From the left Haggis, Cinders, Buttons, Prince.

The Family

The Family.

Buttons was the first of this family to arrive, he came here in 2007 when the care home for children who had him were disillusioned that none of the children looked after him properly and it was left to the staff to feed and clean him.  Buttons it has to be said was in good condition when he arrived but was, like most rabbits whose life is contained in a small hutch, bored.   He seemed delighted with the large if lonesome run that he found himself in on arrival here.  Not very long after Buttons arrival Mossburn was rung by a Dumfries veterinary practice to say a domestic rabbit had been handed in as it was found wandering about a housing estate.  Efforts had been made to locate an owner but to no avail so could we take her on; as she had no name and was destined to live with Buttons we called her Cinders.  Rabbits are territorial and you have to be careful about introducing new rabbits into another’s territory but Buttons appeared very pleased to welcome Cinders into his home.   And not very long after her arrival lo and behold Cinders produced two babies, poor Buttons was rushed off to the vet to have “the operation” only for it to be discovered he already had!!  It became obvious when the baby rabbits grew up that Cinders had had a liaison with a wild rabbit during her wanderings!  We had one boy baby and one girl so they became Prince and Drusilla, who for those of you who don’t know was one of the ugly sisters.  Unfortunately the door into the rabbits pen was left open one day and they all escaped, we never saw Drusilla again though she could well still be about, we have a population of wild rabbits who come to feed off such things as left over poultry corn, old veggies thrown onto the midden etc and she may well be one of the wild population.

And then along came Haggis who was yet another rabbit bought for children by a care home.  Haggis was not as lucky as Buttons had been in that nobody bothered to clean him out though he did get food chucked at him occasionally, he was in a tiny hutch and he is a big rabbit so it was a good day for him when one of the carers simply removed him and brought him here.  I think it says it all that the children had been allowed to call him Myxi.  Haggis on arrival was put in with some guinea pigs who lived next door to Buttons and company and he spent his entire time with his nose pressed against the wire talking to the neighbours so we decided to move all of them into a different pen together but give Haggis his own “house”.  If you move rabbits together into new premises then no territory has been established and it can work as it did in this case, you can see from the picture how well they all get on though right at first a bit of fur did fly between Buttons and Haggis!  Now a days Haggis does not always use his own house at night but goes in with the others.  All our rabbits and guinea pigs are shut in at night to ensure no predators get to them.

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Charlie

Charlie.

Charlie rabbit came to us early in 2008, his owners had informed their next door neighbour that they no longer wanted Charlie and were going to “chap him on the head”.  The neighbour was horrified and asked them to at least take him to a vet and have him humanely destroyed if they did not want him but they said they were not going to spend money having him killed so the neighbour literally took him off their hands and, having nowhere to keep a rabbit, rang us in a panic.   We always have room for the really genuine emergency and Charlie bless him was certainly that.  He was thin and dirty on arrival but so pleased with the new found freedom of a large pen that we opened up the next two and gave him loads of room, even to this day he charges up and down the three pens at a great rate of knots!  Charlie is an entire male so cannot be introduced to any of our girls but he has five guinea pigs for company and can see Tiger and Lulu from his pens.  In fact when Tiger first saw Charlie she thought she was looking in a mirror, they are almost identical!!

How anyone could have wanted to get rid of Charlie is a mystery, he is a fun loving affectionate rabbit who sometimes thinks he is actually a Mere cat as he spends considerable amounts of time standing on his hind legs with his front feet tucked in surveying the surrounding scenery. 

Midnight

Midnight
Midnight was one of 36 rabbits who came to us when Fife City Council decided not to have animal parks any more. For full details see 'Mars' on this page.

Lulu

Tiger>

Lulu and Tiger
Lulu is the black Lionheaded rabbit and her companion Tiger is the marled Dutch lop.  These two naughty female rabbits have been with us for some years now and arrived initially because their owners were moving abroad and could not take them.  Lulu and Tiger look for naughty things to do, their gate left slightly ajar while food or water is taken into their run and they are off, they dig tunnels in unlikely places and hide in them and getting them to go to bed at night is a nightmare, they run round and round their house avoiding the issue.  If there is any activity in their locality they sit on their hind legs watching what is going on and look like two children engrossed in a television programme.
Neither of them are keen on being handled so they are only caught up for health checks and necessary vaccinations like myximotosis and haemorrhagic viral disease which just happen once a year.  These two are real characters.

Milo

Milo the guinea pig is a Glaswegian.  In January 2010 a much loved member and supporter of Mossburn died and Milo’s carer along with Mossburn’s manager were both at Catriona’s funeral and got talking.  Francis, the carer who devotes her life to rescuing dogs, was telling Juanita the manager what a sad life it was for a piggy to live in a flat on a main road and only get to come out of his cage at night to run about the flat, watch television and have a cuddle.  They both decided then and there that he would be far better off in the country among the company of other piggies so Juanita brought him back home with her to Mossburn and all of us who knew Catriona agreed that she would have considered that outcome the highlight of her funeral!

Milo lives with Midnight the rabbit and four other boy guinea pigs, he is very friendly and still loves cuddles and has reconciled himself to not watching telly anymore.  His favourite thing in life is food and he could be considered to be quite a portly, but very handsome, gentleman!