Herbivore Cookies, Buck Stink, and Bunny FuFu

Today I had fun out in the yard and garden gathering greens for my rabbits and was hit with an idea. Winter is fast approaching and I'd love for my rabbits to have greens throughout it, like most rabbit owners. I thought of making veggie and grain cookies. I found a simple toddler cookie recipe with oatmeal flour and pureed fruit as the main ingredients and messed around with it myself.

In place of the fruit puree, I took up mimosa, strawberry leaves, rosemary, mint, and stinging nettles; sunflower seeds; and added some green bean ends. The oatmeal flour was replaced with a mix of whole wheat flour and rolled oats. I put the lot in a food processor with some water, baked them, and viola--homemade rabbit treats! You need more flour than puree, otherwise you get gooey cookies which won't keep particularly well. It's also Basil Approved. A nice healthy chew for a lovely buck. Mind you, baking these will make your kitchen smell like spinach. Also, they will be the ugliest cookies you have ever laid eyes on, but will the rabbits care? The rabbits will not. Just don't let little John or Jane get their hands on them, because they'll be in for a big surprise!

I also took some overripe cucumbers from my garden. I scraped out the seeds and cut the rind and flesh into hunks, salted it, and dehydrated the lot. Took a few hours on 170 F with a rag propping the oven door open, but now I have Basil Approved chews for my rabbits. The rind makes them harder and the salt makes them appetizing for the buns and will prompt them to drink more water.

So I had a lot of fun in the outside world and in the kitchen, but I may have made a minor mistake. Basil, my buck, has a large cage and I wanted to give Primrose a playmate that was less grouchy than Anwen. So I let Primrose and Basil play, chasing each other around the edge of the cage. It was an adorable example of rabbit courtship, with nuzzles, licks, chin rubs, and a lot of flopping on Primrose's part. On the other hand, Primrose decided to mark her loops with bunny pellets and Basil began to smell like zoo and B.O. Stinky, stinky. Opened a window, got a pair of fans, odor neutralizers, and rosemary sprigs--took an hour or so, but the smell finally left. :o

Last on the agenda, I've been offered a large, extravagant rabbit hutch if I take in a pet store mutt for a family friend. Said mutt is a lop eared, single maned Lionhead doe in black and white. She has a tuft of fur on her head that makes me think of a mullet but a cute Holland Lop-like face and ear set. Oh well. I suppose some rabbits are allowed to look absurd, the sort of absurd a poodle is considering it came from a wolf. I figure I'll breed her, but I'm not sure to what sort of buck. I know you should breed at least two does at once, so if I have her that'll be easier to achieve. I suppose she could be bred to Basil for some cute little mutts to become household/classroom pets or maybe even therapy animals. Might have to change her name from Bunny FuFu. XD Otherwise? She was a kindergarten classroom pet for awhile there until the FDA decided she was unsanitary (eye roll, am I right?) and she was one without trouble, so I imagine her offspring might have a nice patient and friendly disposition. I can hope. In the least, I should get a great new hutch for future purebred bunnies! Not that I don't love mutts like purebreds, but breeding mutts--a requirement for my rabbitry is that each animal must be capable of reproduction--isn't something I normally advocate. I have three mutts already, even if they're feline and canine instead of lapine, and they are spayed. To follow my rules makes that super!ethical part of me fidget. I'll have to think hard on this one, I suppose.