I'm such a blogging slacker these days. That Facebook page is sucking up all my blogging mojo. However, some posts just need a blog setting to represent properly.
Bunny Land! Remember that place? It started last July, 2014 with a tape measure... and some other tools... eh he he! Not having any experience with bunny herding of any kind we dove in head first with colony style.
Original Bunny Land was 1500 square feet and started with 2 bunnies. I knew it was an experiment and we just needed to start somewhere and adapt as needed.
Bunny Land was amazing and our two bunnies were in bunny heaven. They had green forage to thier hearts content and amazing stumps to play in and around.
Even fall brought new forage with the maples dropping thier leaves.
Then came winter and the bringing of fodder grown in the house. Still, there was no problem with that schedule, the days were short and there was much sleeping in and few rabbits to feed.
But, came the first of the burrows and very little to browse for the new comers. The hopes were to hold out for the warm nights and maybe the grass would keep up.
Hello babies! Wow there are so many of you and you grow so fast!
Hmm? The grass is trying to grow now that its spring and the nights are warmer but, there are sooooo many bunnies!
What's this, a 4th litter of bunnies and it's only May?
I think it's time to adapt! This poor paddock can keep 3 to 4 rabbits comfortable but more than that and it can't keep up.
Over crowding and not having enough browse for all to share inspires escapees!! Cause, well, the grass is greener on the other side. Once they figured it out it was all over.
After much work bunny proofing the orchard, it was time to move the buns to a bigger paddock. Thus continues the experiment of how many bunnies can be sustained in what size paddock when trying to keep up with litters and processing.
The buns exploring thier new abundance of browse. So far the amount of feed I provide is reduced to 1/4 of what I was feeding before.
Fat happy bunnies resting in the cool soil.
The new paddock is 10,000 square feet. Stay tuned for the results of this adaptation to colony style buns.
P.S. of course Jessica Rabbit proceeded to dig a burrow under one of the fruit trees within the first 24 hours. Sigh.
