Hi, I’m Sarah, the oldest Taylor kid, and when my parents went on another crazy spree to extend our family more… Well let’s just say I was NOT in support of it. I knew it would be a LOT of work, but the crazy lady showed me some videos of how commercial animals are treated, and it was so sad, I decided I would support their (what seemed like unreachable) dreams, and BAM, apparently when I did, I said goodbye to the rest of my summer, but I’m good with that, for the sake of my new fluff babies.
We decided to start small because we needed to be able to raise and breed them in our yard since the work on the land probably won’t be done for a year.
Rabbit number one is Oreo, who is much tamer than the others because he’s smaller cuter and you can handle him easily. He is a male mini rex and he’s tri-colored. He looks like he fell butt first into a bowl of chocolate and then rubbed mud on his face, and he is very very adorable. Since he’s smaller we have to give him less food and hay but he likes to eat grass so we let him and Mint graze in the grass together because they’re friends.
Rabbit number two is mint who is a male Californian. When we got him he’d had ear mites for who knows and how long, but they were scabbed up nearly half the length of his ears, so I healed him up and gave him medicine and cleaned his ears up and everything and now he’s doing much better. We give him what he needs and I love him just like one of my siblings, except probably more cuz he’s not annoying.
Rabbit number three is chocolate and she is a female Californian. She’s more my mom’s rabbit than anyone else’s, even though I take care of her. I take care of all of them every morning I make sure that they have food hey water and I clean out all the crap out of their cages, but still this ungrateful rabbit is like “hey you want to pet me? No thanks, I’m only going to let Mom pet me even though you like care for me and everything so no.” So rude.
Rabbit number four is vanilla but we call her Karen, like the meme, because she is mean and attacks everything and anything including but not limited to food, water, other rabbits, people, and basically everything else. Her main goal in life is to maul everything and try and escape, even though we give her everything she needs.
We bred Oreo (male mini Rex) with Chocolate (Californian female) in the hopes of getting large colored rabbits, and Chocolate is currently 4 weeks pregnant, extremely moody and hormonal, and has destroyed all the cardboard we give her, including in her nesting box.
We attempted to breed Mint (Californian male) with Vanilla/Karen (psychopathic Californian female), but it ended with mint having his ear viciously bitten and being traumatized, and Karen seeming self-satisfied and violent.
When we first got them, we planned on getting 3 Californians for free so we brought three boxes, but Oreo was added to the package as a surprise. I got to hold him on the 40 minute drive home, but he is pretty tame, so there weren’t any problems.
Oreo’s so adorable and genuinely likes people, unlike the females, who hate people(and each other!), and mint, who just tolerates us. The girls however, can’t share the same space or they’ll fight. It looks kind of funny though, because their dewlaps (double chins😆) are flapping in the wind while they try and assert dominance… through a wire separation, of course.
The boys are weird friends, they pee on each other and assert dominance and all that stuff, and then oreo sits in the 2 square inches between mint and the edge of the pen, even though it’s like, 95 degrees. He doesn’t understand personal space.
Anyways, we’re doing this because we want to give them happy and healthy lives and have good, healthy food at the same time. If you’re interested, I’ve put together a YouTube video on how to care for your rabbits. Check it out here!
While I’m not looking forward to harvest day….I like meat. I feel like if I can make sure my meat is humanely and ethically raised and slaughtered, then I can feel confident that what my siblings and I are eating is good for us and not full of chemicals and steroids and antibiotics. It’s better for the animals and better for the environment.
The Taylor Family Farm 