Pearl was a black and white lionhead doe born in 2017 who arrived at the end of October 2017. Her mother Petunia had been rehomed as a male from the adoption section at Pets@Home and put in with a buck. Pearl and her sister Petal were the result. The buck had either died or had been given away. We took Petunia, Petal and Pearl and another five from a different cage from a person who had been evicted. The rabbits’ indoor cages had been stacked in an outdoor bin cupboard with the doors against the back wall so it had to be dismantled to get them out. They had no food or water or bedding or shelter, just each other and the weather was very cold and they had no warm coats as they had been indoors previously. None of the rabbits had been sexed properly just left to breed with individuals removed every so often to give away. Lots died too from the sound of it, rather unsurprisingly. The only reason there weren’t more babies was that there were no adult males left, by luck rather than design. There were two young males in the bottom cage, but they were too young to have impregnated the three females they were with.
Pearl and her family lived in a lovely big stable and as they are happy lively girls with lots of energy they really appreciated all the room they had to play, but now they are outside and can dig they are even happier.
As the trio of girls grew older they toom to chasing each other. Particularly Petunia chasing her daughters. So in spring 2021 I decided to separate them and bond each with one of the bucks who had lost their companions over the winter. Pearl is now with Magic and they get on really well. It isn’t likely to be a very longterm relationship because he was already 11 yrs old when I bonded them but it is a definite improvement for her because she was at the bottom of the pecking order in the trio and looking more miserable each day.