing at me!)
DAY SEVEN
I notice some of her stool is soft. It's nothing really, the research says. Given the consistency, it's normal. I'm not as yukked out as before about it though. I'm scraping up droppings, soaking up pee with old wash cloths, and stomaching food after. We have a way to go but she's generally a happy little rabbit. I'm thinking of getting her her own things, a brush, a nail clipper, a towel (not for bathing as they say it can be deadly with rabbits but for her own use) and maybe even a safe chew toy! Her diet has changed. Bugs Bunny lied. After a taste of the cucumbers and the apples as occasional treats, she's eating the carrots less. So next week I'll also work on varying her diet. This first week started as 'What the hell did I get myself into?!!' But it ended on a good note. A tired one, but a good one all the same.
NB: I'll try and leave some of the sites I visited this week for you all to check! And some pics of Ra Ra!
