Good-bye Cheeky

This morning I went to check on our pet bunny, Cheeky, and found her in a very bad way. She was flopped on her side in her cage looking really lethargic which is very unlike her. Usually whenever we walk into the laundry she puts her ears up and jumps up at the side of her cage to say hello. I took her out of her cage and she just laid on the floor. When she attempted to get up she just couldn't. Almost like she was paralysed.

I frantically rang Chris and he rang the rabbit clinic (which we are lucky to have very close by). In the meantime, I quickly got the kids ready to run out the door. We headed down and then discovered there was no vet on until later so we turned around and headed to another clinic. As I was driving, I was watching Cheeky's tummy rise as she was breathing. She was having more and more trouble breathing. Then I couldn't see it move anymore. I pulled the car over and picked her up. I think she was alive still at the point and she was moving her legs a tiny bit. I cuddled her and then she was gone.

There was no point heading to the vets anymore so we turned around and I drove home in tears. Kind of hard explaining to the kids what had happened. Although they were quite matter-of-fact about it all: 'Cheeky's died and now Mummy's sad'. I told them that they could pat her and say good-bye when we got home and that we would dig a hole and bury her in the backyard.

Our little friend has been with us for 3 years now and we are really going to miss her. She was our first bunny. She has been such a friendly little thing. She's often been out in the house, hopping around, nibbling on food the kids have left under their chairs at dinnertime (although we think that's what killed her in the end - eating some purple flowers that Esme had left under the table). We will miss feeding her dandelion flowers and having her greet us each morning. I will even miss having to clean her cage I think.

Good-bye Cheeky, may you hop freely wherever you are!

Our new chicken house

The Silkies we got a few months ago as chickens have been living in an old rabbit hutch. It was always in the plans to make them their own separate chook house but it's taken us this long to get around to it! We finally got it all set up for them yesterday. This chook house is courtesy of Chris' parents (and they got it from some other friends to start with). Chris has also made a fenced run for the chickens (although we let our Isa Browns free range, I'm a tad protective of my Silkies ;)) We put this house and run down the bottom of our yard (which is quite fortunate as we now know that one of our Silkies is a rooster). The plan is to lock the Silkies in the chook house at night and let them into the run during the day.

The new chook house in place!

Looking at the chook house from the end of the run - the Silkies have quite a lot of room to roam around.

The master chook wrangler at work.

Oh, we also got our first egg from our Silkie hen yesterday too (pity it was trampled though as she didn't think to lay it in the proper nesting box!)

We have chicks!

Yesterday we headed off to the farm to buy some more chooks. Unfortunately we lost a couple of chooks last week. We forgot to lock their pen one night (we've often done this and they've been fine) and we woke up in the morning to the sound of some very distressed chooks. After some investigation Chris found that one had been killed. We're not sure where the other missing one went but it never came back. It seems quite weird that animals would be hunting at that time of day. It was just after 7am and quite light. The only thing I can think of is that a fox was hiding in the undergrowth or one of our next door neighbour's (eight!) cats was on the prowl.

Anyway, we got a couple of Isa Browns to join our other two. They are still quite young, only 11 weeks so we are keeping them separate for the moment. Our old chooks are keeping a very wary eye on them! We also decided to get a couple of chickens. We've talked about hatching eggs in the past but wanted to wait until we had a broody chook to do it rather than having to use an incubator - as fun as that would be! Our two little chickens are Silkies. We have only ever had Isa Browns in the past but saw the Silkies at the farm and thought they were very cute.

The kids absolutely adore the chicks. Jacob has named his Henry and Esme (with a little bit of help!) has named hers Henny. Esme was a little wary of them at first but we finally convinced her to hold one. Jacob, on the other hand, can't get enough of them! We're not sure yet whether they are hens or roosters. It might be rather interesting if we end up with two roosters!



I have to admit that I'm kind of in love with them too! Last night when the kids went to bed I got to have a proper cuddle ;)

The loss of a beloved pet

Last night Chris went out to bring the bunnies in and discovered Tiddah was dead. We're not sure why. She had no really obvious signs of being sick so I don't think it was anything bad like myxo or calici virus that she died from. I do think it was something to do with her digestion as rabbits have a very delicate digestive system. She's been having unformed cecotropes (don't read that link if you don't want to be grossed out!) for awhile but we changed the bunnies diet and stopped giving them the pellets and this seemed to stop so we thought all was ok! Ingesting too much fur can also lead to gut statis. Tiddah is an angora bunny and there has been an awful lot of fur in her cage lately so I also suspect she may have had problems from this too. I can't help feeling immensely guilty over all of this. I should have taken her to the vet at the first sign of the problems. At least then they would have been able to give me some advice on how to care for her and what the problems could be.

We've only had Tiddah a few months as we got her from a couple that were moving overseas but she was very much a part of our family. She provided company for our other bunny, Cheeky, who was lonely after her first companion escaped about a year ago. The children also loved her, both of them would call her by name and liked to give her cuddles. As annoying as it may have been, I'm going to miss giving her 'haircuts' and having angora fur floating everywhere around the house and on our clothes!! I'm even going to miss lugging her weight around to take her outside each day! I feel so sorry for Cheeky too as she's lost a good friend. We're trying to give her lots of cuddles and time with us so she doesn't get too lonely. She spends the evenings with us and the days outside with the guinea pigs. Last night she sat next to me on the couch and kept jumping up on me and licking me - so cute!

