Rabbits can teach us a lesson

My daughter Molly's friend, Andrea, is moving out of her parent's house to go to school. Andrea had a rabbit for a pet in her bedroom since last September and didn't want to bring the rabbit to school, so Molly told her that I would take the rabbit. I was so busy Saturday getting ready for Easter that I wasn't listening to Molly when she said that we were getting a rabbit.

When Andrea drove up she unloaded the cage, the rabbit, and it's food and water bottle. She gave a long detailed list of instructions on how she took care of him.

Andrea said, "He's a great rabbit and is name is Lil Johnny. He is very gentle. I let him hop all over my bedroom and he always went back in his cage to leave his droppings."

When she left Molly said, "This is one spoiled rabbit."

Timmy fell in love with Lil Johnny right away. He is a very gentle rabbit, but he doesn't go back in his cage at my house to leave his droppings.

Right now he is staying in the room where we have the piano. So far, he isn't much trouble.

The last rabbit Timmy had lived with the chickens in their coop. Last fall, when Timmy had a friend to visit, the friend wanted to carry the rabbit around the yard. The rabbit hadn't been handled very often and it jumped out of Timmy's friend's arms and our two dogs took after it and killed it.

From that experience, Timmy is going to be more careful with Lil Johnny. This rabbit is used to dogs. My daughter, Bridget spent the weekend and she brought her dog, Maddie, along. The rabbit and dog played together and Easter morning , they were lying next to each other by the rabbit's cage.

I had two rabbits when I was growing up. My first rabbit died when my sister fed it bananas and jelly. That's why I thought it died, and I cried and cried. I think it really died because it was a wild rabbit and it shouldn't have been taken away from its mother. The second rabbit I had lived with the chickens and came to a terrible end when the family dog killed it. After that I though it was too much trouble having rabbit for a pet.

My husband Tom and I did raise rabbits for a while when we first moved out to this farm. Our neighbors raised them and said that they were good eating. We were breeding them and having babies. One of the doe's died when her kits were two weeks old. There were six kits and I brought them in the house and bottle-fed them around the clock for a couple weeks until they could eat food. They all lived.

Now the one thing about raising rabbits for food is that you have to kill them. Tom and I didn't have the heart to kill the rabbits. Our neighbor killed one for us and I cooked it up like he instructed, but we all thought it looked like a cooked cat when I set it on the table for dinner. We ate cheese sandwiches instead. After that, I gave up raising rabbits for meat.

Right now, I don't mind having Lil Johnny for a pet and Timmy is enjoying taking care of him.