Bit-Bit

They say to mind your business and trouble won’t follow you. Well I have to disagree with that statement, and here is why. While drinking coffee standing in the kitchen, something outside caught my eye. There is a freaking bunny at my kitchen door!! Yes! A bunny! I bet you didn’t see that one coming; I sure as hell didn’t.

Underground Bunny Railroad

I bet this is a wild bunny, it is running, jumping and doing flips all over the backyard. “Cathy, Levi y’all come here, quick!”
The unanimous response was “No, way!” after we watched this tiny little thing was having the time of its life back here.
We were, and still are learning about bunnies, so we weren’t sure if this was a baby or not. All we knew was that this was much smaller in comparison to our other babies.
Did I mention this was only three months after taking Buddy Gauntt in? I mean, this poor guy hadn’t even finished cleaning all of the nastiness off of him. And here we were, staring at another bunny.
At this point I referred to ourselves as the ‘underground bunny railroad’.

Take it back!

As with the other bunnies we had no problem getting our hands on this little creature. We were checking it over when it occurred to us that a neighbor mentioned having a little bunny. We handed little bunny foo-foo over to Levi and told him to take it and see if it is theirs. He managed to come back empty-handed. Whew! That was a close one!

Round two –

The very next day the same furry little thing was back at it again. We caught it once more and took another good look at it; this time realizing it was the ugliest, cutest little thang! Its face appeared smooshed, as if it ran face first into a wall full speed! It was brown with nappy and frizzy fur; its paws were muddy and crusty from previous mud.
We returned it to the rightful owners, once again.

Round three –

During its third appearance the following day, we actually had trouble catching her. Oh yes, we found out it was a girl from the bunny parents. It was noon-ish when I knocked on the owners door and was greeted with “Is that *&@% bunny in your yard again? My husband just needs to fix the fence, I have been telling him for weeks”.
She continued to ramble and I realized that this poor baby had been let loose in the backyard with two large, aggressive dogs. Their yard usually knee high with grass, housed two aggressive dogs running freely out back.
This dilapidated fence of which she spoke, wasn’t even in good enough condition to keep the dogs contained, as it was not uncommon for them to roam and terrorize the neighborhood. There were some days I couldn’t even get out of my vehicle, in my own driveway! Many times I had to ask for someone’s help to shoo one of the dogs off of my property.

Don’t worry about it –

Setting my personal feelings aside, I asked for help catching this feisty creature. She told me that her granddaughter was still asleep, so I asked if she could wake her up. “No, it’s too early!” I asked if maybe they could come help and was told “No, not right now”. Taking a step back in disbelief I returned to our house to see if Levi had made any progress; no such luck.
About an hour later I returned to let them know we still had not caught her; to which I was told:
“You know what? If you can’t catch her don’t worry about it, just don’t worry. As a matter of fact, just don’t worry about it at all.” I point blank asked if she really wanted the bunny anymore, or was letting it “accidentally” get out trying to get rid of it. We were more than willing to take her off their hands if they did not want to care for her anymore; and she continued with “Just…don’t…worry about it, ok?”
Shocked by the lack of care and concern, I walked home feeling defeated. Now what? I wondered to myself if that meant we should just try to catch her and take care of her ourselves.

No worries!

So guess what? We didn’t worry.
We knew she was domesticated so we wanted to make sure to catch her. It did take us a little while to get her this time; she seriously was having the time of her life back there with all that jumping and flipping. We did enjoy watching her have so much fun and we left her alone for a while, but we also worried about her well-being.

What the….?

She weighed maybe two pounds and most likely wouldn’t have survived out on her own; not due of her size, but because she was domesticated. We put her inside and she took off—walking! Yup, she didn’t hop like she did outside; instead she was walking on all fours, crouched down as if she was doing a belly crawl. Weird!
She had no problem making herself at home and the first place she went to was the top of the couch. Backed into the corner and crouched down was where she could be found most any time; sitting there frozen not moving a whisker, as if she were hiding. The only thing we could think of was that maybe she stayed this way in her yard; backed into a corner and hiding.

She just ate what?

It didn’t take long for her to relax and warm up to everyone, although the back of the couch continued to be her safe spot. It was not uncommon for her to come up behind you and tickle your neck with her whiskers. We obliged in letting her check us out, but one day that little booger decided that she wanted to eat what we were eating.
Cathy was sitting on said couch enjoying herself some Cool Ranch Dorito® chips when all of a sudden, Miss Thang walked down the front of Cathy from the top of the couch, straight into the bag and backed out with huge chip in her mouth. Needless to say we were speechless before erupting in laughter. I mean, what bunny eats chips? And she sure did eat the whole thing and tried coming back for more.
Knowing how sensitive bunny bellies are she was not allowed to have any more human food after that; she really did just catch us off guard, though.

Poop is life –

• 

• 

Before too long she was back to normal bunny hopping, playing with our other animals. The vet appointment arrived and we were hopeful to get a clean bill of health. According to the veterinarian she was approximately four to six months old; a young adult in human years and appeared to be in good health. See Bunny age chart.
The only recommendation was to add a probiotic to her diet as her belly was a little out of whack. We informed her about the chip incident and she assured us that the cause was most likely something else that had been going on for much longer. She speculated her diet prior to our adopting her, was the culprit in her abnormal stool and gassy belly.

• 

• 

• 

Knowing she was this young; technically a teenager but still a baby to us, and just thrown into the backyard broke our hearts. We did make contact with the adult of that household to let them know we did manage to catch her; to which the reply was “Ok”. Realizing she was obviously not wanted, we were glad to take over caring for her; just look at those pictures, she was so tiny.
Trying to name her took a lot longer for some reason; starting out as Tater Tot and Li’l bit but neither of those seemed to flow or fit her, until she finally arrived at Bit-Bit and it stuck.

One year later –

Bit-Bit has been with us for a little over one year now and the only problem we have encountered is her not getting along with Lizzy Lou. She loves her sister, but Lou Lou is just set in her ways; dominant, territorial and just plum moody. Afterall, she is an old lady. I hate the fact we can’t ever seem to put them into play time together, but we just make do. Buddy gets along with everyone so the girls just get switched out.
She continues to have belly troubles off and on and we just treat her accordingly. Unfortunately she is not privy to treats as often as our other two, but it is all for her well-being.
Oh, have I mentioned that our 17 lb cat runs away just at the sight of our 2.5 lb bunny? It is quite hilarious, but if Bit-Bit is out of her ‘house’, he makes a big circle around her and hides in the closet. I have no idea what kind of arguments these two have had, but he does not like Bit-Bit one bit….bit. Ha ha, see what I did there?
But then again….. we do find them in this compromising position more often these days, so I don’t think he hates her as much as he lets on 😉
There may be sibling love on the horizon afterall!

All grown up

Bit-Bit has definitely grown up a lot. She has lost all of her brown fur and is now gray from head to toe. The shedding process was a hot mess, but we got through it ok. She absolutely loves her Buddy Gauntt and honestly, I think she likes Tigger just a tad! It’s like short people you know, they look tiny and harmless but they can in fact be quite scary. So I think she terrorizes him on purpose, ha ha.
It has taken almost this whole time for us to get her to understand what a potty was and to stop making a mess all over the place; but she’s a bunny so Que Sera.

• 

• 

• 

Now you have met our entire crew, so what do you think?
Let us know what you think; leave a comment, tell us your story or just like and share our page!

Did you miss meeting the rest of the crew? No problem, meet them all here:
Tigger
Lizzy Lou
Buddy Gauntt