Rabbit Brains

With all the reinforcement of yesterday's comments (thank you!), i am back to entertain you without the aid of a four-year old (maybe).

I've been thinking.

Blogs are for sharing our utmost thoughts....i think.

But our foremost thoughts are often too personal for interweb consumption.

So, maybe our secondarily utmost thoughts.

O.k., i'll tell ya.

What has been (i've just realized) consuming the biggest part of my secondarily utmost thoughts lately?

Rabbit brains.

Yes, you read that right.

I have eggs hatching, chickens to sell, dogs to train, children to ...... keep safe and pray for, a husband to love, a home to clean, a yard to .... get under control, and i'm thinking about rabbit brains.

The problem is i really want to get inside the mind of a rabbit, and this skill is eluding me.  For some reason, i just don't get them.

You know, i can't get in their heads.

They don't ever SAY anything.

Chickens flap, squawk, chirp, and sometimes scream.

Dogs bark, howl, jump, wag, lick, yelp, and sometimes cry.

Children cry, slobber, spit, yell, hit, hug, cry, laugh, and sometimes talk to you.

Husbands talk, celebrate, hug, kiss, sulk, withdraw, and sometimes have great intimate conversations.

Would you like to know what rabbits do?

They look pretty.  This is it.

If you really engage them, you might get some of this.

Or some of this.

That's right, eating and drinking.  They sustain their own lives by partaking in life-giving substance provided to them by me.

Other than that, nothing.

There's definitely no talking or whining or purring or shouting or anything to give me a clue what's going on in there.  How would i know if they were sluggish?  Who could know this?  They're always sluggish.

Two of the rabbits have actually been giving some exciting action lately.

They've been chewing their feeders off the walls.

Great.

So, i got on a rabbit message board and asked if maybe my rabbits were bored.

According to the rabbit message board world, they are definitely bored, -and- i'm doing everything else wrong too.  

Great.  

Maybe that's what the rabbits are saying.  They're snubbing me because i'm doing everything wrong.  Only i don't know they're snubbing me because they never talked to me in the first place.

So i started looking for appropriate toys.

Hmm....

How 'bout a STICK.  They like to chew, right?

All three rabbits now have sticks in their cages.  

No interaction.

Ok.  So i tried these bird toys/swings that were in the bird cages (for birds), but i thought maybe they would like them.

I started with the most active of the rabbits, and i hung a big toy from the ceiling of her cage.  She looked really excited at first.  I mean there was some nose twitching involved.  She sort of chewed at it a couple of times, figured out that it was going to keep swinging back at her, and then ignored it.

But when i put the toy in bunny #1's cage, i swear to you bunny #2 looked EXCITED.  She was making eye contact with me, like, "where's mine?"

So i found another one and hung it from a dowel that i put across the top of the cage - you know, so she could slide it back and forth and stuff.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Then i looked at bunny #3.

She never moves.  Ever.  Unless i try to touch her.

I thought, "maybe her feet are sore."  I have read somewhere that they need something for the feet to rest from the wire under them all the time.

So i found some linoleum and cut them each a square.

Bunny #1 sniffed at it.

Bunny #2 avoided it.

Bunny #3 .....

AWOKE from her trance, said, "THANK YOU!  FINALLY!  Something to eat that's not good for me!"  And proceeded to EAT the linoleum.

I started having visions of compacted bowels in rabbits and decided to take it away.

NONE of them sat  on it.

And now, do you know what i'm thinking about?

Still.

Rabbit brains.

This has been a peek into the mind of a wanna-be farmer,

who doesn't know what's going on in a rabbit's brain.

I'm pretty sure i know what's going through at least one of their brains.

"Sure is getting crowded in here.....there's way too much stuff in my cage."

Next try - a pill bottle with beans inside.  That sounds like fun, right?