Spicy Coffee

As we pondered our options, Cinnamon and Pepper continued to fight, chase, and torture each other constantly. Whenever the kids put the two bunnies together, they would each attempt to demonstrate dominance over the other:

“Mommy, I think Cinnamon is GAY! Can two gay bunnies have babies?”

Time to get a bonafide female rabbit if we were going to complete this 'lesson.'

So off to another (different) feed store (armed with our new-found ability to actually distinguish male rabbit genitalia from female). We found a super soft, large Rex rabbit in the next town (all the local pet stores only had male rabbits). She had a cataract (and couldn’t be in a show), so the owners brought her to the feed store to be sold. Female Rex rabbits have a reputation of being maternal, calm, and typically make great pets. This rabbit allowed us to hold her, trim her nails, and lacked that “anxious muscle twitch” that Cinnamon demonstrated. So we brought her home…and named her Coffee.

With our new found female bunny, we were eager to breed them. But Coffee wanted nothing to do with the male bunnies.

“Mommy, how long do you think it’ll take before Coffee is ready to have sex with Cinnamon? Were you ready to have sex with Daddy when you first met him? How long did you make him wait?”

Oh brother!

Over the next few weeks, we allowed all three rabbits to inhabit the same (large) outdoor rabbit hutch. It became apparent that Pepper was getting his assed kicked (probably by everybody) so we moved him to his own hutch. Coffee and Cinnamon were together for 2 additional weeks. She just *has* to be pregnant now.

Coffee, our sweet bunny Coffee, became a mean, schizophrenic, crazy rabbit who appeared agitated and stressed out. (Maybe it’s because she’s pregnant?!). Time to move her out of the hutch and into her own cage. So I attempted to move her. Reaching into the hutch…chasing her down with my bare hand…she BIT me! I've only been bitten by one rabbit ever! What the hell kind of rabbit did we actually buy here?

Bummer.

So now, each rabbit had their own cage. We waited, everyday expecting to see a ball of fur indicating imminent kindling (birth) of new bunnies. And everyday…we saw nothing of the sort. After another 6 weeks, it was clear that (after spending 2 weeks together) no pregnancy had resulted.

I thought rabbits were always supposed to just have sex and bunnies result. Isn’t that the metaphor?