The place for news, updates, announcements, and water bottle gossip from the Buns and their humans.

Hot Cross Hoppenings

February 22, 2024

July 25, 2024

As mentioned in a previous post, we have been enjoying a very special houseguest for the past week and a half. His name is Oreo, but his HCB name was Knack. He is a gorgeous little guy, and a very pampered and beloved boy. He has started to go through a molt, so we are brushing him twice a day, to keep him from digesting any fur and causing tummy troubles. When taking his photos, we were struck by the lovely reddish brown coloring on either side of his neck and under his chin, which isn't really noticeable in real life. Isn't he a cutie? He's going to be with us through mid-August, at which time we will be having another bunny guest come for his annual stay. We love spending time with our now grown-up "babies"!

July 24, 2024

The newly spayed/neutered Buns are continuing to do well.

We created a listing for Genevieve on the Available Buns page, along with a new video and photos. We so hope this precious girl will find her forever family very soon. She has so much spunk and laughter to bring to her new person/people. This girl was made to be a benevolent dictator in a home of her own. :D

July 23, 2024

UPDATE: John-Boy, Francesca, and Pigeon are all back home and resting quietly in their cage spaces. Pigeon is greedily eating some parsley, while Frankie and John-Boy are ignoring it for now, which is totally normal immediately following the anesthesia. I'll check on them throughout the night to make certain they are safe and as comfortable as can be.

Baby Bun pictures have been added to their listing pages. Cheese Ball is staying with us, Pringles and Funion have both been matched, but little Ruffles is still available for matching with a family who has gone through our application process and been approved as an HCB family.

John-Boy, Pigeon, and Francesca are at the vet's for their procedures. It's always a nail-biting kind of a day until we know that they are all safe and recovering well. We will post an update when they are back home and resting comfortably.

July 21, 2024

Pringles was officially matched with Paige S. yesterday. He is going to be staying with us for a few more weeks because of some family travel plans, but we don't mind having this sweet little guy around to keep us company

Little Ruffles is doing well. She still has too much energy and is very slowly gaining weight. She amused Paige and her boyfriend immensely during their visit yesterday. We think Ruffles and Pringles will have some fun playdates while they're both still here.

We have had the joy of bunny-sitting Oreo for the past week. He will be with us through mid-August, so we will get to know this little guy even better. He is nearly four years old and his HCB name was Knack. We're hoping to share some pictures and perhaps a video or two while he's visiting with us. He is a little doll! Some of you may remember our solid blue breeding doe Boopsy. She has been retired for a year or so, but Oreo was one of her littermates.

We plan to do more pictures and videos in the coming week. Things have been a bit busier than normal as we prepare to launch Evelyn's new business on September 1st, if all goes well and everything falls into place smoothly. We have been very remiss in taking photos and creating pages on the Meet the Hot Cross Buns page for the two new little bucks we added to HCB from other rabbitries. They have completed their quarantines and we are trying to find the right time to unveil them. They are both in their long, lanky stage of development, so aren't as handsome right now as we know they will be in the future. We're hoping both are false dwarf bucks so we don't have to worry about peanut babies in the litters they sire.

John-Boy, Francesca, and Pigeon are going in for their neuter and spays, bright and early Tuesday morning, so we will be praying all goes well for them.

July 16, 2024

Nicole G. and her family from the waiting list have been understandably occupied for the past couple of days and contacted us last night, very sorry that they had missed our matching message. We were still able to match them with their much-desired blue buck...Funion! We hope they enjoy the rest of their special trip and that it is made even brighter, knowing that Funion is going to bounce into their arms very soon. Yay! :D

July 15, 2024

We have worked our way through the entire waiting list and only Pringles has been tentatively matched. His perspective family is coming to meet him on Saturday to make their official decision.

Since the other Waiting List families are not ready for placement or did not respond to our email attempts to reach them, we are now welcoming anyone with an approved New Bunny Questionnaire to express interest in adding Funion or Ruffles to their hearts and homes.

