The Buns

We've kept bunnies as our family pets since the late-1960's/early1970's and guinea-pigs from the 1960's. Initially, we didn't realise just how addictive this would become over the following 40+ years or how our lives would change to revolve around the 'furry mob'.

We became known locally for our furry family and in the 1960's-70's would visit local schools and give talks on caring for these delightful little furries and almost all of our relatives and mum's work colleagues joined in the hobby, starting off with some of our surplus babies.

In those days there was very little pet care information available, the main book we found being the 1961 edition of 'Cavies' - the name by which guinea-pigs were then still commonly known, written by C H Keeling containing just 12 black and white plates of cloth-capped fanciers showing off their prized show exhibits.

Thus, an early project for myself was to write my own care book for guinea-pigs, hand-written in blue Biro™ and illustrated with my new set of colour pencils - a world away from the vast array of information available today in numerous photo-packed care guides and, of course, the Internet.

'Fur and Feather' was then the main journal for rabbit-keepers with a heavy emphasis on show results from around the country. Today, these earlier editions provide fascinating reading and an almost forgotten glimpse back into bunny-keeping archives. In comparison to today when nearly everyone has a landline and/or mobile phone, very few adverts (charged at just tuppence per word) in this 1960 edition give a phone number for contact - instead, enquiries for any bunny (sorry, RABBIT!) sales must be addressed by personal letter to Mr X at his home address!

Other adverts are for the marketing of pelts with 'raw pelts accepted at once' and a 'matching service' was offered by a business travelling the country with stud bucks to service does.

If this didn't quite take your fancy then you could buy your very own 2, 3 or 4 bedroom pre-fab home for £220 or if this was beyond your budget then just invest in its plan for a mere 6 shillings! Now, in 2006, a tiny 1 bedroom 'brick-box' flat here would set you back more than £100,000.

It's all a total contrast to today's 'Fur and Feather' publication now in glossy magazine format and targeted at a wider audience including not just the rabbit fancier but also pet owners with a wealth of care information and articles, all supplemented by colour photos.

'Fur and Feather' - our bedtime reading since the 1960's (corners carefully chewed by Mayflower)

Left a copy dated May 26 1960; Right - now a monthly, colour publication with a greater emphasis on bunnies!

Converted to rabbits, we gradually gave up our guinea-pigs (or cavies!) in order to focus solely on continuing our bunny lines, then breeding Netherland Dwarf (mum's interest), Mini Lops (dad's interest), occasional Dwarf Lops and my personal favourite - big, cuddly French Lops.

Later, due to family health problems we retired our Netherlands in 2002, all were neutered and most moved on to live in bonded pairs with our friends. We keep in touch with them and some, including Persil below, return to celebrate their birthdays and Christmas here.

Left: Persil on Christmas Day, 2005; right - one of her young relatives in 2002

Today we keep French Lops, Dwarf Lops and Mini Lops only and continue to maintain our lines by breeding occasional litters as our ongoing hobby. From each litter we retain a few girls then offer any surplus, along with all of their brothers, for adoption by loving pet homes. Although it's very tough to part with them, we very seldom retain any boys from our litters since these would be related to our girls and we do not inbreed and do not have the space to house boys individually. Instead, our boys are very carefully selected from well-known lines with a good family history confirmed to be free of any genetic defects and we have lineage pedigrees for most.

Although some lines have sadly died out over the decades, we are striving to ensure the continuity of our surviving lines and will be concentrating on fawn, orange, blue and blue butterfly French Lops, blue dwarf lops and harlequin, blue and sooty-fawn mini lops over the coming years.

In 2005 our mums produced some delightful babies - Bonnie and Disney's wedding in April produced Hafwen and Jacinda who have since become proud mums to Jessamine, Josie and Heulwen; Goldilocks became mum to Lily (both orange) and Dilly produced Tilly who then produced Tylda in November 2007 to continue our blue butterfly line. Sadly we lost some of our geriatrics during 2007 including Claudia, Claudine and Claudette who had far exceeded their life-expectancy. Wilma followed later.

Sadly we also had other losses in 2005 including our boy, Wellington who was hand-reared from the moment he was born having lost his mum and grandma to ketosis and myxomatosis respectively. He was the last of our late-Heathcliffe's direct descendents but luckily he fathered our first-ever blue girl, Winifred (now retired) whose line continues via Wilma, Bonnie (our first fawn) and Bonnie's twin daughters, Hafwen and Jacinda.

Generally, our Frenchies will have their first litter at 10-12 months of age and two litters in their second year following which they retire gracefully to sun themselves in the garden or become an animated hearth-rug in the lounge.

In the future, we hope to start a line of Continental Giants - but only when we've space for the 12' x 4' hutches they'll need plus pens, and there simply isn't room where we currently live.....


Bonnie - adorned in Hawaiian floral garland on her wedding day. Retired.	Hafwen (left, beige) and Jacinda (right, fawn), Bonnie's twin girls	Dilly, agouti butterfly daughter of Claudia and Giles

Tilly, blue butterfly daughter of Dilly.	Tylda - daughter of Tilly (2007)	Goldilocks

Lily, daughter of Goldilocks	Heulwen (daughter of Hafwen)	Jessamine, daughter of Jacinda

Gloria - daughter of Gregoria	Glenda, daughter of Gloria, born 2008.	Tilly and young daughter (2008)

Josie - daughter of Jacinda, 2007	Magnus-Barnaby - son of Lily/Barley 2007	Master Bentley


Doris	Maddie's twin girls born September 2006. In true-Maddie tradition she mutilated and lost 5 of her 7 babies. Of her two survivors (who will continue to live as house-buns with her), one girl has no ears!	Maddie (indoor house-bun)

Una - Maddie's daughter and now a professional bunny supermodel	Miss Inga ('missing-ear') - lives indoors with sister, Una, and proud mum as a family of house-bunnies.	Eva and Evelina - Inga's daughters (ie Maddie's grandbunnies)

		Einstein - son of Inga (Maddie's grandson)