Milk Maid

Why, you wascally wabbit! Even though I’m not Elmer Fudd, thank goodness, I still occasionally say, Why, you wascally wabbit!

My rabbits have been doing pretty well lately and I haven’t had too many complaints about them. That changed in a hurry a couple of weeks ago. I went into my rabbit barn to start morning feed when I quickly noticed “Goober” the Dutch rabbit’s cage door was open.

Since Goober is one of my promising juniors (rabbits under six months of age) and he is my neighbor Logan’s 4-H project, I was in a panic. I just took a deep breath and looked up to calm down so I could think clearly.

That did the trick! It turns out that somehow Goober got on top of his cage. I quickly caught him and put him back into his cage. Then I put a new cage lock on his door so this wouldn’t happen again.

When I told Logan about this, all he had to say was, “Goober must be a magician!”

Instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Goober found a way to pull himself out of his cage. Goober, you wascally wabbit! Goober has nothing on another young rabbit in the barn.

This spring, I was lucky enough to have 11 all pure white rabbits born.

One of the rabbits is a Mini Lop named George. He is quite notorious now. He has not only gotten out once, but twice since getting a new cage a month ago.

After he was caught the first time, I thought I had fixed the problem with his cage. George was doing fine for the past few weeks. His pearly white fur has been shiny and he has been getting ready for his first county fair.

My brother Gared will be showing him next week. On Friday morning, I noticed George had busted through the part of the cage that was “fixed” and thought he should go out for a morning hop. He kept evading capture and I was over it.

I left him out some food and water and wished him luck until I got back home. George spent the day just hopping around the machine shed, just as hoppy as could be. Worried about his welfare and that his pearly white fur was now brown or black, I grabbed my grandpa’s old fishing net.

I saw George peek around the corn planter and I went to grab the net but discovered it was gone.

I saw my dad whizz by with net in his hand and thought, “That rabbit has no idea what he’s in for.”

Channelling his inner “Elmer Fudd” and armed with a fishing net and the flashlight on his phone, there was no way George was going to evade capture.

After about 20 minutes of running, stopping and missing George entirely, I was ready to set up a live trap and thought George would be hungry overnight.

But not my dad, he wanted to catch that wascally wabbit and before I knew it, he was crawling under hay racks and up and down hay bales.

I had to call in some reinforcements, and they did the trick. George was finally contained in the net and after a few photos with the “fishermen”, he was back in his cage with extra reinforcements in and around it. He was happy to be back in his home.

I am hoping George’s wild days are over and his pearly white fur is nearly back to its original condition.

All I have to say is darn it Goober and George, you are a couple of wascally wabbits!