Honeysuckle drags a ribbon

So. Honeysuckle's been up to some shady shenanigans around here. And it's time to go public with them.

About 16 days ago Anita took her back to the farm of her birth to meet a suitor. All this was carefully planned and officially approved. Mary Lou, the breeder and owner of a herd of angora rabbits, has four bucks and one of them was introduced to Honeysuckle, who promptly tried to beat him up. Same thing for the next in line. Her response: face him at all times, box his head with front paws if he tries any tricks (ha), and run as far away as my little cage allows.

What was going on in her little bunny brain? We speculated, how could a rabbit not be interested in romance and motherhood? She is a year old and could have been bred six months ago. Fyi, rabbits ovulate anytime they’re bred which explains their ability to make hundreds of babies while you make one. Gestation is 30 days. Litter size anywhere from four to twelve.

Mary Lou left her in a cage overnight with the gentlest of all her guys. A Dutch Agoudi, gray in color with little splashes of white and gray on his face. Nothing happened as far as anyone knew. When Anita brought her home she looked disheveled and crabby. It took a few days for her to forget her trauma and dash about like her normal spoiled self.

This morning when I looked on the back porch she was trying to pull a four foot hot pink ribbon off a wedding wreath. We had big doings around here this past weekend with Kosmo getting married and all. Intrigued, I watched as she laboriously wadded it into her mouth and carried it to her hutch where she deposited it in her litter box. Turns out rabbit mothers like to make multiple uses of their litter box. Then she tried to drag my heavy old wool “welcome” rug across to her hutch and when I pulled strings out of her mouth she was extremely annoyed and let me know I should get off it. I know she thinks of it as her property and has already chewed the crap out of it, making it nearly useless. A while back I trimmed off a portion and Anita put it in her hutch where it gives off a distinctly French brothel look. We’re thinking of hanging a gilded mirror, too, since she spends a good deal of her time preening.

I began to wonder, hmmm. I called Anita to watch. We brought her a couple of rags and sure enough, she dragged them into the hutch and rasseled them around some more. This looks like nesting behavior. Perhaps more happened out at the farm than we knew. Ah, the excitement. I choose not to think of what Anita will do with a litter of angoras. She says she will sell or give them away. (I don’t think we or our porch can withstand much more sustained cuteness.) She’s looking at plans for building a nest box. And two weeks from now, since the exact date is unknown, Honeysuckle should begin pulling her wool to line a nest and that will be a sure sign, baby bunnies are arriving.

Now that you’ve wasted perfectly good time reading this post, I will be sure to let you know the outcome. I'm quiet certain some of you need an angora rabbit to complete your life.