Okay--here is what I am doing...

I get rabbits, bunnies 'dumped on me, or,because of the way auctions are run, I have to bring home something I didn't want in order to get what I did want. (too many bucks in relation to does, an off colored rabbit, etc).

I quarantine new animals. Medicate if needed, etc. Figure out, using the SOP, which ones would make potential breeders/show, best as pet, or eliminated altogether.

With Easter coming VERY soon, I am wondering about letting bunnies go to new homes when still 'in quarantine'--

I am inclined towards this:

100% return of unwanted rabbits, NO REFUNDS

Pick out the rabbit, pay for it. It remains here for remainder of quarantine. In meantime, buyer goes home with appropriate sized cage and supplies for rabbit.

NO rabbit/bunny is to go to a new home on Easter weekend- for the same reasons that one would not send a puppy or kitten home to be found 'under the Christmas tree"

If the animal is to be a child's pet, THAT child must be present for the choosing of the animal.

AND-- NO females to be sold as pets-- avoids having unexpected littering at the new home...

It's a personal choice I think. Myself, I will not sell any rabbits around Easter time (or any other Holiday) The rabbits I sell as pets I want going to a home where they are more then a "novelty" of the season.

Usually most of my litters I either keep or they go to other breeders so pet sales generally isn't an issue.

if these are bunnies that you are picking up I can understand not moving on the females. But if they are in quarantine for a month, you'd catch those anyways.

and yes, you want the child present to pick out their own bunny. personality meshing is a good thing with bunnies...and not all bunnies are suited for all personalities of people.

the 100% return with no refund makes perfect sense as well. then their purchase price becomes a 'Rental'.

Not sure about the need for the bunny to stay in quarantine. If it's going to a new bunny home where it will be a pet, then it's still in quarantine is it not? or are you thinking to merely minimize any stress? And if it's moving on to a breeder home then you can emphasize that the bunny MUST be quarantined.

I don't want to be passing on a pet to some child and then having the animal get sick because whatever it has was still incubating when it went to it's new home. So, yes, minimizing stress is the big key here. Also, if the animal is being medicated, the whole course must be completed, or the end result is medication resistant bugs that can haunt ya for a very long time. And judging from whatIi found in an unrelated animal picked up the same day and location, everyone gets medicated on this go-round. A bad thing about livestock sales and shows-- people pass things from one animal to another without even thinking about it....Bio-security at a sale?

FUHGETABOUTIT!!!!








I would expect a person buying for breeding would continue the quarantine. But this last group did not come with pedigrees, one is tattooed, and a fellow bidder said she knew who was selling this one bunch, and would inquire about a pedigree for that one bunny.

I too have bought from auctions and I'm very careful with what I do with any stock that comes from there. The animals that some people bring to auction that would be better left at home is amazing. So can see keeping them in quarantine to see how they all turn out. I simply don't sell anything that is in quarantine. If you don't pass me, I'm not passing you along to anyone else.

I do want to make sure the rabbits are not put in a basket to be found-- instead, the caging, etc goes home to be found, and THEN, about a week later, the kid can come pick his/her bunny.

In this area, there are large numbers of kids in 4H, FFA, and other groups that are visible enough that there are few seasonal 'novelty' sales. If a kid doesn't already have a pet, he is either in a home where the parents say "absolutely not!" or in a home where the parents do enforce some responsibility.Rabbits for sale at say, TSC, in the larger city nearby are seldom considered novelty, because face it-- do people who are already buying feed going to make an impulse purchase of a species that they do not already have? I went shopping one day 30 miles away-- and the result of a conversation was I got a rabbit that the kids started to neglect, and the parents enforced the 'responsibility' rules. Yep, the words they told their kids as they got back into their car were... "Say goodbye, girls. You won't take care of a simple rabbit, you won't have any pets at all" These parents had purchased some nice stuff for the rabbit-which came with the rabbit-a big plus for my open arms...the rabbit was a 'raffle' rabbit from a local county fair, and was now mature and HORMONAL!!!

I think it's a great idea. I sell rabbits any time of year holiday or not. I know some breeders think down on this cause they do not want the bunny/rabbit in a stew pot. Well who say cause the rabbit you sold today or yesturday dose not end up there. And if you are selling the rabbit to an adult for a kid or what ever you have no unhappy parents calling you.
I say go for it. Very good idea.

No it has nothing to do with a stewpot. It has everything to do with a large number of rabbits in "rescues" or humane societies because the novelty has worn off the cute easter bunny . Its the breeders who get the blame publicly for this, not the ones who purchased the rabbit and then dumped it. The breeders are blamed for putting the rabbit "out there" to be dumped in the first place. We don't use a lot of pet shops now because they like to make comments to that effect as one is purchasing needed supplies!! (pretty stupid, but there it is). I guess pet shops also hate breeders because they wish to corner the market themselves (how I don't know, breeders are bad remember)These groups then use unwanted animals to get laws changed etc. animals seized and the list goes on and on. Yes there is abuse out there but not every seizure was because of actual cruelty but because someone didn't think rabbits should be in wire cages or they were going to eaten or something that didn't agree with their own agenda. So because we are not about to take back huge numbers of unwanted pets that were probably mishandle by kids; we don't produce for the pet market and we certainly don't mass produce for Easter. Yes we do get pet quality animals in the quest for that top show animal and we do get inquiries for pets, someone that searches us out and is willing to travel is someone who has been doing homework for that pet and may be a step up from the shop buyer.However think of this: Does whatever makes a horse a good show prospect/event animal also not help it be a better animal all around? If your horse can train easily; trailer and go to strange places and do what its trained to do without stressing out is that not a good trait in an all round pet horse as well? Same would go for dogs, cats, anything.
This would be my mission then... to educate that just because an animal is purebred or a show animal doesn't make it a bad choice for a pet That the pet animal and the show animal can be one and the same Also we don't need to make a distinction between pet breeding and show breeding because there would always be enough pet quality animals produced from animals bred to their SOP. And the big one... show animals are not just looks but health and temperament as well!!!

