My mum and I did some baking yesterday, but not cakes… we made bunny treats! My mum was tidying up her herbs & spices draw awhile back and found a packet of fenugreek, and I said ‘rabbits like that’ (everyone’s heard of fenugreek crunchies, right?), so she said lets make him some. After thoroughly researching online recipes we decided to go for the make it up as you go along approach.

Quite a few recipes called for honey, to stick it together, but we weren’t really convinced that’s a great option for bunnies. Instead we went for banana, and crossed our fingers it wouldn’t turn into crumble.

Ingredients

2 small bananas

1 tbl spoon fenugreek

2 handfuls rolled porridge oats

1 handful dry rabbit food (pellets)

a splash of water

Instructions

1. Add fenugreek, porridge oats and banana to a mixing bowl.

2. Collect dust from bottom of rabbit food bag/tub, decide there isn’t quite enough and smush some pellets up to make more.

3. Mix together, adding a splash of water if necessary until it binds together.

4. Put some grease proof paper on a baking tray (the dabs of oil at the corners are underneath to stop the paper rolling up).

(You don’t need a pic of that do you?)

5. Break off sections of the mix and roll it between your palms to make a ball.

6. Place the balls on the baking tray and flatten.

7. Place the baking tray in the oven, we tried using the left over heat after cooking a meal but it needed a little longer to dry out completely, so a low heat e.g. 150 oC for 30-60 minutes and just keep an eye should do it.

8. Artfully arrange them on a plate with a sprig of basil.

Testing

Of course, no baking is complete without testing. These smelt so good I was almost tempted myself, but I thought it best to let Scamp have that honour.

Scamp gave them a resounding paws up – very tasty!

Obviously, these are treats, so will be portioned out gradually to avoid porkyness. Easy and cheap to make though and much less of the processed odds and ends that you get in many store brought treats.

I’m already wondering about flavour variations… I wonder how well apple n grass would stick together…

Awhile back the RSPCA released a ‘Happy Bunnies‘ video to demonstrate how space and freedom make bunnies happy. I think it’s a great way to show people that rabbits need so much more than a small hutch/cage.

They are now gathering videos for a Christmas special:

This time we’d like to see video clips of happy bunnies playing and interacting with toys, their rabbit companions or with people. We want to show that providing rabbits with plenty of things to do is good for their physical and emotional well-being and can be great fun for owners too.

I’ve been going through my clips of Scamp to dig out some of the best ones of him having fun. It’s fun looking through all the pictures, this one’s no good for the RSPCA but it’s so cute I thought I’d share. This is Scamp as a baby:

I’ve sorted out some of him playing too, if you’ve got any suitable, here’s what to do…

1) Take some video of your rabbit(s) playing and having fun. We’re looking for rabbits playing naturally in their usual environment. Please ensure your rabbit(s) is enjoying the experience and do not make him/her perform for the video.
2) Please keep your clip to no longer than 1 minute long. We are unable to use clips that are too dark or shaky, so be aware of this when taking your video – particularly of rabbits indoors.
3) Upload your clip to http://dropbox.yousendit.com/RSPCA by Friday 18th November 2011.

It’s getting a bit chilly and the leaves are turning on another year. I love autumn leaves, the colours, the crisp crunch as you walk on them, even the smell.

Just because Scamp’s a house bunny, I don’t see why he can’t enjoy some of the autumn season too. These are leaves from our grape vine, it’s a bit damp at the moment, so I collected them on a dry day and left them to dry out, like I did with the other dry leaves a few weeks ago.

What do you think, Scamp?

Then I piled them up in his favourite corner:

And he quickly popped out of bed to take a look. He wasn’t completely sure about the crunching sound when he walked on them at first, but he got over it fairly quickly once he realised he could eat them!

I think autumn colours rather suit him!

Dry leaves can be eaten, picked up and tossed, crunched under your paws and dug through – wonderful rabbit enrichment.

Today I’m going to let loose my inner geek, want to see something cool?

Look at those pointy bits! What do you think, a cactus, saw blade, sharks teeth… ?

Nope, that’s a blade of grass magnified a few hundred times and those pointy bits are the reason grass (or hay) is an essential part of a rabbit’s diet.

Rabbit’s teeth grow continually throughout their life. To stop the teeth growing too long and causing problems they need to be worn down at the same rate they grow. That sounds fairly logical. But what seems to puzzle a lot of owners is: why does it have to be hay? Surely pellets are harder so would create more wear or even some nice crunchy carrots – wouldn’t they work?

Whilst other foods may contribute some degree of wear, as you can see from the picture, there is something very special about grass and this makes the number one thing for maintaining rabbit’s dental health.

Most people think of grass as soft, like me, you have probably enjoyed sitting on it at some point. But grass is actually very similar to sand paper. Sandpaper isn’t hard, it’s flexible  and you can tear it easily, but if you rub it against something it will wear away the surface. Like the sandpaper, the reason grass is good for wearing teeth is how rough the surface is, not how hard it is. Here is another close up of your rabbit’s dinner:

Hay (Dried Grass) Magnified 200x

The reason that grass is rough is it doesn’t really want to get eaten. So to protect itself, it sucks up silica from the soil and uses it to build rough spiky structures called phytoliths.

If you don’t have a microscope to hand, you can feel them with your fingers. Run your fingers down a piece of grass they will catch on the surface – you can see why from the picture above. This is the same reason hay is so great at catching on your clothing and spreading itself around the house. And why it is so good at wearing down rabbit’s teeth!

Pellets are hard and carrots are crunchy, but neither are rough enough to act like sandpaper on rabbits teeth. For the same reason, grass is just as good as hay for wear, even though hay seems harder because it’s dry and crunchy.

Hands up all those about to go fondle their hay to see how rough it is…

I believe it is traditional to reward your loyal blog readers with a free giveaway (can you tell I just read the handbook). I thought I’d save my one hundred and first book just for you. I want something in return though, yes, I know a little bit cheeky. As my book is about behaviour and I often write about Scamp’s odd habits, I thought I’d ask you what is the oddest thing you’ve even seen your rabbit do?

I’ll pop the names of anyone that comments with their rabbit’s odd quirks by Monday  in a hat and send the winner a free copy of my book.

Then I’ll sit back and enjoy the funny/weird/wonderful bunny tales you share.

Ps. Has anyone tried making bunny biscuits? The sort for rabbits to eat not human biscuits in the shape of rabbits. I found a bag of fenugreek in our herb draw and apparently that’s like rabbit cat nip, so I was wondering about home made treats. Anyone got recipes/instructions?

Edit: And the winner is Annette! I’m glad I just pulled the name out a hat (well random number generated) instead of having to pick. I feel sorry for the people that don’t realise how wonderful bunnies are with their entertaining little quirks and individual personalities.