PLAYING WITH THE RABBITS

These bunnies were born last month on January 26…and today is our first time to play with them…and it may be the last time too…coz we’ll be giving them away again, in a few more weeks…we can’t afford to keep anymore bunnies kasi e…Whitey’s babies this time are four – two white ones and one completely brown like its dad and another white one with big brown patches. They’re just sooooo cute and cuddly, quite big at just three weeks! One pair will be given to Keith’s ‘special friend’ while the second pair to Ate Gemma, Kaye’s school bus operator, she had long been asking us to give her some bunnies and now she can finally get her wish…

CUTE BUNNIES

Finally, a day at home to rest! It’s quite difficult you know, shuttling from one place to another this Holy Week but it is necessary to pacify everyone – we need to go to BP at least for a few days to satisfy the hubby and then travel to wherever it is the family would decide to spend its Holy Week for mine and the kids’ sake. We spent a fun-filled weekend at Tagaytay this year but it still feels great to be home. Even if there are so many things waiting – like the laundry and the pets' cages needing to be cleaned. These are the things that had to be done, there’s just no way to avoid it lest the house go to such disarray. I can’t just totally clean the rabbit cages though because the bunnies may get wet. By the way, here are pictures of the bunnies - the first pic was taken just three or four days after they were born and they were just starting to grow some hairs. But in the last pic, taken after ten days, they’re getting to be so cute! I just wish we didn’t have to give them all away! But as it is, we don’t have the space and the finances to keep another pet. So I’ll just take their pictures while they’re still here with us.

A NEW PET

When we arrived Sunday night after staying at BP for the weekend, my daughter excitedly came in the house to ask if she could keep the puppy that her neighbor-friends found near the playground. She pleaded and pleaded and since she had been hankering me to buy her a dog (a Shih-tzu pa nga!) for quite a long time already, I decided to just let her keep it. Anyway, it would not entail much on our part because the puppy was lost and seemed an askal and not some fancy breed that would require equally fancy food. I told her, too, to extend more efforts to try to find the owner of the dog before she became too attached and claim it as her own.

I promised her she could have her Shih-tzu when she is already in high school because at her age now (ten years old), I am sure she would not be able to handle all the responsibilities that comes with having a pet – feeding it, giving it water regularly, a bath once a week, then visits to the vet for rabies shots and for some vitamins. The dog seems to be a good pet. It would playfully wag its tail when called – we named it Kobe after the Lakers basketball player and it seems to follow instructions when told to stop in a stern voice. More importantly, it has not started to bite at our things particularly our slippers so I guess he’s quite well-bred. Besides, the puppy seemed to understand our dilemma on allowing our daughter add another animal in our already littered backyard (with the bunnies and birds) so the puppy keeps looking at us with its big brown pitiful eyes, so I guess we have no choice but to welcome the new pup into our home. Here’s a pic of our new puppy in its cage.

ANTI-RABIES SHOTS FOR DITSE

Last night Ditse arrived home from visiting her apos in Tondo and it seems their situation is still pretty much the same (the girl, her manugang, still bitching about Ditse's son) and her grandkids still crying buckets of tears whenever Ditse leaves them. It’s a heartbreaking situation that they have but it’s the best that she can do since her manugang won’t let her borrow the kids anymore because she’s using them to spite her wayward husband and make him come back to her (highly unlikely!) So even though she can’t stand being with her manugang and her troublesome family, she still makes it a point to visit her grandchildren because she loves them dearly. Her visit would have ended uneventfully if not for her being bitten by a stray cat as she was about to leave. She said the cat bit her on the heel of her foot and at first she thought nothing of it but last night when she mentioned it, I immediately grew apprehensive because I knew for a fact that cats have rabies too. So I searched the internet and saw that indeed some stray cats have higher rabies than dogs because they forage around in dirty trash bins and thus their bites are more prone to infections.

The next day at work, after the office flag raising and while eating breakfast of oatmeal on my desk I decided to conduct a more thorough search and discovered that the first thing she needs is a tetanus shot within 48 hours. And so I immediately texted her and told her to proceed to the nearest health center so she can have her shots for free. I tried to search for nearby animal shots center so she would not have to go all the way to San Lazaro where we went when my son was bitten by a dog when he was just four years old. Good thing, an officemate of mine said that anti-rabies shots were given at the San Jose del Monte health center and so the next day, DItse went there where it would be much cheaper. She spent only 500 for the first shot and the rest of the money I gave her (I gave 1K from the first pisonet savings) she spent on antibiotics. She told the health center officer that she didn’t have much money to spare so she was given a discount on the 2nd shot and would pay again on the third shot another 500, so I guess it’s better that way, huh! At least now she can sleep better at night knowing she would not suddenly howl at night like a rabid dog or feel her body stiffen as the rabies slowly spreads to her nervous system and her brain…ugh! Well, at least that’s one less thorn from our side, I just hope she stays safe from now on.

NEW BUNNIES…FOR SALE!

