Them Ears Say a Lot

Before I got Calvin, I had read-up on bunny body language at http://www.muridae.com/rabbits/rabbittalk_intro.html. When Calvin is really interested in something or checking out the apartment before he starts zooming around, his ears are pointing forward. When he wants a good head rub, he'll hold his ears apart, giving me more "scalp" to rub, an action that the people at the shelter had never seen him do before when he did it on the day we first met and I brought him home. I call it the "Oh yeah, Mama, give me some lovin' " pose. His expressions are usually pretty simple since he's such an easy-going little guy and has no motives other than attention and getting good food.

Though Calvin is easy to read, Jessica is a whole 'nother ballgame. Her lop ears aren't as expressive as Calvin's "uppy" ears, but I've slowly learned to read her ears as well. When she's interested in something, they sort of slide foward like a pendulum, usually blocking her eye so she has to turn her head to the side to look at me. She's able to lift her ears up to half mast, as it were, when she is grooming, but otherwise they stay down. With the wide range of emotions and expressions she shows, her lop ears makes it harder for her to express herself so I can understand, so she adds the thump of a back foot for emphasis a lot. ;-)

It's not so much that rabbits don't communicate with us humans - we just have to learn how to listen and pay attention to them.

Mama

Bury me under lots of hay

Whenever I go to give Calvin and Jessica's litterbox a new bunch of hay, one or both of them usually hop into it before I'm done (if one isn't already sitting in it). As I try to put the hay around them, they usually get covered with some of it. I brush it off, but they don't move - they just begin chowing down on the fresh stuff. I know that the ancestors of the domestic rabbit lived underground in warrens, but that doesn't seem to explain why my two wouldn't care if they'd be buried under a pile of hay.

I think they wouldn't mind being covered with hay because they'd have to eat their way out, and to a rabbit, that'd be a lot of fun. Um, okay, whatever :-)

Mama

The rabbit sense of taste

I know that rabbits must have a sense of taste - no, not in fashion (although Calvin always looks spiffy in his chinchilla coat and Jessica darling with her lop ears), but in food. Smell probably has a really big connection to what will taste good to a rabbit and what won't.

However, I can't understand how they can go from munching on fresh spearmint to eating fresh dill. I mean, that's like eating a pickle after chewing minty gum or brushing your teeth. Yuck-o, yet both Calvin and Jessica don't seem to notice anything odd about it.

Remind me not to eat any salad that they toss together ;-)

Mama