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Update: Animal Control
Animal control just called me back. She had gone out there and looked at the barns. She said she was actually impressed with how well the rabbits were cared for considering the large amount of animals they had. She said the barn was clean (whaaaaat???) and everything was normal under Agricultural Standards. She said there was only one cage she had an issue with where the pan wasn't big enough and they will fix it (I am shocked because when I was there I saw pee running through all the cages from the top, dripping onto the animals underneath)
She said that if you haven't grown up in a agricultural area then this life may look shocking . Now by all means I am not a country girl but I have been on plenty of farms and none looked like this!
Now I am really upset and so embarrassed for calling. I made a fool out of myself and the animals still live under these conditions.
Re: Update: Animal Control
Jenni, please don't be hard on yourself. *I* think you did the right thing. I would have called animal control, too. I think sometimes people in agricultural areas have different ideas about treating animals. (I know I'll get flames for that statement.)
I came to this opinion because of my year in North Dakota. I remember talking to this one woman who was my age. She said that they used to have 2 dogs, but the second dog went after the chickens and killed one of them, so her husband shot the dog
This was 7 years ago. I don't know why they didn't give it away or something.
Is it possible she could have cleaned up? Did you mention the heat? Are the laws for caring for rabbits different than those for dogs/cats? Could she be registered with the state for raising rabbits as food (shudder), so that the laws would be different than those bred for pets?
You could always post a notice on CL about people not buying from her
because of the conditions.
I'm so glad you called! The conditions sound so awful. Maybe the visit from Animal Control will frighten her a bit and change some of what she's doing. I would definitely post about it on CL. I would take your bun to the vet for a thorough checkup after living like that.
The thing is that if it wasn't for the amount of rabbits that were in this tiny barn, the floors that did not have a single clean spot to step on and most of all the pee ... when the rabbit on the top peed, I got rained on, it went all over the floor and it also went straight down through the floor of the cage, dripping right on the head of a baby.... if it wasn't for all of that I wouldn't even have said anything.
My first rabbit came from a breeder like this as well, also a barn. And it was nothing like this. Yeah of course it was a barn, yeah of course there is hay on the ground and yeah of course there are cages with several rabbits but it was all in proportion.
I don't even think that this lady is not taking care of the rabbits but it looked like a hoarder. You know how you see these hoarder shows when a person just loves her animals but it gets out of control ... that's what this situation looked like.
I am so appalled by these whole situation. If she just wouldn't allow the rabbits to have this many litters at one time it would be a heck of a lot better. I mean she had at least 30 Flemish babies ready to go (in addition to a bunch of other breeds with just as many babies)
The bigger barn she had was fine. A paradise in comparison to the one where she kept the majority in.
The lady said they were given access to all buildings. She said she only had issues with one cage where the pan wasn't big enough for the cage. That's all. It is sad.
I think if she had a limit of rabbits she was allowed to have at one time in that barn it would be fine! It was the amount that made it all spiral out of control ... it really made me think of the show "Hoarders" when some have a million animals