What do you folks think about requiring the buyer to sign an agreement that if they tire of the rabbit, they'll call you and arrange for you to get it back? Not that it'd be really binding but it'd at least give the buyer an "out" that they can be comfortable with...

We've been tossing around the "Easter Bunny" idea ourselves but wanted to make sure the animals aren't neglected.

bbkaren, personally, I think that's an excellent idea. Maybe word it so that it doesn't sound like "you have to call me" but a "you CAN call me, I'll understand". no refunds, but you'll take the rabbit back. Would give the new owner peace of mind knowing they had, as you say, an out.

With all of my sales, I offer to take the rabbit back at any time. It does NOT go back into the main herd. It is either quarantined or permanently culled (used for meat).

I don't sell my rabbits, so I guess I probably should stay out of the discussion, but I would like to add my personal perspective to this.

We live on an acreage a bit outside of town. In the fall, we are OVERWHELMED with "dumped" cats and dogs. Juvenile animals that were obviously "babies" at the beginning of spring, and once they had to be inside more, became an issue for their owners. We also get "dumps" from the nearby city -- perfectly lovely pets, typically cats but dogs, too -- who are absolutely TERRIFIED after a few nights out alone with coyotes howling and no humans (safety, to them) around to go to. They find their way here. The cats find the food in the barn, and the barn cats beat the crap out of them, generally before I can get to them. The dogs generally fare worse -- getting into fights with coyotes and other feral dogs, etc., and have to be put down. I have spent a LOT of money taking strays to the vet in town, and eventually having to pay to have them put down because they're just too far gone, diseased, or so terrified that they have turned mean. No one ever claims them as "lost".

This past year, there were rabbits around, too. They didn't last long, with the owls, the coyotes, etc. I think that these dumped pets (they were obviously not wild rabbits) contributed to the problem we now have with weasels. The prey was there, so they came, and now that the prey is gone, they've moved into my barn and decided that my rabbits were just as tasty as the ones hopping around outside, oblivious to the dangers around them.

If I sold rabbits, I would not sell them to people who wanted them for Easter "surprise" pets for children. I would offer to take them back at ANY TIME, but (being a person who's not big on most people in the first place), I'd probably not put myself in that position to begin with.

I see it as a personal choice thing -- just be aware that people are more likely than not NOT going to bring them back to you for the same reason people don't take unwanted dogs and cats to the Humane society -- they don't want to face the fact that they're going back on the implicit commitment to the animal itself. They fool themselves into believing that "there's a nice farm, they'll take them in if I just leave them here" -- one of the down sides to people not seeing rabbits as any different than dogs or cats -- they're equally inconsiderate of them if they're bent that way to begin with.

Every fall is a horrible time for me. I hate to see this, and it's rampant here -- and more often than not, I'm stuck cleaning up dead cat carcasses, shooting mangy strays, and taking the rest in to the vet, who is just as sick of it as I am. People who buy pets are not the problem, people who buy "live amusements" for their children without long-term plans for the animal are -- there are just too many of the latter in the world for me to get involved in the trade.

I have a very honest relationship with my rabbits. We have our breeding stock, and we eat their offspring. My son (it was his 4H project that started this a while back) and I have agreed that our breeders deserve love and attention, and when they are too old to breed, will be treated as valued pets -- essentially, they'll be retired to live comfortably as long as they are able, at which point, they'll be taken to the vet to be humanely dealt with.

I know this is rather long-winded, but my point is, be sure that you're willing to deal with the worst that might happen, emotionally, before getting into the game.

heh. good points, Tracy. I've been talking privately with a couple of people about the whole pet thing...and I know that I can't deal with it. I'd worry over the rabbits, worry what happened to them, were they kept well, etc. I have been able to sell a few Angoras because I know they're going to people who spin and who will appreciate keeping the rabbit in top condition because of the fiber. But even that is hard for me. so...I either have to NOT have them breed (and THAT ain't gonna happen..i LOVE the wee little ones) or I have to eat them if I don't want to sell.

I'm just NOT a long term people person.

eta: oh. and I chime in all the TIME on subjects that I either don't personally do. Thoughts about NOT doing something, or questions about WHY are just as important as the "yes, I do it this way" ones. Don't you think?

We've sold a lot of rabbits in the pet market. That's just one way we paid the feed bills.

We did not specifically breed for the Easter market or the pet market, but if we had surplus, we sent them to the pet stores.

We bred rabbits for our own program, the extras got sent to the pet market. If the pet market was full, we sent the rabbits to "freezer camp" so they could be donated to wildlife re-hab.

Have a good day!

I've been thinking about this topic a lot and following the thread with interest.

Tracy Rimmer makes a good point about people dumping pets because they are ashamed that they took on one and now don't want it. I think there is an element of this at work.

I wonder if it would help if, besides offering to take back the rabbit if necessary, to say something like this: "Rabbits can be good pets, but they aren't for everyone. Sometimes they just don't work out. If that happens, I'll be glad to take the rabbit back, no recriminations and no questions asked."

I think I'd rather enjoy breeding one of the smaller breeds for the pet market, but so far I haven't been able to get comfortable enough with the issue of disposable pets to do it.