So this is the story of how we got our bunny named Rupert. And also how we later obtained two homeless Guinea pigs.
Beginning of April, 2022, I was coming home from work, (I worked closing shifts so I got home at around 8:15pm). I pull up to my driveway and I see a huge white rabbit! And when I say huge I mean she was the size of my cats! Of course she was afraid of me and ran under the other car in the driveway. Well the next morning I go out on my front porch to dump my used coffee grounds on my flower bed, and I see, not only the big white rabbit, but also an equally large black/grey rabbit. Stunning coat, I must say. But they both ran out from under the porch steps where they were huddling up to sleep.
After a while the black rabbit disappeared, moving on to another part of the neighborhood, and the white rabbit and a smaller white and black rabbit were in my yard every day, eating my flowers, and thoroughly fertilizing my lawn!
Then one afternoon I went out my back door to go to work (I would leave out the back door so that my son wouldn’t be as upset when I left), and at the end of the driveway was the cutest little lop ear rabbit! I actually was pretty close to him before he ran off so I got a picture!
I showed everyone at work because I thought he was the cutest little thing! I even was bringing home produce scraps to feed the rabbits, I just enjoyed seeing them and wanted to keep them around. but I also just felt bad because these were obviously domestic rabbits, lop eared rabbits are no where near wild. So that only meant that someone decided they didn’t want them anymore and they let them out.
Well the next afternoon after my fiancé left, I got a knock on the door. I figured it was him but to my surprise it was one of the neighborhood girls holding a cloth storage tote. She asked if I lost a bunny, and I said no, as I peeked in the tote. And there he was. That sweet little lop ear bunny was hunch3 up in the bottom. I told her that I just saw him in the drive way! And she said that that’s where she found him too and that’s why she thought maybe we lost him.
When I said he wasn’t mine, I felt a bit sad. Thinking that this girl will probably take him and I’d never see him again. But she asked if I wanted him! I said yes!! Knowing full well that my fiancé would not be happy about it one bit. I reached in the tote and carefully grabbed him. He was so thin. You could feel every little bone in his body, and he didn’t even try to get away. I could tell he was scared, so I just held him snug, and walked very very slowly and gently as I gathered up a place to put him.
I sent the picture above, to my fiancé (MF) and said something along the lines of a little girl just showed up and gave me that little bunny I showed you. I didn’t tell him that she asked if I wanted the bunny, I just left that part out haha!
Well when he got back home I was still holding the bunny since he was just starting to calm his breathing. And shockingly, MF gave him a pet, and said he was very cute.
I soon after put the bunny in a big plastic tub with a towel and tried to give him food and water. He was not interested in anything that first day, and he was breathing pretty fast, clearly in shock. We think the girl must have chased him until he couldn’t run anymore, he obviously wasn’t healthy with how thin he was.
I then rummaged through the closet in my sons room to get the old pop up play pen/crib, and I set it up for the bunny to stay in until I could think of better housing. MF wanted to put him outside and I said no it’s too cold and he’s scared and needs to get healthy. Well minutes later MF said “Rupert” from the other room. I just laughed and said “I thought you didn’t want him, and now you’re the one that is giving him a name huh?”
Well that night after moving him into the play pen, MF said we should let him out to run around and get more comfortable with us. So after I put our son to bed we let Rupert out. And the first thing he did was sniff around and find a spot behind some toys to stretch out and lay down.
We just watched him in awe of how cute he was. I had a rabbit when I was very young but she was only outside in a big hutch that had spiders and you had to crawl into. None of my family knew how to care for a rabbit and our dog (an Alaskan malamute/wolf) wanted to eat her… so my parents rehomed our BunBun, and I hope she had a much better life. But we had never seen a lop ear, and never really experienced how much fun rabbits were. We were worse than kids in a candy store, we just watched him for hours with huge smiles on our face. Every time he stopped to clean his ears we ohhh’d and awwww’d, because he was just the most adorable thing we’d ever seen.
We were letting him out every night that first week but after a bit he wouldn’t let us catch him to put him up. I was up until 2am one night trying my best to wrangle Rupert so I could go to bed. After many failed attempts I managed to get him into a box and out him back. But trust me when I tell you, bunnies are very smart. He remembered every tactic I had used before and knew how to get away before I could grab him.
So after that I decided to give him a house upgrade to something more permanent and something that he could freely run in and out of.
I turned our coffee table into a bunny cage with a few diys.
My coffee table is just a metal frame with a sheet of glass that rests in the top. So I removed the top glass, wrapped mesh netting around the bottom and sides and secured the mesh to the table with zip ties.
As for his litter box I used one of the two pans from our cats sifting litter trays and fill it with compressed pine pellets. (We use the same litter for our cats as well and it works great for everyone and smells nice as well. All natural too so can be composted! I buy mine off of chewy.com
This set up was great! I added some extra security to it so that he couldn’t jump out when we were asleep and also so our cats didn’t jump in. I had an old crib that was given to us that we never used so I put the railings in the front and one over top like a “lid” and then one on the side to hold the “door” (the glass top to one of the matching end tables. And when we let Rupert out we just slid that side glass pane out and he had free roam of the house and I could close it back up when he went back in.
Now for the Guinea pigs. A friend of mine was up hiking in the woods. And mind you we live in eastern Oregon, Guinea pigs are nowhere near native here. I honestly don’t know how they survived or how long they survived. But one of her dogs actually found them in a wood pile of some sort. She was snap chatting me when she was on the hunt to catch them. And eventually she did just that. She caught two Guinea’s and had a back pack that she put them in for transport out. She kept them at her house for a day or so and said she didn’t know what to do now. I gave her some bedding we had and some hay pellets.
Little did I know that we’d be getting them the next day after MF said he had Guinea pigs and he’d like to have some again.
So the piggies were brought to us, (mind you, I just had my second baby just about 3 weeks beforehand) and I set their little crate on top of Rupert’s pen to see how things went. They could see and smell each other. And to my surprise I opened the piggies pen to clean and Rupert jumped right in. And for about a week him and our white and red piggy would give kisses through the bars.
We decided that since they were getting along so well that we would introduce them into the same space. Knowing that Rupert’s set up would not work with two small piggies, our friend had given us a very very large metal dog crate that had no bottom. So we moved everyone, disassembled Rupert’s makeshift pen and set up the big cage. It definitely gave them more space, but Guinea pigs pee, a lot, and all over. So not having a bottom tray was just not working out…. They soaked through the layers of towel and cardboard in hours time. So I ordered cage liners which worked wonderfully until Rupert chewed a hole in one!
Now these Guinea pigs don’t like being pet, or picked up. And understandable so. They were dumped in the woods and Elora has some pretty big scars on her back from some point in her life. But when I tell you that she loves Rupert… she LOVES him. She is constantly trying to cuddle, and even though she’s a girl, she is also constantly humping the poor guy. Thankfully after Christmas this year I was able to buy them a nice hutch” and Rupert has his own room, and can lay with them when he wants or be alone, and can also free roam the house again!
Rupert and the Guinea pigs are happy healthy and loved and I am so happy I was able to be the forever home to these wonderful rescues! If anyone is interested in watching their journey and seeing updates on them please follow Rupert’s instagram account @rupert_the_holland_lop
We would love for you to join us!
~A & R
Ink & Embers 