Kamloops urban rabbit farmer gets big surprise, times 8
A Kamloops resident was on the way to put down her beloved pet rabbit earlier this week when she heard some noises from the pet carrier it was riding in.
Jessica Carriere stopped to check on the rabbit and to her surprise saw three wriggling baby bunnies, and soon after there were eight of them.
“I was shocked, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I was frantically collecting them and putting them on warm pieces of fur, then I sat there with a Tupperware of babies in disbelief.”
The mother rabbit is approaching seven, an old age for rabbits and having age-related medical issues and was scheduled to be euthanized several times but things kept popping up and delaying the procedure. Carriere said she had no idea her favourite rabbit was pregnant and was sad its line wouldn’t be carried down.
She is planning to keep some of the babies to raise as her own instead of selling them.
“I truly didn’t know she was pregnant, you can palpate the abdomen but I couldn’t feel anything, she hid them well,” she said. “I’m just so happy to have part of her continue on in my rabbitry.”
The mother rabbit is recovering now but will still have to be put down due to health conditions. Another rabbit called Clementine is taking over the motherly duties.
“She (Clementine) has older babies right now and is still nursing so we put the babies with her and she took them in right away,” Carriere said. “She’s amazing, nursing them twice a day. Some rabbits are good foster moms while others will reject.”
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It remains a mystery as to how the old rabbit got pregnant as it was separated from males in its own cage.
“It’s bunny magic,” Carriere said. “Some have theorized the cages were too close together and they can do it through cages. She could’ve been with a buck before she came but that’s unlikely timewise.”
Carriere likes to spin wool and weave and has a love for Angora Wool, especially the strong wool from German Angora rabbits. After searching without success for her favourite wool in the province, she recently purchased her own German Angora rabbits from Georgia and Texas to raise them, breed them and spin their wool.
“You can find Etsy shops that sell the fibre, but it's high in demand and hard to find supply,” she said.
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Some of her rabbits are going to homes in Burnaby and Williams Lake. Only a couple of months into the venture, she hasn’t yet collected wool to sell to local spinners and weavers. She herself uses a fibre tool called a carder to create rows of fibre that she spins into yarn.
Go here for information about Miss Muffet’s Rabbitry and Fibres.
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