It has finally happened. I got myself a Flemish Giant. Now I have 4 rabbits, 3 male and 1 female. What am I doing??

He was $50 from an older lady who lived down the road. We organised to pick him up after I checked that he had two blue eyes and was a pure Flem. She said yes to both of those questions.

The lady had a menajerie in her back yard. I think her yard would have been less than a half-acre, but she had two large pigs in the corner, chickens, guinea pigs, dogs, lizards, budgies, cockatiels, fish, cats, and of course a pen for the Flem parents.

The lady and I had a good conversation about the fact that it is hard to get pure Flemish Giants now because everyone is breeding them with New Zealand’s. This is not only destroying the line of Flems, it is bringing in more health issues.

She said that she once had a lady purchase a baby Flem from her, and she also wanted to purchase the parents, so she could breed them. Of course, the answer was no.

These are the photos from the online ad.

The babies were housed in a large blue tray with a wire lid. They were all beautiful colours with the true Vienna gene to create the blue eyes, white socks, collar and nose.

I noticed that she had a litter box in the babies box and I asked her if they were litter trained. She said that she was trying, but it’s really hard. She explained that she uses sawdust, which is “really good, because huge bags of it are free”. I said that I use hay, and she replied with, “hay gets too wet, it doesn’t soak all the wee up.” I immediately thought that hay would train them faster, but what would I know?

She said that they eat oaten chaff, carrots and drink a lot of water. That rang huge alarm bells for me. But being 7 weeks old, it’s easy enough to get them onto proper food.

I wanted a male Flem, and luckily she had sexed them, but gave them a blue stamp in their ear. The stamp was easily removed with a bit of water.

She picked one up and shoved it into my arms. He was a silvery grey. You can see him in the last two ad photos (above) on the bottom left. She also picked up another one, which is the one in the third photo. They were both super cute. The one she held had brilliant blue eyes, and the one I held had grey-blue eyes.

I had to make a decision, which boy do I take? Well, I had the chance to be a bit picky. The baby she held had a grey spot on his nose, which was super cute, but the one I held had perfect markings. I chose the one I was holding.

Hamish got his name on the way home. It was as if he came with it.

I popped him in his brand new pen with a litter box, food and water. Bella came to check him out.

Welcome Home, Hamish.