The place for news, updates, announcements, and water bottle gossip from the Buns and their humans.
Hot Cross Hoppenings
February 22, 2024
Hot Cross Buns' Pet Bun of the Day: Hook's Goldilocks
Goldilocks is a lovely orange senior spayed doe who was given to us as a young lass by our friends at Hooks Hollands. She had five litters with us as a breeding doe, raising 15 beautiful babies. She had three litter of three kits, a litter of two, and her final litter was her largest, resulting in four babies. We retained two of her sons and they became a couple of HCB's most adored breeding bucks, Pumpkin Roll and Hamish. She was spayed and listed as a pet bunny, but never drew any interest. After having her listing on the Available Buns page for two years, we decided to keep her as a pet for ourselves.
Temperament-wise, she is a very affectionate "boulder bunny". She is quite observant and loves pets, but doesn't move around much. She's content to find a comfy spot and watch the world go by, resembling a little boulder in the process. She loves to receive pets and nose rubs, but other than diving into her food bowl at feeding time, that's the extent of her daily exertion. She's excellent at using her litter box and enjoys her chew toys, which are the only treats she is able to receive. Goldie has always had an extremely sensitive tummy and, anytime even the tiniest piece of a treat is given to her, she gets sticky poos and her bottom becomes an absolute mess, necessitating daily bottom cleaning for days afterwards. This, combined with her extra thick double coat, makes keeping her tushie clean especially challenging. No matter the time of year, she requires a daily session with the de-shedding tools or she looks like a mass of dandelion fluff. Despite all of these challenges, Goldilocks has never had a medical emergency (knock on wood) and has enjoyed robust good health.
When given the opportunity to free-roam in our home or play in an exercise pen, she remains in her characteristic bunny loaf position, watching the world go by. She is a gentle, undemanding presence in our household. Our lovely Goldilocks will celebrate her eighth birthday in August.
May 26, 2025
We're sharing pictures of our lovely houseguest Matilda (HCB's Scrabble) today! She is quite the wiggle-worm, so getting some non-blurry pictures when she was actually facing the camera was quite the trick. She sniffed every inch of the photo-box and then started all over again. We are loving having this sweet girl with us for a visit while her family enjoys their vacation. She will be with us until Monday, so we have a few more days to love on this little muffin.
May 23, 2025
Recently spayed opal doe Nora has been officially listed an dis on the Available Buns page. She is a sweet girl, but tends to be quite shy and a bit stand-offish at first. She grows to trust new people a bit more slowly, but she does get there in the end. She prefers to come to you and to explore without physical contact unless she initiates it. We had retained her as a breeding doe, but she never allowed herself to be bred at tried to run form the buck at every opportunity. Because we didn't want to cause her additional stress, we decided to retire her at a very young age and find a loving, patient pet home for her. If interested in this quiet, but slightly stubborn little doe, we invite you to complete and submit the New Bunny Questionnaire.
We're going to pull Boggle and Tiddlywinks' listings later this week, as they are just about to reach spaying age. Once we have all of our spays and neuters caught up, we will have nine, possibly ten, spayed/neutered adult rabbits waiting for forever families. Holly and Ivy will be re-added to the Available Buns page in 4-6 weeks.
May 22, 2025
Today's blog post is about the joys of a rabbit's chinning behavior.
Holly and Ivy are continuing to do well. Giving them their pain medication has proven to be more of an adventure than is typical. Holly ends up wearing most of it on her face until she washes it off, but Ivy is very good at eluding us, so we mix hers in with some Sherwood Appetite Restore and water.
May 21, 2025
May 20, 2025
Holly and Ivy are doing very well following their spays yesterday. Holly is a petite 3.2lbs, while her "big" sister Ivy is 4.3lbs. Both are giving me stink-eye today, and I don't blame them one bit.
We received an encouraging update about Juniper settling into her new home nicely. She's doing binkies of joy, but is still playing the shy girl...for now.
Our new dehydrator just arrived, so I plan to begin dehydrating some berries and other goodies for the Buns before delving into learning to make treats for them. Before that begins, however, I'm going to take a trip to read the labels of some pet store bunny treats to discover the good, bad, and ugly in their ingredients. Once we know what NOT to add to our Bun treats, it will be easier to come up with ingredient combinations that will be tasty and, more importantly, healthy for our rabbit friends. In researching various recipes available online, I've discovered that many of them contain multiple very sugary fruits/veggies. Combining carrots, banana, and apple in one treat is probably not the healthiest option., and could even upset our Buns' digestive tracts. Using the hay dust and food pellet dust as a base, we'll work on combining a sweeter fruit/veggie with some lower glycemic index favorites, so as to not risk tummy upset. We'll experiment with fruit and herb combinations, as well as some veggie and fruit mixes to see what our taste testers like. I'm really looking forward to working on this project. Evelyn has her human treat bakery, so I'm going to work on a bunny treat bakery for the Hot Cross Buns. :D
We had a very busy weekend, so apologize for the delay in sharing some of our regularly scheduled updates.
