I support wearing real fur.

Faux fur is made from blends of acrylic and modacrylic polymers derived from coal and petroleum that can take up to 1,000 years to break down in landfills. They are also non-renewable resources that pollute the earth. Add in the factory emissions and if that alone doesn’t convince you to give up the faux habit please continue reading. Faux fur is not able to keep snow from melting and re-freezing on the fibres which makes it less insulating and warm than real fur. Also because faux fur is not a natural material it does not allow the wearers skin to breath which leads to higher fungal  and mildew growths which is a leading cause foul smelling garments.  Is the price of this fashion really worth our planet?

Chances are if you wear faux fur you like that “fur” look.  Fear not there is a sustainable environmentally friendly substitute! What is the name of it? Well it’s called “Real Fur”.  It’s softer, smells a whole lot better, and more environmentally responsible.  Oh it’s cruel you say? Of course we have all seen those videos of fur farms from foreign countries produced by animal rights groups where they tell you animals are beaten, skinned alive, and so forth.  I for one can’t see skinning a feral animal alive even being remotely possible without serious personal injury, besides most videos I’ve seen from animal rights groups claiming animals are still alive while being processed is bologna. The tough truth is after animals are dispatched in a governmentally approved manner most will kick and twitch for up to several hours. Despite the videos I will tell you that Real Fur can be cruelty free.  How do you find cruelty free fur if you’re uncertain? It’s simple, stay away from commercial fur companies and designer names. Know where your fur comes from. Buy fur from local farmers, hunters, and artisans somewhere where you can see how the animals were raised and treated and not just raised for their pelts but their meat and in some cases their manure. I’ll use rabbits as examples. Rabbits are one of the greenest animals you can own, you can feed them a natural diet of forage and in return you get one of the best manures possible for gardening. They’re also one of the healthiest meats and a by-product of raising meat rabbits are those luxurious pelts. Tanned only, a single pelt averages only $6. Most tanning only involves three ingredients: salt, alum, and water.

Real fur is the result of millions of years of evolution and certainly cannot be beat by manmade faux fur that has only been commercially available since the 1950’s. 

It's been a while since I have updated my blog :)

I'm probably just an irritable person but there is one thing I simply do not understand. That is the people who buy mutts because "they're the best pets" but the first question they ask about that mutt is "what breed is it?" Doesn't that defeat the entire point of owning a mutt? It's not a breed. It's a mix of breeds, most of which are unidentifiable as to which breeds contributed to that mutt. If you want a mutt why can't you be happy with a mutt? Why must you play 24 questions regarding which breeds it resembles the most? What is important is, whether you like the animal or not. I did a study where I made a cross bred litter out of three distinct breeds and had breeders guess what breeds they were at different stages of their life. Not a single person guessed correctly any of the breeds that went into those rabbits and those were people who have been in the rabbit industry long enough to be able to spot and name specific breeds. Now a pet person asking a bunch of other pet people what breed is it is guaranteed to be wrong.

Also if you don't buy a purebred from a reputable breeder that gives you a 4 generation pedigree attributing to the fact it is indeed a purebred, chances are it is A.) Not a purebred or B.) Not a decent example of the breed. Often times I see something like the following scenario Bobby goes to a farm, Bobby buys a baby bunny for $5. Baby bunny is black and white, of unknown origin. 1 year later Bobby is selling it as a "Rare English Spot Rabbit" and wilfully denies that this black and white rabbit is anything but an English Spot even when repeatedly told this rabbit is in fact a Dutch.

Lack of knowledge is one thing, it can be corrected. Ignorance is a whole other story. If you choose to ignore  advice and proceed to go on about certain things you don't really know it makes you look like a fool to those who chose to educate themselves on what they didn't know. I learned to sex rabbits at 1 week old when I was twelve. There is no excuse for an adult to not be able to properly sex a rabbit when it's 6 weeks old.

http://rabbitedsociety.webs.com/Rabbitmills.pdf


I highly recommend reading this.

The clinical signs of Ivermectin poisoning are:

• excessive dilatation of the pupil of the eye (mydriasis)
• lethargy
• stupor
• coma
• tremors
• loss of coordination of the muscles, especially of the extremities (ataxia)
• vomiting (emesis)
• drooling
• death

Less visible symptoms:

• depression
• tachycardia (fast pulse)
• blood pressure fluctuation 

According to PIM 292, there is no evidence of increased birth defects in humans or mares subject to normal therapeutic Ivermectin treatment. But Ivermectin is teratogenic in rats, rabbit and mice at or near materno-toxic dose levels. The abnormalities are limited mainly to cleft palate.

