Somehow I am not as fond of omelet as I used to be.
[RABBITS AS PETS.]
BY SHERWOOD RYSE.
Perhaps the reason why rabbits are so popular with boys is that they are something which they can attend to and care for entirely alone.
A rabbit-hutch is a simple affair, but if the animals are worth caring for, they are worth something better than an old packing case for a house. One of these, if water-tight, does well enough for the shell of the hutch, but it will require some fixing up before it is ready to be the abode of a rabbit that "knows what's what."
In the first place, as regards the floor. If this is not kept sweet and clean, the inhabitants will be liable to disease. Let the floor slope gently to the back of the hutch, and let it be double, so that the upper one can be drawn out to be cleaned. This upper board should be painted with two or three coats of paint, and every day it should be drawn out to be washed and brushed. The advantage of the slope is that the floor may be easily drained, and to carry off the drainage a gutter should be placed along it. When the board is cleaned it should have a layer of sand sprinkled over it after it has been put back in its place.
The hutch should be from thirty to thirty-six inches long, eighteen inches wide, and about as many high. As a rabbit should not be expected to eat in its sleeping-room any more than a human being should, the hutch should be partitioned off by a board, leaving the sleeping-room about twelve inches long. In this board should be a round hole large enough for a rabbit to pass through, and protected by a door sliding up and down in a groove.
The simplest way to make the front of the hutch is to nail strips of wood down it, but this is not the best way. Galvanized (white) wire netting is perhaps the best thing, and it can be bought very cheap at any hardware store. The mesh should not be more than three-quarters of an inch wide, or some prowling cat may get her paw into the house and do mischief. The writer lost his first young rabbits by allowing too large a space between the bars of his hutch. The open front of the hutch should extend as far as the end of the living-room. The sleeping-room should be inclosed by a solid door, opening in the ordinary way; and inside this should be a shutter about six inches high, sliding in a groove up and down. The advantage of this is that when the doe has young ones you may open the door and look at them without danger of their falling out.
The bedding should be of straw, well broken and bruised. It need be used only in the sleeping-room, except in very cold weather, and it should be changed at least once a week. It should always be put in dry. The hutch should be raised about a foot from the ground.