Bunnies

Quinn with bunny One (would somebody please
 wipe that childs nose!)

Quinn with bunny Two

Our track record with pet bunnies has not been the greatest! Four bunnies in the last three years, no survivors.  The first died mysteriously at only a tender age. The second got out of his run and disappeared into the undergrowth only to be found a few weeks later as a dried patch of skin on a nearby car park. The third met an untimely death by hanging herself with a trailing lead and harness and the fourth also died suddenly. So as you see not much luck. Many graves around the garden, tears from the kids ( and mum)  and no live bunnies to show for it .

Concerned about our access to protein with our project I am venturing into the unknown world of bunny farming! Raising rabbits for meat makes great sense to an urban farmer. They are quiet, easy to keep, require only a small amount of room and breed like rabbits! Raising rabbits for meat is becoming popular in many large urban areas as people become aware of farmed meat full of hormones, chemicals and the issues with large scale factory farming. Raising your own grown meat actually makes very good sense. You know what your meat has eaten and what sort of life it has had. Maybe this time I may get the recipe right.

With our previous pet bunnies we kept them in a movable wooden run which could be pulled around the lawn. This allowed them to nibble on the grass but maybe also brought them into contact with calicivirus or RCD . I suspect that several of our previous pet bunnies may have succumbed to this lethal virus. This virus has been sweeping through New Zealand infecting the wild rabbit population. Once a rabbit catches this easily transmitted virus, they die within hours.

 South Island farmers are believed to have illegally introduced this virus from Australia several years ago. The story goes that other farmers have spread it around the country by grinding dead bunnies up in the food processor and spreading the detritus around other farms. Yuk I hope they cleaned the machine before wifey made the next batch of scones! One could argue that this wasn’t very responsible! Kiwi farmers may have felt as if they had no other options. There are few natural predators of rabbits. We don’t have foxes, wolves, bears or many other predators that feast off rabbits, apart from stoats and weasels which were introduced to keep the growing rabbits population down but acquired a taste for Kiwi instead!

 The climate and landscape of many farms suit the rabbits perfectly and numbers over the centuries have just exploded. This has resulted in paddocks literally moving with a rabbits. A rabbit fence was actually built in Hawkes Bay stretching 64 kilometres in 1885 to try and stop the spread. It didn’t work. The crazy thing was that rabbits were introduced on purpose in the late 1800s to establish a fur trade and for a food source. Needless to say rabbits are seen as a real pest to farmers. City folk see these animals as cute and cuddly pets- which of course they are too.

If I start farming my bunnies for meat and pelts will I have PETA banging down my door? I don’t know of anyone else keeping bunnies for meat in an urban situation, in New Zealand. Is anyone actually doing this? Can I actually kill a cute bunny? I have never killed anything with a face before? My first ever pet when I was young was a rabbit. When he died I remember crying for a fortnight (being away at boarding school probably didn’t help matters). Is this a start to my slippery slope into mass murder?