The Rabbit House» Scamp Archives – The Rabbit House

The Rabbit Sat on the Mat

Tamsin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:58:15 +0000

Scamp sitting on a grass mat, just outside his warren entrance (cardboard tunnel).

This is Scamp’s Christmas present, he really likes it! How can I tell? Not because three weeks post Christmas it’s still in one piece (usually the opposite is true for rabbits – the more they like it the quicker it is shredded). I know because he has shifted his napping spot 9″ to the left so that he can sit on the mat whilst napping. Rabbit’s really like routine, so I know he really likes his mat because he’s changed his habits to use it. In case you think I’m a bit mean, I haven’t moved the mat 9″ to the right as that would be under the sink, and I don’t think natural fibre mats appreciate having water dripped on them.

It’s a big responsibility being a pet owner, he had no way of saying: “Hey, I really wish I had something just about here to sit on’. We have to try and anticipate our rabbit’s wants and needs. Any else found something their your bunny really likes that maybe isn’t one of the basics (food/water/litter tray etc.)?

Want to see a cute, mat related video….

Last minute Christmas Baking – for Rabbits

Tamsin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:09:47 +0000

There seems to be bright lights and sparkly things everywhere, anyone would think it was almost Christmas or something! If it’s snuck up on you and the idea of braving the shops for last minute presents sends you into a panic, this is for you…

Christmas Bunny Treats!

They are easy and inexpensive to make, healthier than most shop bought treats and make wonderfully tasty Christmas presents for your rabbit.

Just take these instructions for making homemade rabbit treats and adjust the flavour to your rabbits taste. This time Scamp tried out Carrot & Banana…

Take two handfuls of pellets (crushed), two handfuls of rolled oats, 1 banana, 2 medium carrots

Finely grate the carrot, chop up the banana, crush the pellets and mix it all together.

Roll out the mix with a rolling pin and then use your favourite cookie cutters, we had squares, stars and Christmas Trees. Then poke a hole in them – don’t forget this step if you want to hang them up!

Bake on a low heat for a couple of hours until they are completely dry. And tada, Christmas bunny treats:

Please remember to remove the ribbon, or swap it for something more bunny safe like sisal before letting your bun lose on them!

A Time for Giving

Our bunnies are a luckily lot, I’m sure they are treated and cuddled all year around. Sadly, there are many bunnies that don’t have a slave to spoil them this Christmas, so if you have spare treats, have time to make some bunny toys, or have odds and ends like bottles, bowls, bin bags, brushes, towels, unwanted toys, even a bag of spare bunny food then please pop them along to your local rescue and make their day with something for the not so luckily bunnies. There is a surprise parcel already winging its way to a rescue from me and my family.

Have a merry Christmas everyone!

RSPCA Happy Bunnies (featuring Scamp)

Tamsin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:59:20 +0000

Remember the RSPCA request for clips of happy bunnies? Here is the finished video:

Can you spot Scamp? And again, and again, and again. What can I say, he’s a very happy bunny!

Don’t forget, if you want a change to win a copy of The Relaxed Rabbit DVD leave a comment by Saturday.

Homemade Rabbit Treats – Fenugreek & Banana

Tamsin — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:15:00 +0000

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…

RSPCA Wants Rabbit Videos

Tamsin — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:27:30 +0000

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.

Autumn Leaves

Tamsin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:41:28 +0000

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.

Making Winter Forage

Tamsin — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:01:23 +0000

This time last year I was writing about all the rabbit safe plants that I found in my garden for Scamp to enjoy. I’ve been picking leaves again and Scamp’s been enjoying them, but I know shortly autumn will turn them all pretty colours and that will be it for tasty leaves until next spring. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was some way to store them up so Scamp could eat them all year around? Well, maybe there is. My experiment with making my own hay proved that it was possible to store tasty summer grass for eating later (I’ve made several more batches since), so why not do the same with other plants.

