August 2007 – Alice was a large white dalmatian rex rabbit with pale blue eyes. She met Cloud 4 weeks previously. They really got on, but were prevented from mating, or so my daughter told me.
Alice had been a birthday present for my daughter in 2006. She came from a pet shop that was closing down, and they were selling their stock off cheap. I was going to get two rex males but my daughter pointed out that someone might get Alice for meat and she asked me if she could have her. I agreed.
Cloud arrived via my then boyfriend who acquired a rabbit that was with a Guinea Pig that had died.
Cloud was a dwarf angora and looked like a fluffy pale brown and grey cloud.
Cloud and Alice lived indoors and had separate areas in the house.
In August that year Alice started to get suspiciously fat. I squinted at my daughter and asked “are you sure that they didn’t…you know, do the thing that bunnies do? Whilst you were not looking perhaps?” she just shook her head with an impressively good poker face.
Then one day Alice ripped out her leg fur and put it in a circle in front of her on the floor. She then leapt onto the sofa and gave birth to 8 baby bunnies.
They were slightly premature and despite all efforts two died. Which was devastating. After that I stayed up night and day and made sure that Alice fed the rest of them properly and that they all had equal feeds.
I remember one sunny morning waking up on the couch with the baby bunnies in a small cage with their nest in it on my stomach and a young pigeon that I had been looking after nestled up to my head (I vaguely remember him flying over from his area in the night and nestling against my head). It was so peaceful and warm. I didn’t want to get up, and I wanted that moment to last for ever. If I could pick one moment to have eternity in that might be it. The sun illuminated the orange curtains and the warmth made me drowsy, I fell back asleep for an hour until my alarm woke me up to feed them again. It was a two person job, one to hold Alice and the other to hold the babies up to be fed. Then to make sure that they were all fed for equal amount of time. Giving a little extra to any that were losing weight.
I weighed them and photographed them 4 times a day. The 6 remaining bunnies all made it and were gradually weaned.
We named them Moe, Sherbet, Biscuit, Tasha, Ginger and Miffy. When they were old enough we got them done so that there would be no more surprise bunnies.
The day after they were born the police came round to take some information about a guy who had been shooting rats with a pellet gun. The police were enchanted by them. One of the police officers wanted to stroke Moe because he stood out due to his distinctive white blaze on his forehead. She stroked his tiny head and exclaimed that he was adorable. Her and her partner kept bringing it up whenever I saw them.
Moe had the biggest character and he was the boldest and friendliest of them all. We’d sit with them out so that they could run around and Moe would come over and sit on my knee. He’d sit there for an hour or so just relaxing and watching the rest. He’d do things like jump into the bag of hay or food. He was really inquisitive, mischievous, but good natured.
I was in student accommodation at the time, next to the railway, and it was briefly invaded by some wild rats. They had even managed to get into the sofa.
We couldn’t find Moe one day and we lifted the sofa cushions up to find Moe laying in front of a wild rat (which was also lounged in a loaf position) like they were having a relaxed conversation. Both were startled and both looked guilty like bad dogs do, like we had caught them discussing the downfall of mankind.
Moe really loved his sister Sherbet, they gravitated together from birth and always slept next to each other. When they were all out together Moe would lean his head on Sherbets back, signifying that she was special to him. They were never apart. In 2013 Sherbet was murdered by a man named Sam Darrett (not his actual name). I didn’t know at the time but I found out years later. She became really ill very suddenly, one day. It looked like poisoning but I couldn’t work out how that could have been a thing. She suddenly keeled over and died in my lap with the other bunnies watching. I didn’t even have time to get her to the vets. Moe sat in front of me with his head close to her. She gasped and then went still. Moe looked up at me then chin rubbed her body (in bunny language that means ‘this is something that I love’). He then ran and hid behind his purple tunnel. Alice who was watching started shaking and passed out. I thought that she had died too.
I laid out Sherbets body elevated from the rest on a blanket and surrounded her with flowers and crystals.
I had previously found out that scientifically the brain takes a while to die within a deceased body so I always lay animals out for 24 hours. I make sure that they are comfortable, with their grave goods, and they all get a traditional Viking/Celtic burial. They are then placed in a plant pot so that I can take them with me when I move. They are family.
I didn’t have a large pot so I put Sherbet in a oblong plastic pot so that I could transfer her at another point in time into the same one that Moe would eventually be buried in. So that they could always be together.
I buried her with the flowers, and crystals etc, on top of a blanket. With another blanket on top of her, then soil. I then put the pot filled with soil at the back door whilst I went to get my shoes. When I came back Moe was lying in a loaf pose on top of the soil in the pot. He knew that she was in it.
I left him there to grieve for a few hours. I waited until he was done to put the pot outside in the back garden.
He could have dug up the soil but he ignored his natural instincts to mourn his sisters death.
Sherbets death devastated both Moe and Alice. All that suffering caused by one vile man (assisted later by others of his ilk).
Sam Darrett Killed them all in the end. It was part of a ridiculous criminal process by a backwards cult. My family and our bunnies were in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught the attention of the wrong type of cowardly but malicious individuals.
Moe survived the longest, ten and a half years. He lost and grieved for all of his family.
Solve This Murder 