It is exactly one month since our new bunnies were born and I’m very sad to say that one more died a week after they were born so we’re now down to just five bunnies. But thankfully all of them are quite healthy and are eating quite a lot already so I believe it’s high time we dispose of them once again. Just too bad for us because they’re all so cute and we have grown quite attached to them already. Anyway, we decided to sell them this time so that we’ll have some money to continue buying feeds for their parents – Whitey and Brownie. I just wish someone would buy them. I asked at a pet shop at Robinson’s recently and they say they’re selling bunnies for 450 a pair - what??? That much??? I guess we’d just be selling ours for only 300 a pair or even 200 – that’s a reasonable enough amount, don’t you think?

NEW KITS FROM WHITEY (AGAIN!)

Since we bought the bunnies last year (around August), Whitey had given birth three times already - imagine that? Spaced three months apart, Whitey gave birth to five kits on her first pregnancy, then three on her second and you won’t believe this - eight kits this time around. I first heard her scratching wildly inside her cage at around 4:30 am so I went down and saw that she was once again already molting. I just made a makeshift nest for her using an old shoe box since her regular wooden box I found wet under the langka tree. I noticed a wide gash, though on Whitey’s left cheek, maybe she hurt herself while she was removing hair from her body to place inside the nest. I touched it a bit and saw it wasn’t bleeding and so I just let her be lest I agitate her further.

It was around 10am when Whitey started giving birth and at that time, Ace counted three kits all at the same time. I thought then that it would be the end but when we lifted her out of the box, it seems she was giving birth to one more, in fact, five more! But it was just too bad that two of them died quickly. I guess they were just too small when they came out – seemingly premature and unable to move so they can’t nurse properly. Or maybe mother rabbits have only six nipples??? I don’t really know, I never got around to checking but what really got me so excited was seeing Whitey give birth to eight new baby bunnies - hurrah for Whitey! Here are pics of her new babies.

P.S. Another one died a few more days later, so I guess it's now just down to five...

BRINGING BUNNY TO THE VET

It’s now Bunny’s turn at the vet and I do hope he gets cured soon. He’s been sick for so long. I would have wanted to have him injected since June but the budget and schedule does not allow it. During the rare times that we are at home, it seems we do not have any extra money to bring him to the vet and now finally, we had the time and the money to do so. I just hope he gets back to his old form soon enough.










P.S. Too bad that I was unable to get a pic of Bunny when he was finally cured of his mites. The last pic was taken Sept 9, about two weeks after he was vaccinated and he is healing here quite nicely. We brought him to BP when we went home last Sept 24 and our nephew, who resides in Tondo, asked for a rabbit and we decided to give Bunny to him since there were new kits that needed to be housed in Bunny’s old cage. Now I won’t be able to see him again… boohoo!

THIRDY AT TWO MONTHS (well almost!)

Our little bunny is not so little anymore - he’s almost two months old and getting quite big and fat. Well, it’s understandable since he’s still the only baby bunny here and therefore the most pampered. We played with him inside the house again today and we had fun letting him run around the sala. I guess we’ll miss him when he finally leaves because we intend to give him away soon. We cannot keep on taking care of every bunny that comes out of Whitey so we’re gonna have to wean ourselves away from him eventually. Meanwhile, we’ll enjoy the little time we have left with him (and take pictures, of course, to preserve our memory of him)












P.S. We eventually gave away Thirdy to Daniel, Annie’s BF and I just hope he would take care of him well!

THIRDY AT ONE MONTH

We were supposed to go to vet today but we lacked the time, so we postponed Bunny’s treatment for the meantime. This was just too bad since it’s so seldom that we get to stay home here at our house in Bulacan. And what’s worse during the times that we do stay we don’t have the budget for it naman, so it’s really an opportunity wasted talaga! So, instead, I just cleaned their cages and decided to play with Thirdy for a while. After all, he already turned one month today and is now quite playful and makulit. Unlike the last time when we borrowed him and he still found it difficult to move and was just sleeping. Here are some of his cute and cuddly pics.

ANOTHER BIRDIE DEAD!!!

Just two weeks after Blue died, this time another yellow birdie was found dead inside the cage by the kids when they arrived this afternoon. Now I really wonder what is happening to them??? I have not been able to fathom yet what caused Blue to die and now another one has died. But you know what the bigger problem is??? I do not know yet how to tell my mother…she’d be heartbroken for sure.

PLAYING WITH THE NEW BUNNY

It has been two weeks since the new bunny was born and since Kaye said he or she is the third white bunny we had, why not call him or her Thirdy? And I countered why not? Since she came from a brood of three kits and was the only one to survive, so maybe he/she is the third in the litter, then Thirdy is just an apt name for him! This afternoon, we decided to borrow him awhile to play inside the house and here are some pics of his cute and cuddly form. We expect that he would be chubby since being the only bunny nursing, he won’t have much competition!

BLUE IS DEAD!

We only had them for a month - four lovebirds or maybe parakeets that we have fed and nourished with different sorts of feeds/seeds. They were given to us by Mama the last time we visited her on Mother’s Day then this morning, I was surprised to see one of them, the cute chubby blue one lying coldly on her side - stone dead! I wonder what we did wrong??? Is it the weather that they were unaccustomed to??? But I did notice that some of them were pecking at him -the other three birds, particularly one small yellow one was bullying him. Maybe they got into a fight and I just didn’t see. Well, that’s just too bad because now we lost one pet.

