Wabbits! | Benjamin Bunny, 6/9/07-12/17/07

Benjamin Bunny, 6/9/07-12/17/07

We decided that we wanted a Flemish Giant, a large rabbit, as our fourth rabbit, to be the "Flemish Overlord" to the thirteen cats in the household. We found a wonderful breeder, Kim Croak, in Pennsylvania, and met the buck, Zouis, and doe, Eeyore, that she had bred. This was to be a special breed, for while Zouis is a sandy, Eeyore is an opal, and a friend and associate of Kim's wants the opals, to help get the opals recognized as an official color for the breed. Here are the pictures of Zouis taken about a little after Eeyore had been bred:

Eeyore gave birth to a litter of ELEVEN kits on June 10, 2007. Three days later, this is what the ktis looked like:

On June 23rd, when the rabbits were just two weeks old, Scott and I drove to Loysville, PA, to Kim's Cuddly Kritters, to meet the batch of four to five rabbits that would be eligible to be chosen in another 1 1/2 weeks based on pictures. We just had such a great time watching and petting these tiny creatures, that were no larger stretched out than a small pocket comb.

We also visited the kits' mother, Eeyore:

We visited with other Flemish Giants as well, the Father Zouis, another full-grown Flemish Giant named Hercules, and this charming little 14-week-old buck named Hadar:

Then, in this one, Hadar is, as Scott put it, "singing opera":

So much has happened since I last updated this album. First of all, here's a "baby picture" of Ben before we picked him up from the breeder:

Having many cats, we wanted to raise a kitten with Ben so one week before we picked up Ben from the breeder, we adopted Max from PetsMart:

We actually had them sleep together in the cage that we had purchased for Ben for his use before being integrated with the three other house bunnies in the house. When Ben went away on a trip, Max seemed to miss him and groomed him extra long when he returned:

The two were close. We actually used this picture as the lead in to our wedding invitation:

Benjamin Bunny transformed our notion of the house bunny. He was always the first to greet us in the morning from the rabbit room. He was so good natured, the other three rabbits accepted him readily, without any argument or fuss, which was not to be the case with the subsequent Flemish Giant. He loved begging on his hind feet for raisin treats:

He was a ready companion in times of loss, including the loss of Scott's father in August 2007;

He was affectionate and gentle, always able to interact with ease, never needing to nip or play aggressive games:

Sadly, one day in December, Ben managed badly to break one of his hind legs. We took him to a vet specialist who affixed a big plate and screws to the spiral fracture, but, unfortunately, Ben did not come out of the surgery. The vet called us while we were out for pizza, and Ben died as we talked with her on the phone, no longer wanting the pizza we had ordered.

But Ben had so altered our house as the Flemish Giant that we knew we would have to have another Flemish Giant before too long, if only to honor his memory. And that's when we got Samuel, aka Sam, and then eventually got into our breeding program because we wanted Sam to have a girlfriend. . . .

Ben remains present with us in many ways, even in his urn, which sits on the dining room mantelpiece:

How blessed we were to know Benjamin Bunny . . .

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