If you have already adopted a Bun and are seeking a bonding buddy, please send us an email (hcbhollands@gmail.com) to describe your Bun's current temperament, likes, dislikes, and spaying/neutering information (if you haven't already done so.) We will probably ask some questions to make help us ascertain that he or she would be a great fit for you and your current Bun.

If you are interested in Funion or Ruffles and do not yet have an approved New Bunny Questionnaire, you will need to go through our approval process to be considered for placement.

We look forward to announcing their placements!

July 14, 2024

We are down to the last three names on the Waiting List and are wondering if we're having email issues again. I don't believe we are, as we have been in communication with some new clients in the midst of the approval process without any issue, but three out of the first five people on the list have not responded to our messages regarding being matched. We recently reached out to Sophie A. as a potential match for Ruffles, and to Nicole G. as a potential match for Funion a few hours ago. I'm truly hoping both Buns will be matched soon.

If Sophie and/or Nicole decide to wait or don't respond in the allotted 24 hour period, both Ruffles and Funion will be available to any appropriate families with an approved New Bunny Questionnaire. (The final person on the list has indicated that she will not be ready for her new Bun until November, so we don't need to contact her at this time. )

If you are on the Waiting List (viewable as a subtab of the Nursery page...you can see the dates and times we reached out to you and the time at which we moved on to the next person) and did not receive a message from us, please let us know right away. We always do our best to email people and give them plenty of time to respond without keeping the other people on the list waiting for too long. We try to do this very fairly and announce when matching is going to begin on this page. Sometimes matching goes very quickly, other times it can take days because of lack of response. If you know you are going to be away from your computer/email for any length of time when matching is about to begin, PLEASE communicate that to us. We are happy to try other forms of communication if that means you will be able to be matched with your special Bun.

It's quite disheartening to wait months for babies to finally arrive, tend them lovingly as they grow, and to not be able to communicate with the people who paid their deposits to join the Waiting List as we hear crickets chirping when we reach out to them for matching. We know that there have not been as many babies available as everyone would have liked, but we can't control of how many does conceive, how many babies are born alive, and how many babies are healthy (and aren't peanuts or badly bruised from the birthing process.) We understand that some people may have decided to go elsewhere for their rabbits because of the wait, or changed their minds altogether about getting a rabbit. If that's the case, please notify us so we can thank you for the joy of beginning to work with you and wish you the very best in your future. We appreciate you and your time with us.

July 11, 2024

We are all set to begin the matching process tomorrow with Ruffles, Funion, and Pringles. We will reach out to the first person on our waiting list in the morning. Please remember that each person has 24 hours to respond to our matching message. If we don't hear back within that time period, we will move on to the next family.

The videos and information pages about each available Bun are reached by clicking on their photos from the Available Buns page. Sometimes the videos don't load properly and you may need to refresh the page to view them. We're still loading everything in, but everything should be up and running by 5:30 tonight.

Here's a little video of Cheese Ball, who will be staying with us as a future breeding buck. Enjoy!

July 8, 2024

Pictures are here!

Just a quick update to let you know what's going on in the week ahead. We will be doing new pictures of the babies later today, so check back around 2pm. They may be up earlier, but I'm giving myself a cushion, just in case something unexpected pops up, as it often does. LOL

Neither Francesca nor Pigeon had babies over the weekend, which was very disappointing. Because they have each only had one litter of babies in two years of trying to breed them, we have decided to retire them from our breeding program. They, along with John-Boy will be spayed/neutered towards the end of the month and will be available for placement into pet homes at some point in August. (Periwinkle and Genevieve are still doing very well following their spays last week.)

We are actively downsizing the rabbitry a bit. Evelyn is in the process of starting up her own business (not rabbit-related) and will need large blocks of time to focus on that, in addition to completing her last two years of school, She still plans to engage with the Buns as time permits, but we realized that we need to have a more realistic about what the future will look like. More details about Evelyn's business will be shared in the future.