NEW PETS…LOVE BIRDS FROM MAMA!

Mother’s day last Sunday and we paid a visit to my mother the next day, Monday to bring her some gifts – Celeteque moisturizer, a sack of rice and some cash, but guess what??? She gave us an even better gift - NEW PETS and I do believe my daughter would surely be glad about this! Because she had been hankering me to buy her some love birds but I figured with the bunnies and all, we surely can’t afford another pet??? Since that would be 4 more mouths to feed – coz there were four birds in all – three yellow ones and a cute, fat blue bird! Here are some of their pics of them at the office.
















P.S. They don’t seem to be lovebirds to me …more like parakeets from what I have been browsing over the net?

HEALING WHITEY

Just an update, after about three weeks since she had her ivermectin shots at the vet clinic, Whitey’s healing nicely - all her sore spots are gone! No more wounds in her nose, or her ears, and her feet. All we need to do now is make her eat more so she would be chubby again, like Brownie, and so that she would go back to looking her cute and cuddly bunny self. In a few weeks time, it would be her other bunny (Vanilla) that we’d be bringing to the vet for her shots. I just hope the others who are in their new homes would get the same treatment they did for them to be cured of mites and look good and cuddly once again.

Bringing Brownie to the Vet!

Last week, I finally found what I have long been looking for – a vet near our place! You see I have wanted to bring the rabbits for so long to a vet to get treatment for what I suspect is mange (that has been affecting their skin like crazy so that no matter how much I bathe them, they don’t get cured!) It was a small shop, immediately after the rows of metal shops and other repair shops so it was quite unnoticeable so it may not exactly be new but I just didn’t see it. I told the hubby to drive a bit slower so I could get its number and when I called them up, I learned that the vet is available on Saturdays. And so without much prodding and with only a bit of money to spare, I went there with Kit and Myk (coz the hubby and the others went home to the province) with Brownie placed in a box. We rode the jeep going there and expectedly when we took Brownie out, he was shivering maybe in fear because of his new surroundings. The doc weighed him up first and then gave him two shots for his mange…ivermectin shots(like what I have been reading in the internet) He was also given some ointment to rub on his wounds (to help hasten its healing) and his nails trimmed. I paid a total of 650 for everything (250 for the shots, 250 for the ointment and 150 for the vet’s consultation fee) He was slated to return after two weeks (April 9) for a follow-up check up, though probably not anymore an injection because often animals get cured after just one shot. I sure hope he would get cured. My only problem now is Whitey because the vet said she can’t be injected while still nursing so I have to wait until the bunnies get weaned before I could bring her to the vet and that would be by the end of April…oh well, at least what matters is that they will hopefully get cured!

New pets…and more cute bunny pics!

When the kids went home after our beach trip to Bolinao, Pangasinan they also brought home with them some new pets which they intend to take care and even sell – hermit crabs! One time we saw these tiny things being sold at a stall in SM – for 150 each! The only difference was that those sold at SM had Sponge bob or Spiderman characters painted on the hermit crab’s shells… so, how’s that for over-pricing huh! Kaye and Denise were able to take home so many big hermits and even numerous small ones…their only problem is that they wouldn’t know if the seaweed they brought home would be enough to feed the hermits and if it runs out…what more could they use to feed them???











Meanwhile, here are more pics of the baby bunnies at 16 days…they are definitely getting much cuter now since they have more hair and are truly quite playful! But we’re still afraid to touch them still although we did take out one of them and took it inside the house to play with.

MORE BABY BUNNY PICS

Today, I cleaned out again the rabbits cages and since I had no other place left to put them in, I just left them inside their cages while I cleaned one and then the other. What I did take out were the baby bunnies because I was afraid to get them wet and so I placed them on the floor of our garage while I cleaned out the cages. Anyway, there is no danger yet that they may wander about and get out since at seven days they still cannot open their eyes yet and move about as much as they want. So instead, my daughter looked over them (though she was still quite afraid to touch them!) and took pictures of them still sleeping in their box/nest...here are the pics she took.

NEW BUNNIES!

I went on leave today so I could attend my daughter’s Linggo ng Wika presentation at school. My daughter and I ate a leisurely breakfast then we got ready for her program – bath, dress, fix her hair, then make-up. Left at around 11 but it turns out their program will be starting at past 12 pa! She can’t leave pa naman so I could feed her something to eat kasi their dance number was last pa! The program ended by 3 and off we went (after dressing up, of course!) to eat at a nearby Jollibee store ….but the real highlight of our day today – WE BOUGHT SOME CUTE BUNNIES – at a nearby rolling pet store! YIPEE! I just knew the hubby is not going to like this but hey they were just so adorable…my daughter still do not know what to name them but I just knew we are just gonna have fun with our new pets!

P.S. By the way, here's a pic of my daughter in costume for their Linggo ng Wika event...hehehe