On Thursday, Matilda (HCB's Scrabble) arrived for bunny-sitting while her family are off on a fun adventure. She will be with us through Memorial Day. We'll post some pictures of this sweet, busy girl ASAP.
Friday was a work day, trying to get caught up on the normal things since we were away earlier in the week and everything was off-schedule.
We had a family wedding on Saturday. Congratulations to my uncle Paul and his amazing new wife, Pamela! Evelyn baked cookies for the event, so we put in many hours to get them ready.
On Sunday, darling Juniper (HCB's Tiddlywinks) went home with her new family. We 're excited for updates as she gets settled in and goes in for her spay soon. After she recuperates, the fun of bonding her with Bear will begin.
Bright and early this morning, I took Holy and Ivy in for their spays. They just turned seven months old, so we hope their hormone levels will drop pretty quickly and we can re-list these chocolate beauties very soon.
It has been sooo long since we updated Figgy Pudding's pictures and hadn't added her to the Meet the Hot Cross Buns page, but we were waiting until we settled upon a new name for her. Figgy Pudding just wasn't cutting it. Evelyn and I have been going back and forth for months over name ideas and finally came up with the perfect one today! Her new name is Zinnia! We made an acrostic poem to go along with it.
Zany
IN to everything
Nimble
Inquisitive
Amusing (and utterly adorable)
May 19, 2025
May 16, 2025
We have new pictures of Juniper (HCB's Tiddlywinks) today! She's going home on Sunday afternoon. We adore this gentle, mild-mannered little doe and know she will be great friends with Katie and Bear. Additional photos have been added to her listing photo gallery, accessible through the Available Buns page.
Today's Waiting Bun update is for Parcheesi.
Parcheesi is a lovely orange girl who has always been an amusing combination of curious, independent, and suddenly shy at times. She and her sister Tiddlywinks (now Juniper) have managed to live together sociably through their lives. Juniper will be going home on Sunday and Parcheesi will be on her own. We're beyond amazed that they have lived so companionably for this length of time. Their sister Hopscotch (retained as a breeding doe) had to be housed separately a couple months ago because she was annoying her sisters with mounting behaviors. Because Parcheesi has been so happy with her litter mate, we believe she would be suitable as a bonding doe after she has been spayed and has had plenty of time for her hormone levels to decrease.
Once reliably litterbox trained, we believe Parcheesi would love life as a free-roam bunny. She has a great deal of energy and an adventurous spirit that will keep her amused and busy for hours each day.
When it comes to people, Parcheesi tends to view us as her butlers and treat dispensers. We're hoping this might change after her sister goes home and she needs to rely upon us for interaction and affection. She allows brief pets and will climb over our laps to get to where she wants to go, so she isn't shy in the least, but she really has very little interest in people at this point. We think she views us a pieces of furniture, who need only a quick boop and sniff as she travels from one side of us to the other. A Cuddle Bun she is not, but she is immensely amusing and great fun in her own lively way.
We added several new pictures to Parcheesi's listing (accessible through the Available Buns page). Scroll all the way through her photo gallery to see the most recent. :D
May 15, 2025
Evelyn and I enjoyed our fun, but brief, mini-vacation to Toledo. We made it to the zoo yesterday and the botanical gardens this morning before heading back to Oberlin. Now we're trying to put the house in order again, before getting ready to welcome Matilda (HCB's Scrabble, and litter mate of Parcheesi, Tiddlywinks/Juniper, and Hopscotch) while she stays with us as her family enjoy their well-deserved vacation.
May 14, 2025
Today’s blog post has been added (with great difficulty) from my phone. Who knew trying to edit from a phone was so different from using a desk or laptop? LOL.
Anyhow, we hope you enjoy “Musings on Mounting.”
Today's Meet the Hot Cross Bun is Chummy!