We will be attempting to breed for more babies very soon. We are always trying, but the does aren't always receptive. Sometimes the does are receptive, but the bucks are having low-energy days and don't seem to be as motivated. We have faith that more babies will arrive when they are meant to. We thank the people and families on our waiting list for their patience.

The current babies will be ready to be matched at the end of this week. They are a great looking group of Holland Lops and we wish we could keep all of them, but that would be very selfish, so we are only retaining Cheese Ball (the broken) so we have another buck able to pass on the broken pattern. Funion and Pringles are both little bucks, while Ruffles is a little doe. We will be listing Ruffles on Friday, but will need to keep her with us for an additional week or two, while she catches up on weight. She is eating pellets and raw oats, and is drinking water on her own, but we would feel better if she adds a few more ounces before going to her new home. (For reference, Ruffles weighs 11.6 oz. while Funion weighs 1 lb. 10 oz. so nearly an entire pound more. Pringles and Cheese Ball are about 1 lb. 3 oz. each.)

June 29, 2024

New baby Bun video to enjoy! They all had a little play date and got along famously. Ruffles really enjoyed interacting with the other kits and we plan to make this a regular occurrence for him/her.

Ruffles (solid black baby) is slowly gaining weight, but is only just over 7oz, while the other kits are closer to 14/15oz each. We think this little morsel of cuteness isn't gaining more quickly because its an active little thing. There is very little down time for this baby! The gender peek leads us to believe that she is a little doe, although with only about 95% certainty.

Funion (solid blue) was very laid back in the video, but is actually something of an escape artist. We took a gender peek and are 99% sure he is a little buck. He managed to escape several times from a double layer of exercise pens (a pen with smaller bars to keep babies in, with a second, regular exercise pen behind it), so we added a third exercise pen behind the second one and stuffed towels in all the nooks and crannies that he could remotely consider and invitation to explore. Thankfully, that has seemed to do the trick...for now.

Pringles (solid sable point) is the a mellow little Bun who is as gorgeous as can be. This is a true cuddle Bun who loves to snuggle and play gently. We believe he is a little buck, but with only about 85% certainty. We'll check again in another week or so.

Last but not least is little Cheese Ball, also believed to be a little buck (again with less certainty - about 85%). He is a nice, middle-of-the-road boy who enjoys cuddles and playtime. We are definitely planning to retain him for the rabbitry.

Periwinkle and Genevieve were both successfully spayed yesterday. We will be listing them on the Available Buns page in the near future, after they have had some time to recuperate.

We received some good news from Friendship APL in Elyria, OH. They have hired a new veterinarian who is able to do bunny spays and neuters for reasonable prices. She will begin at the end of July. We have reached out to secure an appointment for John-Boy and a couple of does. We'll keep you posted about how they do and if we're comfortable continuing to recommend them. (The vet that they had in the past, whom we knew and trusted with the Buns' spays and neuters, passed away suddenly in early March and a new doctor needed to be hired to step into her role at the APL.)

June 24, 2024

New baby pictures have been posted! Here's a peek!

June 22, 2024

Just a little update on the new babies. They have been given their HCB names.

Henrietta's babies are:

Funion - solid blue

Pringles - Sable Point

Cheese Ball = Broken Chocolate

Missy's baby is Ruffles because is has little furry ruffles and rolls everywhere.

We did make the decision to intervene and syringe feed Missy's kit. Although it is older and is a single baby. Missy is not feeding it well and it is half the size of Henrietta's babies. Thankfully, Ruffles has taken to the additional feedings like a duck to water and is quite an enthusiastic participant, so much so that we made a little video of last night's feeding. (Don't be deceived by the apparent size of Ruffles; that baby is all fur! We need to help it become a healthy little chonk.)