I currently own two rabbits: Rioja and Janeway. They were born around 1997; at the time we bred rabbits as a hobby, but we couldn't sell them or their brother Xander (who sadly died at the age of around 6 months.) Their mother was Betty (shown left), who died at the age of 5-6yrs, and their father was an albino rabbit called Big Ears.

Our oldest ever rabbit was Ariadne, a brown Netherland Dwarf. She was the first rabbit we bought for breeding purposes. She was always very shy, she didn't like coming out very much even when she was put in the run she used to go back into the hutch quite quickly. One day I started to leave her hutch open while feeding her and the others. As time went by she grew in confidence, venturing further from the hutch each day and eventually going out into the garden properly. Interestingly enough, once I started to let Rioja, Janeway and Betty out as well, Ariadne became the dominant one. She seemed to kind of "claim" the bottom of the garden. At first, she wouldn't go down there, so one day I picked her up and took her down the steps and left her there to try to show her there was nothing to fear. From then on it was "hers!" I think she thought I'd given it to her, she would tolerate other rabbits in any other part of the garden but she would chase them off if they strayed down there. Sadly, she passed away in Summer 2001 at the age of 8yrs, a nice healthy age for a rabbit!

I still let Rioja and Janeway out for runs around the garden, but they don't come out together any more. For some reason, after years of getting along perfectly well, they have started to fight so have to come out separately. Only problem with that is that they effectively only spend half the time out that they would otherwise. It's their own fault though...

Janeway

Rioja