Although Chummy still has not had a litter with us since we're holding off on breeding for babies until we place more of the currently waiting Buns, we know she will have beautiful kits and be as sweet of a mama as her own mother, Rosie, is. Definitely spunkier and sassier than either Rosie or her sire Sweet Tea, Chummy is a beautiful little doe with the most expressive of faces. Never one to say "no" when offered a treat, she snatches goodies with neither a please nor a thank you. Although quite the little love as a baby, Chummy has become rather curmudgeonly since the reproductive hormones struck. She thumps regularly to chastise us, whether we have done anything to deserve it or not. She does have sweeter moments of enjoying a good cuddle and pet session, but always tells us off afterwards with a thump or flick of the feet. We just tell her we love her and soothe her ruffled feathers with a treat. Isn't she a beautiful girl?
Evelyn and I are going to be on a mini-vacation from 5/13-5/15. Upon our return, we'll be welcoming Hopscotch (retained as a breeding doe, but not yet added to the Meet the HCB page), Tiddlywinks (now Juniper), and Parcheesi's littermate Matilda (HCB's Scrabble) for a brief stay as we bunny-sit for her family. We're so looking forward to seeing their sister again!
May 12, 2025
We have new photos of Tiddlywinks (now named Juniper) to share today. She will be going home on Sunday, May 18th, so should have one more photo shoot with us before she heads off to become best friends with Bear (HCB's Porridge) after she is spayed. We have loved this precious, beautiful doe and know Katie and Bear will love her, too. These are just a few of her new pictures. The rest are on her photo gallery on her listing page...scroll all the way to the bottom to see the rest. What can we say? She has always been a photogenic girl! :D
May 9, 2025
Today's Waiting Bun of the Week is Francesca!
She is an absolutely beautiful spayed doe with confidence in her lovely curves. Although she looks like a broken or (possibly) Vienna-marked magpie, she does have some faint orange markings that indicate she could more correctly be in the harlequin family (a VM tricolor would be our guess.) A false-dwarf girl, she is a bit bigger than a typical Holland Lop, but that just means there's more of her to love.
Personality-wise, Frankie has a lot going on. Her more reserved side is constantly doing battle with the part of her that wants to be a sociable girl, so she ends of being quite the curmudgeon. She is highly food-motivated, so the promise of a treat gets her excited, but the thought of having to do something to earn that treat makes her pout.
She's rather indifferent towards other rabbits, but could be a good bonding bunny for a gentle and confident buck who could help her learn that people are more than just treat dispensers. She currently views humans as her servants and thumps in displeasure if she thinks her desires are being ignored.
Francesca loves cardboard boxes (the kind that are about 6" tall and wide enough for her to push her way under and turn around. We call them her turtle shells. She scuttles around under her boxes and tries to pull blankets and rugs underneath them with her, to make a cozy spot to snuggle.
Francesca uses a large, deep litter box, which also serves as her hay bin. She is a very good eater of hay, any usually needs two generous helpings of hay each day. She is very good with her litter box. She has never had any health issues, and came through her spay in July 2024 with flying colors.
Frankie's ideal family would have some bunny experience, especially with earning the love of a more challenging bunny. She is an amazing rabbit and has a lot of love to give, but she doesn't give it to us. She seems to know that we aren't her forever family, but she will blossom when she meets them. She will need a patient, nurturing home, where she will be loved and respected for who she is. Francesca has also requested a home where banana and bunny cookies will be shared regularly.
May 8, 2025
Today's blog post delves into exploring when and why rabbits may lunge. Happy reading!
May 7, 2025
We don't have any recipes, tips, or product reviews for today. I'm saving up to order a new dehydrator so we can begin drying herbs and fruits to add to our own Bun treat recipes. My daughter Evelyn commandeered the dehydrator I used to have for her bakery, as she needed it to dry the icing on her cookies faster. Hopefully, we can get that ordered in the next week or two and can then have fun additions to the Tuesday updates.
Have a beautiful day, every bunny!
May 6, 2025
****We received an amazing New Bunny Questionnaire submission last week by someone named Phoebe and promptly responded, but haven't received another reply. Occasionally our sent messages disappear and aren't received by their intended recipient. Phoebe, if you reached out to us and didn't receive our response, please let us know and we'll re-send our message. ****
May and early June are going to be busy for us, but I'm trying to come up with a manageable schedule for posting something new almost every day. This is a general breakdown of what we hope to accomplish each day:
Mondays - pictures or videos of one of the current breeding Buns, as well as our pet Buns mixed in. The current breeding Buns' posts will be on the Meet the Hot Cross Buns page, which is a subtab of our Home page. Our pet Buns' photos will just be here on the Hot Cross Hoppenings page.
Tuesdays - our hope is to add recipes, ideas, and product reviews for DIY bunny treats and enrichment activities. This is an area that we'd love reader feedback and suggestions, so please message us at hcbhollands@gmail.com with your favorites.