I guess this is as good a time as any to teach the kids about the cycle of life. Esme's still a bit young but I think Jacob is just coming into this sort of awareness. I haven't told him yet but will either tonight or tomorrow. I plan to bury Tiddah while he is here and talk about how she has gone to a special place, where she is happy. We'll just have to see how it goes...

Our new herb garden in the making

Fresh herbs are always so yummy! In the past we have grown them in window boxes outside but lately they haven't been doing so well in there. It's always been in the plan to set up a herb garden outside but we just never seemed to get around to it (too many other things seem to occupy our time, like raising two kids, one of them a very mischievious and active little girl!) Well, today we picked up some potted herbs from the farmer's market and thought that we'd just bite the bullet and make a herb garden. So we (well, Chris!) scrounged around and found some old pieces of wood lying around and knocked up a planter box of some description. Even he admits that it's not the greatest building work around but hey, it does it's job! We ended up digging up some of the compost we put on the vegie garden last weekend and using that in the box. Lots of worms doing good things to the soil in there, as you can see by the following photos ;)

Here's Jacob and Esme supervising while Daddy digs in the new soil (please excuse Esme's bare bottom, we are pretty much nappy free at home ;))


Worms are sooooo much fun, especially seeing just how far they will stretch! Jacob wasn't so keen to get his hands dirty touching the worms but more than happy for Esme to hold them for him to look at!


The finished product: coriander in the top left (we personally hate coriander but are growing it for the bunnies!), parsley in the top right and lemon thyme and thyme (transplanted from other pots, hopefully they will continue to grow!) down the bottom. We still intend to add some oregano and chives and a bit more parsley (mint is staying in the pot it's already in because it has a tendancy to take over ;)) We already have a rosemary bush that is growing beautifully! The whole box is now covered with some netting mainly because if we don't the possum will eat it or the chooks will scratch it up (you can already see that chook eyeing off her new potential digging patch before I put it on!) I'm quite impressed by the finished product and look forward to watching everything grown (hopefully!)

Adding to the menagerie...

Well, you can never have too many pets, right? We've recently welcomed two guinea pigs into our family, Annie and Clarabel. They come from our good friend, Donna, and her family. Her boys were not so interested in the guinea pigs lately so she wanted them to go to a home where they would get a bit more attention. Luckily, our two kids are absolutely enthralled by their new pets. They love to hold them and pat them and it's a bit easier to fit a guinea pig on their lap then our big rabbits:

The guinea pigs have settled in really well. They're living outside in the big cage with the rabbits and seem to be very happy! The brown all over one is Annie and the black and brown one is Clarabel.

Our new bunny palace

After gaining ownership of our latest bunny, we decided that the outside cage we had for them just didn't cut it. Chris did a great job of making it but with two (kind of LARGE bunnies) bouncing off the sides, I was a bit worried that the wire wasn't going to hold! Also, a while ago I had decided that we didn't need the wire on the bottom of the cage so I took it off and then discovered that our bunny liked to dig holes under and out!! (She never did that when she was little!) Silly me thought it must just be because she was bored being by herself so I happily put both bunnies outside when we got Tiddah thinking it would be safe. Unfortunately that wasn't the case! Chris went out one night to collect the bunnies and came running back inside to tell me that they had gone. They had dug under their cage and then under the deck (the cage was butting up against the side of the deck)! Luckily, after much crawling around under the deck and the house in the dark, we were able to catch them again.

So, to cut a long story short, we ended up getting a new cage for them off ebay. It is HUGE! Lots of room for them to run around and keep themselves happy. Here's some pics of them in their new bunny palace:

Our new family member

Yesterday we welcomed a new addition to our family: an 18 month old angora bunny named Tiddah. She is absolutely gorgeous and seems to be settling in quite well with our other bunny, Cheeky, already. We'd been talking about getting another bunny for ages (we did have two originally but one escaped out of the cage during a thunderstorm quite a few months ago and never returned) but hadn't got around to it yet. Anyway, on Saturday we walked up to the Tecoma shops and Chris happened to see a notice on the board there looking for a new owner for a bunny as the people who owned it were going overseas. So, we rang up that afternoon and arranged to go around to see it the following morning. It turned out that I actually already knew the couple who owned the bunny, they had come to an ABA meeting when they were still pregnant (Almost 18 months ago!) and one of them works with my friend's husband! We saw the bunny and fell in love with her straight away (at least I did!) We could see that she had quite a personality instantly, she is very inquisitive. We ended up taking her home that day. It seems like fate had a big part in this bunny coming to us, it was 'meant to be'. Her owners were a little surprised that they had found someone to talk her so soon (they only put the ad up on Friday) but were glad to see her go to a family that will look after her well and hopefully we'll keep in touch with them as well! Putting the two bunnies together was an interesting event, I was worried it was going to be world war 3 but aside from some chasing they seem to be quite happy together and have been lying together today :)

Here's our new bunny, Tiddah:


And with our other bunny, Cheeky:

We finally have chooks!

I can't quite believe that the chook house is finally built and that we actually have chooks living in there!! This was my present from Chris' family for Christmas last year. Yes, last year!!! :D It has taken this long to get it all built but it looks great! I personally think it looks like a chook funhouse with ramps running everwhere, perches, nestboxes and covered areas but the chooks seem to appreciate it!

Chris and Jacob went with 'Pa' this morning to choose the chooks. Apparently Jacob was so excited seeing all the chooks, especially the little chickens (maybe one day we will get some chickens ;) ) So we now have four brown chooks and I am really looking forward to having our own supply of yummy free range eggs :D

The frame goes up! Nice to see everyone hard at work (Jacob included!!)

More bits are added...

The completed chook house!