| What is life like at the sanctuary? |
Rabbits at the sanctuary are able to live naturally in family groups. They do not have to dodge cars, or run from coyotes, or dodge hawks and owls. They are well fed and happy and have a much longer average life than they did on their own outside of the sanctuary. |
| What is a feral rabbit? |
Rabbit Meadows houses only feral rabbits. These are the offspring of domestic rabbits who were abandoned when they were no longer wanted. The offspring (and their offspring and their offspring etc.) have had little or no human contact and are considered feral. The original dumped rabbits are not feral, even if they are unsocialized. |
| What if a rabbit gets sick? |
When any of the feral rabbits need to be picked up and checked for a medical problem, you can see how this can be easily accomplished. Since the feral rabbits will take food (especially fruit) directly from attendants' hands, they can just be "snatched" up and examined or monitored for a day or two to determine if vet care is needed. The liver coccidia that many of them came with has been totally eliminated. |
| What do the rabbits eat? |
These rabbits are cautiously sharing an apple. Just like kids, fruit is much tastier than veggies. They often enjoy watermelon, strawberries, apples, bananas, pears, mangos, etc.In addition, we feed these rabbits ten bales of alfalfa each week and several cases of veggies each day. Our rabbits use lots of bales of straw to keep warm. |
| How can I help? |
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If you'd like to help, please send your tax-deductable contribution to: Best Little Rabbit, Rodent & Ferret House Or use the Pay-Pal button at right to make on safe and easy on-line contribution. |
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OUR ADOPTION CENTER IS COMING! Many of you
have followed our search for a place that would allow us to care for the sanctuary rabbits and have our shelter bunnies and adoption center in the same location. Rabbit Meadows, our beautiful 4 1/2 acres 7 miles east of Redmond, was perfect except that the zoning laws would not allow the shelter (too much traffic). Then, in the
midst of our frustrating search, King County changed the zoning and now we can have it all! It's going to be a lot of effort, but our plan is to create an adoption center at Rabbit Meadows, complete with a veterinary clinic, an education room, and many other things. It is all very exciting!
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A Place to Call Home In 1996, The Best Little Rabbit Rodent and Ferret House opened it's doors to the public as a shelter and a retail store with ALL proceeds going to support the shelter animals. Sandi Ackerman, who started and continues to operate BLRRFH, had been rescuing rabbits since 1981. In 1988 she joined the national House Rabbit Society and founded the Washington state chapter. In 1997 she organized the rescue of one hundred rabbits from a Redmond business park. Then in 1998 joined with other groups to rescue the remaining 652 rabbits at the business park. Even though all of the rabbits were spayed or neutered, there was not room at the shelter for this many rabbits, and the rabbits were feral - not used to close contact with humans - from having grown up on their own. But Sandi did have five unused rural acres where she lived, and thus Rabbit Meadows Sanctuary was born.
If you would like to contribute to the rescue effort, please send a donation today!
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If you would like to contribute to this effort and to our continuing rescue work, please send a donation today!
With volunteer help and donations, the land was fenced in a way that the rabbits could not escape by tunneling, and predators could not get in. Netting was added to eliminate danger from overhead. Since then, Rabbit Meadows Sanctuary has continuously provided a safe and healthy environment for numerous feral rabbit colonies. The rabbits have a "living yard," where they have tunnels and structures that provide shelter, and where they are fed. They also have a "play yard" where they can munch on plants and grass and run to their hearts' content.
Running the sanctuary takes a considerable amount of time, effort and money. Although the rabbits live in a natural way, they must still be fed and have their medical needs taken care of. However, we believe that all rabbits, regardless of temperament or affinity for humans, deserve to live out their lives free from fear, pain, hunger and emotional or physical suffering. At Rabbit Meadows Sanctuary, they are doing exactly that.
