What's after breeding?

I am very envious of many people that I have came across keeping bunnies in the living room. Free ranged bunnies that is.

You might be wondering why I am complaining not being able to have free ranged bunnies in my home. The main reason is because, all my rabbits are not neutered or spayed. Why not spay or neuter them?

You must have also noticed that I always encourage people to spay and neuter their rabbits except for myself? Am I being hypocritic here?

Let me first explain why my rabbits are not neutered/spayed first. The reason is simply because they are rabbits for breeding. What has neutering & spaying got to do with free range rabbit?

There are many issues as regards to neutering/spaying that can be attributed to hormones. Common issues such as spraying of a buck and stronger odour is part and parcel of keeping unaltered rabbits. But both doe and buck share the same problem. They mark their territory with their poops!

Therefore, the main reason I cannot free range most of my rabbits is because of the effectiveness of toilet training. Although Skor uses his litter tray, he still marks with his poo all over the place and worst still, if there is even a drop of pee (of another rabbit) in the area where he is, that area will be filled with poop pellets and pee.

As for why I do not get them neutered/spayed, I must first explain about my passion for these rabbits. Let's just put it as I caught the "show" bug although there is no show in Malaysia. I am sure most of you as a young child, has come across these vending machines that dispense some sort of toys in an egg-like container. I do not think the toys really matter but it was the suspense and curiosity that is addictive. Yes, breeding for quality is very exciting. It is like Forrest Gump saying "Life is like a box of chocolates, you will never know what you gonna get" or something like that.

I am a little addicted as to how well a litter of kits would turn out but of course and glad that it has not turn into an obsession. And working within a space constrained situation also helps because I can only afford to make the best decisions. It is similar as to the analogy that I so often use in the past, the earth has got a threshold as to how many people/living things it can hold and if the amount exceeds the threshold, earth will react.

I noticed that in a big rabbitry with 100 or more holes, things may get out of hand because since there is so much space to accomodate so many rabbits, not all decisions are made with careful planning. If given a choice to own a 100 holes rabbitry, I believe that it would be hard for me to cull as well. I will probably convince myself that all rabbits are up to standard and end up keeping every single one. I felt that most people with big rabbitry ends up having a rabbit "burnout" which is, after sometime of excitement they just blow up by selling out. It is like eating chocolates every single day of your life and it would come a point when you will just get so sick and tired of eating, it just backfires.

So what do I plan to do when my does are over producing age? Coming back to what I feel envious about, I hope to get them spayed and keep them as house rabbits to live out their retirement.

I do not mean that I am tired of keeping so many rabbits but it is very true when some people say that they prefer to enjoy just one pet at a time. I do spend time with each and everyone of the buns but it is very different having just one or two compared to having an entire herd.

Maybe the notion of having that only one passing on makes us feel that it is always better to have another just in case?

Well, I hope that's not the case because that has got no difference with wanting to breed our pets just to keep its offspring (hoping for similarities). We must always know that like humans, every individual pet is unique unless if you are talking about clones. And by the way, I am totally against cloning simply because every individual is intended to be different and God wants it that way. Differences are in fact a GIFT.