I started by collected a pile of tasty looking leaves. Look for green healthy looking ones without blemishes (or bugs) and collect them on a dry day.

Dandelion, thistle, strawberry, hazel, ginko, raspberry & basil leaves

Don’t forget to get your bunnies approval, there is not point going to the trouble of drying and storing leaves your bunny won’t eat. Scamp gives all these a pass on the taste test. I divided my pile in two, half for his supper and half to dry out.

Just checking the flavour!

The leaves for drying, the ones Scamp hadn’t eaten, I spread out on a tea tray on top of a couple of sheets of kitchen roll:

Then I popped them in the airing cupboard where it is warm and dry. I wasn’t sure how long it would take, but it was surprisingly fast! In just 4 days they looked like this:

It’s surprising how much they shrink! The Ginko leaves (which are thicker) needed a couple more days but everything else was dry and crispy. But the big question is, do they still pass the bunny taste test?

The answer is yes, Scamp seems just about as excited about dry leaves and the fresh ones. So I’m going to be drying a lot more leaves to provide tasty, home grown, rabbit food full of vitamins and completely free!

Other was to Dry Plants for Your Rabbit

There are several ways to dry out leaves for storage:

Leave them somewhere warm and dry like I did … I put mine in the airing cupboard! It takes 4-5 days to dry them out.
Lay them out outside and let the sunshine do the work. The drawback is you need sunshine! You may want to stretch a bit of clear plastic above them to keep the rain off.
Use your oven. You can dry leaves in an oven on the lowest heat setting, or better yet, save energy and just use the leftover heat after you’ve cooked something. The downside is you can’t fit much in at once and something can be a little stinky. I doesn’t take long though (about 15minutes), we did this with Scamp’s first greens when he was a tiny baby.

Rabbit Ball Pit

Tamsin — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:59:26 +0000

My bunny book is with the printer, so it’s time to relax and have some fun! We’ve had a sack of children’s play balls sitting in the garage for ages so I thought I’d see what Scamp thought. They are the sort of balls you find in ball pits so they are quite soft plastic and very light. They wouldn’t stand up to chewing but are cheap and good for nudging about.

As you can see, the pesky balls are all in the wrong place and need rearranging and rearranging, and shouldn’t that yellow one go on the left instead.

And for those that like live action rabbits, a quick video too:

How far can Scamp Hop?

Tamsin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 01:40:23 +0000

I’ve been wondering recently about rabbit hops. A lot of welfare information talks about enough room to take three or four or half a dozen hops, but just how far is a rabbit’s hop? The answer, I’m sure, depends on the rabbit in question – particularly how big they are and how long their legs are. Just like humans, not everyone covers exactly the same distance with each step. It made me curious about how far Scamp hopped though, and the best way to answer that is to break out a tape measure and find out!

The yellow and blue ‘markers’ are spaced 30cm (1 foot) apart.

That’s just his normal hopping about the place hop and covers about 18″. I’m sure he travels further when he builds up speed but getting a bunny to hop in a straight line on command is hard work. Just watch these out-takes:

Apple Branches

Tamsin — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:52:07 +0000

It’s probably the wrong time of year for pruning, but we missed at the end of last year so the apple tree is rather overgrown. I’ve whipped off a few branches and used them to decorate Scamp’s corner.

Before:

After:

Doesn’t it look nicer with a bit of greenery! Of course it won’t stay that way for long. The question is, which leaf to eat first. Scamp gave quite a few a good sniff before selecting which to eat.

This leaf first?

Or this leaf?

And the out take, what a dopey face. Possibly it’s rabbit for this is very tasty (what do you mean don’t talk with my mouth full).

Sorry for the gap in posts. Scamp had his VHD jab at the beginning of May but there was a muddle up and he got the Cylap version of the vaccine and had a bad reaction to it. Poor chap had big sores running down his side and under his chest, which resulted in several vet trips some antibiotics and metacam. He sulked for a week but is back to his usual self now.