“…feeling sad, but knowing she had done the right thing with her two pets.”
One of Beth’s brothers called her to take a bundle from him.
“Be careful of it, Beth. Perhaps you had better open it up inside”, he said.
Beth rushed inside and shut the door, then very carefully opened up the sack. Inside were two tiny grey rabbits.
“Oh aren’t they lovely, but how did you get them?” she asked.
“Well, the dogs chased a rabbit while we were out on the back paddock, and we found that it was a mother and so we looked for the burrow and found these,” said her brother.
Beth found a box and put some hay and a blanket in it and then went off to ask Mother if she could have an eye dropper to try to feed the wee rabbits. They must have been very hungry for it wasn’t long before those babies were sucking away at the end of the dropper and having a good feed. Being so tiny, they were not afraid and soon were quite happy and hopping around the house. Beth had to make sure that the cats were all shut outside while she played with the rabbits.
They grew fast and it wasn’t long before the box wouldn’t keep them safe, so Dad built them a pen with a little warm house in one corner for them to sleep in. Beth could move them around the lawn so that they had plenty of nice fresh grass to eat, and they also had milk thistles and some carrots which made a good diet for growing bunnies.
They were very quiet, and if Beth was careful and shut the cats inside the house, she could let the two rabbits out onto the lawn and they would hop and play around with her.
Months passed and the rabbits were fully grown, and Beth finally decided that she was being very selfish keeping them as her pets, instead of them being able to be free and run and play with the other rabbits. One morning Beth put them carefully into a box, and, mounting her pony, set off for the back paddock. When she reached a suitable place, away at the far end of their large farm, she dismounted and, sitting down in the lush grass, opened the box.
The two rabbits hopped out and nibbled the grass close to the box. Beth lay down in the grass close to them, and the rabbits would hop off and feed and then run back to cuddle up to her, which made it very hard for Beth to stick to her decision. At last though they evidently decided that Beth wasn’t going to put them back in the box and they hopped further away over the paddock, leaping and skipping merrily.
Suddenly, to Beth’s delight, she saw two other rabbits hop out into the open and stop beside her pets. There was a session of sniffing each other and then after a few hops and skips they all disappeared together. Beth mounted her pony, and rode slowly home, feeling sad, but knowing she had done the right thing with her two pets.