Treatment is symptomatic and supportive in cases of overdose. Adverse effects are transient, but analgesics and antihistamines may be required. Since ivermectin is believed to enhance GABA activity in animals, it is probably wise to avoid drugs that enhance GABA activity (benzodiazepines, barbiturates, valproate, valproic acid) in patients with potentially toxic ivermectin exposure (MSD, 1988)

Animals with "White feet, don't treat".

Something I wish I knew two days ago: Dutch as a breed are highly sensitive to Ivermectin.

Since deworming all my rabbits both my bucks were dead within 24 hours and both my does are barely hanging on 48 hours later. The next person who tells me ivermectin is the best wormer can go shove it, I'm sticking with safeguard.

Diet in rabbits is one of those controversial topics it seems. Some people believe one thing and one thing only and will criticize anyone who doesn't feed the same way they do.

I'm going to post my personal experience with feeding rabbits.

-It is a common belief that rabbits have to be constantly eating. I have found through processing meat rabbits that a rabbit that is fed once a day still has a large amount of food in it's stomach after 24/hr of withholding feed before processing. I feed my rabbits a measured amount of feed once a day they're active, they're healthy, and they're fit. This is what works for me.

-Commercial pellets are cheaper because they're not wholesome enough for rabbits. I'm one of those people who reads the ingredients list on all rabbit feeds whether it's from a farm store, pet store, or grocery store.  I have yet to find a pet rabbit pellet that can compete with the nutritional value of a commercial feed. More often than not I wouldn't touch pellets being sold in the pet market. They never have a decent protein or fibre count and it's full of sugars and filler ingredients that rabbits shouldn't eat. I have also found through processing rabbits that those who were raised on pet quality pellets have disgusting insides (Large amounts of fat, greasy, smelly) where as those rabbits raised on commercial pellets have perfectly healthy insides.

-Rabbit have to eat hay. If you're feeding pellets, rabbits do not have to eat hay. The pellet itself is about 90% hay. I don't feed my rabbits loose hay and I haven't done so in a while. I give them hay cubes on occasion but most just play with them instead of eating them. And guess what? My rabbits aren't dead. They're active, they're healthy, and they reproduce fine. I find hay just makes a mess, it gets wasted, and more often than not it can contain moulds that are harmful to rabbits.

-Rabbits have to have fruits and vegetables as part of their diet. No, just, no. As treats on occasion, sure. As a main part of their diet no.

To sell or not to sell.

I've seen it happen a lot in the past 10 years of raising rabbits. Some breeders get out of one breed because there is no longer a pet market for them and then get into another breed for a bit and then get out of those because the pet market has become tougher to sell in. The question is why? Why does a pet market go from being easy to sell in to difficult? What happened?

The simple answer is supply and demand. If you mass produce rabbits to sell as pets then you're going to fill up that demand quickly. Thus there will be fewer people interested in buying. There are always going to be certain breeds that are more popular then others such as Netherland Dwarfs, Mini Rex, and Holland Lops but if you get several breeders in one area specifically breeding for pets even the market for those breeds will decrease drastically.  With a flooded market you also get a lot of people trying to re-home pets, usually for ridiculously low prices which gives people the impression that a pet is something cheap and easily disposable once you're board of it. This causes a chain reaction for breeders whose first focus is producing show animals. They can no longer sell their occasional pet quality for a decent price because suddenly no one wants to pay more then $5 for a rabbit and they're also the ones blamed for the "over population" This is also how peoples view of certain breeds becomes completely distorted. I've had people tell me my BIS winning Mini Rex was not actually a Mini Rex because they had a Mini Rex so they knew what they were talking about.

I'll be totally honest I do not believe rabbits should purposefully be bred to produce only pets.  I believe there are enough substandard rabbits produced through intentional show quality breedings that substandard rabbits shouldn't be bred on purpose. Anyone can breed a rabbit it takes actual skill and dedication to breed and produce a decent show quality rabbit.

I personally choose not to sell pet rabbits because of a lack of decent information available to pet owners. All information that I have found catered specifically to pet owners is horribly one sided and not actually backed up with real research. I've also seen "rabbit savvy vets" take advantage of people who don't know better. Often time rabbits are mishandled and end up scratching someone which makes them "bad" and gets them re-homed. None of which is fair to the rabbit.