Rabbit Rhythms September 2024
Issue 103

Welcome to the Rabbit Rhythms September 2024 edition!

The Rabbit Rhythms September 2024 edition presents several really cool tips for September!

Princess Bunelope enjoying the "seaside" air.

Just click on any of the list links below to skip ahead to the article you want to read, or scroll through the page to get all the news:

Breed of the Month: The Spicy Cinnamon Rabbit
Health and Wellness: 4H Means Healthy Kids
Random Rabbit Rantings: Saving Money on Pelleted Feed.

Pictured at right:
A "seaside vacation bunny photo" from our friends at Belle's Bunny Boutique in New Jersey. Click the link to see more very cute photos!

Breed of the Month: Cinnamon Rabbit

Cinnamon Rabbit Breed.

The Rabbit Rhythms September 2024 Breed of the Month is the Cinnamon.

Have you ever heard of a Cinnamon Rabbit? If any rabbit deserves to be the spokes-hare for 4H, it would be the Cinnamon Rabbit.

In 1962, a couple of 4H children, Belle and Fred Houseman, were given a Chinchilla doe and later a New Zealand White buck for their 4H projects. The rabbits thrived and multiplied like rabbits.

The kids were given an unwanted Checkered Giant/California crossbred doe, along with few other rusty colored rabbits, and they cross-bred them with their other pet rabbits under the guidance of their father. After a couple generations of breeding, many of the offspring were sporting this new "cinnamon" coat color (black tortoiseshell is the official term for the color).

The family continued to breed for meat qualities and for the coat color, which they labeled Cinnamon. You gotta admit - that is a very apropos description of the gorgeous cinnamon color on most of its body. You could say it’s a spicy rabbit, with clove black markings on its face, ears, and feet.

After standardizing both the color and the body type, the new breed received ARBA approval as the Cinnamon Rabbit in 1972.

There is a cosmetically similar breed, the Thuringer in Europe, although they aren’t related.

Fortunately, Cinnamons have laid back personalities, as they should, having been produced by 4H kids. They are good as pets, but additionally, their fine coats and medium-large size (8.5 - 11 pounds) also make them excellent livestock rabbits for both meat and fur.

If you would like to learn more, check in with the Cinnamon Rabbit Breeders Association. Their website is useful, with information about the breed itself and a list of professional breeders, and merch of course. We also found a couple great Youtube videos so you can see them in action.

Health and Wellness: 4H Means Healthy Kids

Talking about 4H: 

4H is an organization devoted to helping teach children responsibility through animal husbandry.

The 4 H's of 4H are:

• Head
• Hands
• Health
• Heart

4H teaches children directly through mentorship, personal responsibility, and hands on learning. Each child has their own 4H Project Animal, that they feed, house, care for, and learn all about the species and breed.

Can 4H Help Digital Junkie Kids??

Recently, parents, teachers, and even law makers have become quite concerned about the negative effects of electronic devices on children. Screen addicted kids are disconnected with their environments, while suffering anxiety from media pressure.

Additionally neuroscientists have been diagnosing a disorder that they are referring to as "Digital Dementia." Excessive exposure to electronic media seems to produce symptoms similiar to dementia, including short term memory loss, depression, mood swings, lack of attention span, and reduced cognitive function. 

Thanks to neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to change and grow by reorganizing its structure and function after internal or external stimuli - the brain is capable of relearning and even healing to various degrees. Children have a very high degree of neuroplasticity, since the human brain is not fully developed until age 25.

This means there is hope for kids who right now find themselves tethered to devices.

4H and FFA kids are living life too fully to qualify as juvenile media junkies. Go to a junior livestock show and watch the kids. They are smart, active, happy, healthy, confident, competent, and completely engaged with their surroundings.

We recommend rabbits as a 4H Project!

The Cinnamon rabbit would make a great 4H project animal. But there are many other breeds to choose from. Find them at our Rabbit Breeds Page.

I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the letter TREAT!

Random Rabbit Rantings

Items of Interest and Shareable Funnies

(Original source: imgflip.com)

Fall is almost upon us, and before you know it, winter will be here. That means time to start thinking about winter feed. Your rabbit loves the chemical free fresh forages on your property, but what to do when their giant salad bar is under 6 inches of snow?

You have multiple options:

• Buy commercial pelleted feed
• Grow an indoor bunny garden
• Make your own pellet feed

There are pellet feed makers on sale online, and you may be able to find one at your local farm supply store. The makers come in electric powered, for fast easy convenience, or in hand crank manual style for off grid living. The included instruction book or dozens of available YouTube videos will have you up and running in no time!

These machines can be used to make pelleted feed for lots of your animals, so you can become an accomplished barnyard chef, making delicious and nutritious pelleted feed for your critters to crunch.

There are wonderful advantages to making your own feed. It will be fresh, economical, and you can control what goes into your feed and what doesn't (such as pesticides, preservatives, and dyes). 

These are big factors, since store sold pellet feed may be many months old by the time you scoop it into the feed trough. It may have lost taste and vital nutrients, and possibly have suffered spoilage. But when you make it, you are in control of everything.

Your healthy 4H kid may even be interested in helping to formulate and make the pellet. (Hint: sweeten the deal with some cashish!)

Here is one of many youtube videos showing you how easy it is to make your own bunny chow:

What Can be Included in Homemade Rabbit Pellets? 

You'll need a recipe for your homemade pellets, of course. What are good ingredients to include, and how much?

Raising-Rabbits has comprehensive lists of rabbit safe plants, plus a handy ebook (pictured below) that talks about how to feed your rabbit with or without pellets. It includes combinations, recipes, and detailed information about the rabbit digestive system and potential ailments.

Feeding Your Rabbits (With or Without Pellets)

Feeding Your Rabbits is our guide on everything you need to know about a healthy rabbit diet. It includes information about store pellet feed or a home forage diet so you can choose the right fare for your hare.

Feeding Your Rabbits offers information about feeding your rabbits at all stages of life, including bottle feeding newborn babies, normal feeding of all your rabbits, extra nutrition for pregnant and nursing does, health-enhancing supplements, and much much more. It is useful whether you wish to supplement the normal commercial rabbit pellets, or you wish to completely replace those pellets.

A healthy diet really does help ensure your rabbit lives a long, healthy life.

Click here for more information, or...

Click here to purchase Feeding Your Rabbits With or Without Pellets!

Your purchase is 100% Risk Free. See our Double-Value Guarantee below.

Like this Rabbit Rhythms  September 2024 Newsletter?