I am married (as noted above by the use of the word husband) and have two sons. In the search for the right pet for our family (allergies to cats, housing rules do not allow large dogs, small dogs require too much attention and we are not home during the days, birds are too noisy, can't play with fish, etc), we finally decided on a rabbit!
Here starts our story....
On September 18th, 2010, we adopted Sugar (a Silver Marten rabbit) from a family that was no longer able to care for it. The ad listed Sugar as a one year old female (fixed) dwarf bunny. What a wonderful addition, Sugar was to our family. We so enjoyed having a bunny, that we decided to add a second one to our family, in part, as companion to Sugar, in part, because I am now crazy about pet rabbits!
We searched for quite a while as we wanted to be sure to get another female. Just in case Sugar was not in fact fixed, as we had been told.
On January 21, 2011, we adopted a Rex rabbit (also known as Velveteen) named Cuddles from another family (too much work for the child owner). Cuddles was seven months old at the time. For those who have never had the pleasure, Rex rabbits are so incredibly soft.
The first meeting between Cuddles and Sugar went rather well, and after a few hours they seemed to be adjusting to each other. Under constant supervision, we allowed them to run freely together during the evening; however, we separated them at night. One cage appeared to be too close of quarters, so soon after meeting.
Fast forward almost three months to Monday, April 11, 2011, when we received two MAJOR surprises!
Dear Barmy Bunny Broad
ReplyDeleteCould you kindly define the word "Barmy"? I am not familiar with this word, but it makes me think of that song by the Arctic Monkeys called "Mardy Bum". :-)
I have two good friends with bunnies, one of whom is J whom you also know from work.
Glad to follow your blog! Keep writing! Allyson
English Slang Dictionary v1.2: mad, crazy, insane
ReplyDeleteLondon Slang: a foolish person, mad. "You must be barmy mate".
Australian Slang: mad; stupid; silly
English English Dictionaries
barmy - adj : informal or slang terms for mentally irregular [syn: balmy, bats, batty, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crackers, daft, dotty, fruity, haywire, kooky, kookie, loco, loony, loopy, nuts, nutty, wacky]
Idioms & Phrases Dictionaries
The Phrase Finder - Barmy
Meaning A raucous and undisciplined group.
Origin - Coined in the UK and most often used as an ironic nickname for the travelling supporters of the English cricket team. Barmy, or balmy, means crazy.
WordNet 2.0
BArmy - Adjective
1. marked by spirited enjoyment
(synonym) zestful, yeasty, zesty
(similar) spirited
2. informal or slang terms for mentally irregular; "it used to drive my husband balmy"
(synonym) balmy, bats, batty, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crackers, daft, dotty, fruity, haywire, kooky, kookie, loco, loony, loopy, nuts, nutty, round the bend, around the bend, wacky, whacky
(similar) insane
We actually have a few bunny folks at work; however, I did not know about J. Thanks for letting me know.
Let's go with "mentally irregular" for a definition - then I can belong to the barmy group too. I haven't read the rest of your blog entries yet but I can tell by the pictures that this is going to be good! My eye just caught the phrase "It looks like she dropped an organ". Something tells me that you now have more than 2 bunnies!
ReplyDeleteNot only do I have two bunnies in the family, one of them is also called Cuddles! How weird is that?! The other one is called Lulu -- yes, we thought we had two females as well, sisters from the same litter, in fact. It wasn't until about 3-4 months in did we notice Lulu paying some extra attention to Cuddles (lots of hugging, shall we say ...). When I picked her up, and looked underneath, well, you can imagine my surprise. Given that Cuddles may very well have been pregnant, we opted to get her fixed first. Since then, all has been well, with no little bunnies to contend with, thank goodness.
ReplyDeleteDreamer - I have never professed to be "normal". What fun would that be. I subscribe to the "smile and make the world wonder what you're up to" philosophy.
ReplyDeleteJ - wow, that is so funny. We did not name either of our bunnies, nor did we feel it would be fair to change their names. Admittedly, we would not have named them anything as "cutesy" as Sugar and Cuddles , had it been our choice.
I have heard that siblings will mate; however, the kits are never viable, so you probably saved everyone a lot of heartache by having her fixed.
We noticed the "hugging" right from day one, but Sugar was never fussy on which end he "hugged". We figured that a male would know which end was which, but apparently , they are not at all particular. It is also common fr two females to "hug" in order to determine dominance. When five/six weeks went by and nothing happened, we figured, it was indeed a dominance game between two females. Silly us.
Dear Barmy Bunny Broad
ReplyDeleteI have not been 'hugged' in a very long time. Do you suppose Cuddles might have some advice for me? Is the trick that a girl should ignore attempts to hug in order to increase a suitor's ardour?
p.s. You may wish to delete this comment to keep your blog day care friendly! I'm just being silly! :-)
Dear Dreamer - as bing "hugged" has led to the responsibility and care of five little ones, I imagine that Cuddles would tell you that it is highly overrated!
ReplyDelete