Why are you doing this?!

Olimpia · Jun 14, 2016

Ahh so I have a bit of a hate-hate relationship with my tan doe. She was not tamed at all when I got her and is super wild. She also absolutely hates every rabbit she sees, and does NOT want to be bred. On the flipside she is an amazing mum and super attentive. She tries really hard. Up until her baby was 3 weeks old she would take her hay daily and pack it all onto her "nest," which I haven't seen a rabbit hay staching after the baby was so big already. The one this is she doesn't pull a lot of fur. But I would throw in fur from my other doe, and she would pick it up, and make motions like she was pretending that she was pulling the fur off herself (she got a bit of her own mixed in the process), and put it on the nest. It really is quite comic.

I just rebred her Friday, which she hated because I had to hold her, she even nipped me, and then after I was trying to put her in her cage she escaped and I had to pursue her, which she also hated.
I wanted to get one more litter out of her then sell her, because she was expensive! And she is so mean!
But yesterday I was sitting looking into her cage and she came up to me and started licking my face!
I get attached so easily, now I don't know if I want to sell her, she's been acting nice to me all of a sudden!

EnglishSpot · Jun 17, 2016

Sounds like some people I know LOL

ButtonsPalace · Jun 17, 2016

Sounds like she don't wanna be culled.. I'd keep her.. i have a hateful rabbit too, I believe the only thing keeping her from gnawing my arm off is that I'm her only source of food and water to her *There's other people available to take care of my rabbits she just doesn't know that >3< *She stomps, she growls, she lunges at me... When I take her out of her cage I have to hold her like a football under my arm while I hold her nape. *She's right-side-up and her bum is under my arm and my arm goes under her belly between her legs while my other hand holds her nape* It's the only way I feel safe transporting her.. Catching her in her cage is a game and she don't like it. I have another doe and she's the same way. I know it's because they weren't treated good at one point when they weren't with me so I can't really blame them.. One was living with the buck in a long cage and he was ripping her fur out and biting her *When I got her, her back was almost bare and covered in scabs and her ears were infested with mites and covered in scabs.**She looks WAY better

** The other was mistreated while I was living with my mom *court ordered* and she was at my dads and my half brother and sister were not too nice to her because she was shy and territorial. SO now they hate me because they hate people.. The doe with the ear mites scrunches herself in the back of her cage and grunts at me when I come around. I'm afraid to try to touch her because she lunges as if she was going to bite and I don't know her well enough to trust she won't.. Ha.. Does...

Olimpia · Jun 17, 2016

Yea

I think she's been stressed out her whole life, and I feel bad selling her. When I bought her she had a patch of fur missing from her nose from always chewing her cage bars, which she did in the first cage I had her in. Now she's in a 4'x2' cage which is way bigger than most tan breeders would give them. She can't bite the wire (well she does but it doesn't rub her fur off anymore) because it's hardware cloth on the sides, but she still scratches at the walls a lot. She has calmed down a bit having her baby, and I get her out for exercise as well. I have to be really careful with the baby so hopefully she doesn't get her mom's personality.
I wonder if the neurotic personality is common in the tans, because they are bred to run on the table, so maybe this temper works well for breeders wanting them to do well.

wamplercathy · Jun 18, 2016

I have a 3 strike rule. If she were mine I'd get a good doe out of her and then cull. Selling her will only add to her stress and be passing along problems. After a couple litters she might get better. I have a couple that might be burger if they don't shape up. One hates being breed and kills her litters with stupidity. :evil: No joke, left one uncovered in the dead of winter = frozen solid litter and now dead of summer and she keeps packing fur and hay around and on the litter = 2 over heated and dead kits. The other has a nasty temperament. Great mom by just hates people. For the life of me I don't know why. She has only had positive experiences with people.

Hope this helps,
Cathy

Olimpia · Jun 18, 2016

Funny, today this came up in the tan rabbit group. It seems like the breed as a whole is really neurotic. I really think it is just lack of stimulation for an intelligent animal, I've been trying to enrich her life more and she's settled.
She's still managed to do this in her 8sq ft cage though, hehe. Seems like most breeders just keep them in the smaller cages and not care too much about the obsessive cage biting behaviour.

A hare breeder is having similar trouble, with a young doe that has killed 2 litters by digging at them and destroying them. Her only other doe is old and may not be able to have a litter anymore. She's bringing her young buck to stud out my young does, I told her she could have an extra doe if we get litters. Everything is so much more complicated when you are dealing with rare breeds, only 3 of us in the country right now.

I would be okay to let this doe live with her daughter in the large cage if they bond well. Having the baby has settled her down and from my experience mom-daughter pairing is the best type.[/quote]