Monthly Archives: September 2008

I am very sad to say that my blog seemed to have failed one of its objectives. Besides from sharing my life as a Holland Lop hobbyist, my main intention of this blog is to promote responsible and quality breeding.

I am rather shocked when someone told me that they are planning to breed their rabbits because of the irresistible photographs of my kits. The kits seemed to be very nice to “play” with. That is just so unacceptable for me.

It is not my intention to promote breeding out of cuteness. I know it all seemed to be like a perfect fairy tale but please DO NOT overlook the technicalities of breeding.

If every Tom, Dick & Harry breeds their rabbits without accessing the potential genetic problems or breeding just for the pleasure of having cute baby bunnies, this world would be DOOMED!

This sort of information really makes me feel like quiting this blog altogether! People are missing all the important points!

I am enjoying my baby rabbits and even more so with my adult rabbits because at the end of the day, it should not be how good the baby looks. I am trying to get adult rabbits looking like baby rabbits! Do you not see the point? Baby rabbits are cute regardless of the breed. Most people would abandon them once they grow out of their cuteness.

It is enjoyable to have baby bunnies around more so if you know that they are of good quality. Yes, I am really enjoying having good quality rabbits! Of course I want others to have this enjoyment too but not until if they know how to get there!

Well, what good can I make out of this sad information? It only gives me affirmation to hold steadfast in my principles. The more I get to know people’s intentions the more I have decided that I should safeguard the genetic pool of my rabbits.

I am expecting a sharp drop on the hits statistic after this but I could not be bothered. I rather have a handful of good faithful readers than some that are in it for all the wrong reasons!

Sorry people, as of now, NO BUNNIES FOR SALE!*

*Because I have NONE to offer… 😛

I am happy and excited to announce that Tru-Luv rabbitry was featured on another major newspaper today. Grab a copy of Malay Mail to know what’s up!

Special thanks goes out to Gabey and Sheila of Malay Mail for a full page article dedicated to RABBITS!

Long live the rabbit community!!!

Another great news! Just got permission from Ms. Sheila to include the article on this blog. Gabey even gave me the softcopy of the article! Click here to read.

*thanks Nicky for sending me an SMS on this!

I notice that most of the lop ear rabbits in Malaysia has the mane gene. It is possible that their ancestors has got lionhead or anggora crosses. My original TLR linenage has got the mane gene too. If you have seen Bandie, Floppie & Lumix, you would notice the obvious mane gene that manifested. It is very difficult to get rid of this mane gene. It is one of the reason why I was very reluctant to breed my previous TLR rabbits because there were too many faults and I particularly hated the mane gene.

It is a major fault and totally unacceptable on the show table.

An example of mane gene manifestation:

As I was on the way to work yesterday, I was just thinking to myself and I realized that it is very unfortunate for some countries in the world to be experiencing natural disasters due to geographical reasons. These natural disasters have caused unrest and turmoils to many people because they are living in affected areas.

Then my mind further wanders to countries without these disasters and I realized that most of the time it is the people that causes these unrest and turmoils. We have seen what happened in Myanmar and Thailand. They are mere political and social unrest. I would like to call these man made problems. Are they so complacent that they have to create such turmoils?

Mind you, this is not a social or political blog but why am I writing all these then? I have actually thought and tried putting myself in a difficult position. I sometimes imagine this sort of things just to run through some contingency plans because the world today is just so uncertain. I cannot help but to wonder what will happen to things that really matters to us in such situations. Of course my family would be my first priority. Although my rabbits are also part of my family, they would be secondary if the situation is a grave one.

What will happen to this blog then?

As most of my faithful readers would notice, I have been blogging every single day for the past 3 months. So I guess if you do not see a new post one day, it would mean that I am caught in something very important. If you do not see me posting for 2 days, please pray for me, my family and my rabbits. If you do not see me posting for a week, please pray for my soul.

There is a reason to cherish ourselves and not to take things for granted because we do not know what will be given to us tomorrow. God bless all of you.

Time and time again, I remind myself not to grow too proud of all the blessings that has been bestowed upon me. So far, I have been blessed with the best rabbits I could ever imagine myself having. I realized that sometimes I may seem to be very arrogant towards certain people that shows interest in my rabbits. In fact, I rarely trust strangers these days.

Also, since quality is the utmost important trait that I hope to achieve in my rabbits, I tend to impose my standards upon others. I realize that I am not being sensitive to the circumstances or limitations someone else is in.

Take for example, I strongly believe that every rabbit on the face of this earth deserve the best. But my best and another person’s best may not be similar. A local rabbit cost a little less than $40 in the petshops. A pack of 10 lbs Oxbow cost a little less than $60. A pack of 10 lbs local pellets (with sand) cost $9. That means Oxbow is 7 times the price of local pellets. Given this figure to someone without the budget, can he or she actually have a rabbit as pet?

So the question is, do we penalize or discriminate “poor” people from having pets?

Is it better not to have a pet at all if we cannot give them our best?

Coming back to the point of being arrogant. I am being arrogant by choice because I hated how some people being rude and inconsiderate. I do not mind entertaining questions but not to the point of spoon feeding. The information is scattered all around the cyberspace. Sometimes, I just do not understand why some people have to ask every question under the sun without having the initiatives to search out the answers on their own first.

By giving and providing all the answers, I realize that most come back with the same questions because the answers were given to them easily and most of the time they do not even try to remember the answers previously given.

And coming back to the title of this post. To be honest, having rabbits for me so far wasn’t a smooth sailing experience. Having to cope with deaths, faults and genetic problems has taught me a lot about how tough life could be. Along the way, I met great and very generous people who are so willing to share (of course I would love to follow their lead).

Every now and then, I walk down memory lane to recall the wonderful rabbits that has long passed and looking at the present, I cannot help but to be grateful. It does remind me too that in the past, my rabbits were once eating $9 local pellets and the differences do I notice now that I am feeding them Oxbow.

Besides the sand, one major thing has changed. My rabbits are no longer local rabbits or mixes of both local and imports. Tru-Luv Rabbitry’s herd is now fully imported bloodlines. And due to that reason, I cannot afford anymore deaths especially if the deaths were caused by diet which is now so readily available. So you might ask, can we still feed the local pellets? I dare not answer that question. For me, I would say that even the local rabbits should not be fed solely on local pellets. And that in itself makes up a small part of knowledge gained about rabbit diet. Rabbits should not be fed pellets alone.

I can go on and on writing about what I have learned throughout this entire Holland Lop experience thus far, but I choose to leave my sharing up to this point. Why? What fun would it be if I share every single thing I know? That is part of the human experience. We need to go through every single thing to learn if not, might as well, we have cyborgs walking the streets. We are not pre-programmed beings. We have a life and most importantly a brain to think uniquely. We have to exercise that brain of ours to be creative and to make a good decision on our own.

I would just like to end on this note. Tru-Luv Rabbitry has not forgotten its root or have grown proud. Every single step I take, is for the betterment of both rabbits and human alike.

This is True Love indeed.