nWhen we were given an unwanted rabbit in a hutch we immediately wanted to give him as good a life as they chickens had. They came out of their shed everyday to peck and explore so why not him?
Pretty soon we learned his needs were not being met by being alone and the hutch alone was not attractive to him to stop in overnight. We adopted more rabbits and made a group. One of our early adoptees was Foxy. She was shy when she first came to stay but our relationship with her grew steadily over the years. At first she was often free (during daylight hours) and we would try to catch her in the evening. She was masterful at dodging. She had a favourite hedge and she would go one way and then the other and we would just get prickled.
Eventually as the Runaround grew so did Foxy's respect and quite often she was in her run come evening or would happily go in when we came up. I discovered the rabbits preferred two exits by watching from a tree. Ollie explored the new Top Box but only ever briefly and I was mystified. Not to be outdone by him I wondered what another exit would do. He loved it. They all did and they made it their new home. It was a snug, a look out point and away from the ground predators.
Quite often at noon, although all completely free, the rabbits would be resting inside their runarounds. They would come out later in the afternoon to play. At this time there were 6 rabbits housed in twos (bonded pairs). They all got on but they lived in their own runs and came out of 6 inch aperture exits every day.
It was quite a job rotating the original mesh tunnels attached to runs around the garden. Everyone had to help. We had to be careful not to move the runs if we wanted them to find their way back though. When leaving their exit they would scent mark it and remember where it was so they got very confused if we turned the runs about! They seemed to know the exact spot they exited on so well.
There was a lot of time for watching then and there were plenty of adventures and surprises along the way, I will continue the story!