Wednesdays - we're going to try to be consistent in keeping Wednesdays as our All Things Bunny Blog new post day.
Thursdays - we plan to highlight one of our currently waiting-to-be-matched Buns each week. Most of these Buns are retired breeding does and the occasional buck, who have already been spayed/neutered.
Fridays - for posting pictures of new litters and baby Buns 16 weeks of age and under. We'll also update pictures of matched Buns waiting to go home on Fridays.
Saturdays - this day will be for sharing updates and pictures from our client families who give us permission to share. Some weeks we receive 2-3 updates, and other weeks we don't receive any, so this will be a hit-or-miss day.
Sundays - our hope is to take Sundays off from posting, unless a Bun goes home that afternoon or evening, or something else really exciting happens.
We're gradually going to update the photos of our breeding Buns on the Meet the Hot Cross Buns page. We haven't taken new photos of Sullivan in ages, so he was the first to pose for new pictures. Sully continues to be a wonderfully gentle, mellow little "sploot" Bun. He is very unassuming and never demands attention, but eats it up whenever he receives it. He still likes to hunker close to the ground. His favorite game is pulling hay from his rack, one piece at a time and NOT eating it. His hay rack is always thoroughly emptied each day, and nearly all of it remains in a tidy pile beneath it. He is the most mellow of all of our breeding bucks and we absolutely adore him.
Here are a couple of Sullivan's new pictures.
May 5, 2025
Today's blog post is about the meaning of foot flicking.
Nora is continuing to heal well from her spay. We hope to create her official listing towards the end of May, after she recuperates a bit more.
Chocolate 7-month old does Holly and Ivy are scheduled for their spays on May 19th. After they are done, we will hopefully place some more older Buns and save up to have Noelle's eye repaired. If Boggle or Parcheesi have still not been placed, we'll schedule spays for them, as well. Once that has been done, we'll move on to having our does Rosie and Posey retired and spayed so they can live out their days as our own beloved pet Buns.
Things have been fairly quiet around here, otherwise. We're trying to catch up on spring cleaning and making a never-ending list of projects to complete around the house. Evelyn is going to do a church bake sale for Mother's Day, then the two of us are going to take a two-day break and go on a little trip to the Toledo area. After that, Evelyn is scheduled to bake for a large event in early June, to prepping for that will keep both of us busy.
We keep hoping to be able to plan some breeding dates, but still need to place five or six of the older Buns before we'll be comfortable in doing so.
April 30, 2025
Tiddlywinks has been matched! Although she will be staying with us for another three weeks, she has an amazing new family excited to bring her home. Tiddlywinks has been given the beautiful name "Juniper" which suits her very well. She will be the bonding bunny buddy for Bear (HCB's Porridge.) It was a tough choice between Tiddlywinks and Mississippi Mud Pie, but Bear and Tiddlywinks began to groom each other and flop next to each other for cuddles, while Missy was tolerant of Bear's advances, but didn't seem to relax as much with him. Missy was, however, incredibly affectionate towards all the people with whom she spent time.
April 26, 2025
A New blog post titled "The Long, Slow Blink" has been added to the All Things Bunny Blog.
Today is Nora's spay day.
UPDATE: Nora is back home and resting comfortably. She is a wee girl and only weighs 3.1lbs.
April 23, 2025
We're excited to be able to check "create new listings on the Available Buns page for Gumption and Missy" off of our To-Do List. Their new videos are posted, such as they are, because neither Bun was being particularly cooperative. LOL.
Missy doesn't look her best if the background and lighting isn't perfect, and the fact that she's beginning her spring molt was making it more challenging. She was being quite the sassy wiggle worm and kept giving me stink eye when I interrupted her fun and had the audacity to ask her to sit still for a moment. She thumped, which was her way of declining the suggestion.
Gumption also had the wiggles and kept hopping or zooming when I tried to get him to be still for brief moments. He was a bit more cooperative. He has the wildest whiskers and eye brows that always make me laugh. I was trying to hold the camera steady, but kept giggling when his eyebrow antenna wiggled.
We so hope you all had a very Happy Easter. Evelyn had a lot of baking orders to do at our church bakery and, since our family was hosting, there was a lot of cleaning and food prep to do. That consumed all the time I had hoped to spend making a cute Easter video of all the Buns, so hopefully we can put something together to celebrate spring...or another holiday.
Bear (HCB's Porridge) and his human family are coming to visit on Saturday, with the hopes of finding a friend for him. We always get so excited to see one of the Buns, all grown up, and can't wait for Saturday to arrive!