The place for news, updates, announcements, and water bottle gossip from the Buns and their humans.
Hot Cross Hoppenings
February 22, 2024
Waiting Bun of the Week: Hot Cross Buns' Ivy
Ivy has been re-listed following her spay. She has healed nicely and is now beginning to enjoy her first forays into sampling treats, now that she's an adult bunny, over six months of age. She has become more observant as she has grown and we so hope a special family will come for this beautiful girl who has Eeyore tendencies. For more information, please click on her picture on the Available Buns page.
June 19, 2025
Today's blog post was just a re-posting of yesterday's bunny treat recipe, so it can be found as time passes and we post more up-to-date information on the Hoppenings page.
We so hope all of our readers are safe and dry in the midst of all of these sudden storms. We had a tornado warning that just expired. Evelyn and I were outside during the worst of the weather, trying to secure a tarp over the ducklings' new coop. They were not happy and were very frightened with the sudden change of weather. We have had some water come in and had to move Henrietta and Sweet Tart's pens to dryer locations in the bunny room. I'll stay up until the rains stop tonight, just to make sure everyone stays dry.
June 18, 2025
Recipe of the Month: It's Raspberry Thyme! Bunny Treat Crackers
Makes approximately 25 half-dollar sized "crackers". Please halve the recipe if you know you won't use that amount within a 2-4 weeks period while stored in an airtight container.
Ingredients: 1 Cup ground pellets/pellet powder from bottom of food bag. (I used an electric coffee bean mill to grind them to a coarse powder).
1 1/2 Cups hay dust and short-cut hay pieces
1/2 Cup fresh raspberries (frozen and thawed berries can also be used, if fresh are unavailable)
1 1/2 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, stripped from stems (if using dried thyme, use 1/2 Tablespoon instead)
3/4 Cup - 1 Cup water, depending upon texture when mixed
Directions: Combine all of the prepared ingredients into a comfortably large mixing bowl and mix with your hands, so you can feel the texture. Add the water little by little, so you get the right consistency. You want it to be moist so it holds together, but not soupy. (You should be able to pat it into a loaf shape and it will hold it's shape.) Pat the mixture flat onto the dehydrator tray(s). The thickness should be similar to that of a cracker or pancake.
In dehydrator, set for 195 degrees for 6-7 hours and allow to cool overnight. Break into small, cracker-sized pieces. Store in an air-tight container. Keep an eye on freshness. Discard remaining treats after 2-4 weeks. (Since we currently have 25 Buns, they go through the treats a lot faster than most bunny-loving families will, so you will need to determine the level of freshness. When in doubt, please discard them and make a fresh batch. )
Our squirrel doe Chummy posed for pictures and served as taste-tester for this batch. She kept going back for more and that Bun-smile says it all. :D
June 17, 2025
Hot Cross Buns' Breeding Bun of the Week: Posey
Our beautiful chinchilla doe Posey has some new photos on her Meet the Hot Cross Buns page (a subtab of our Home page). She gets more beautiful and more beloved with each passing day. Never a prolific breeder, we're hoping to have one more litter from her before she is spayed and retired from our breeding program. She will always be one of our special Bus and will remain with us when she retires by the end of this year.
June 16, 2025
We're finally sharing pictures of our current houseguest, Pikachu! While he was with us, his name was Cadbury and he is the litter mate of our now-retired breeding buck Hamish. Pikachu is a delightfully sociable little Bun and loves to see what we're doing. He gave us a bit of a scare shortly after his arrival because he refused to eat his pelleted food. He would nibble at his hay and greedily snatch his treat, but the pellets went untouched. Once we were clued in that he enjoys a spring mix salad in the mornings and we added that to his diet, he perked up and began eating at least some of his pellets each day. Pikachu free-roams every day, but we put him in a tall pen at night, for his own safety. We are loving this busy-bunny's temperament and affectionate presence during his visit!
June 15, 2025
We have some new, updated photos of Parcheesi for her family! Although matched with Brittany T. and her family, Parcheesi will be with us until mid-July, so we're going to do our best to provide weekly photo updates for them until she's back in their arms.
Parcheesi is doing great, and continues to be her very inquisitive, playful self. She is a darling young doe! Additional new photos are on the gallery on her listing page.
June 14, 2025
Hot Cross Buns' Waiting Bun of the Day: Holly
Adorable Holly has just been re-listed following her spay. Since she had her procedure, she is slowly becoming more interested in interacting with people (treat are a plus!) and will willingly accept some pets and cuddles. Her shy, observant side is still at odds with her sociable, curious side, and that may always be a daily battle for her, until she settles in with an amazing family who finds her quirks endearing. This beautiful chocolate doe is just shy of eight months of age.
Holly's sister Ivy will be re-listed next week.
June 12, 2025
We're continuing to focus upon placing our currently waiting Buns, rather than trying to breed for additional litters.
I am contacted nearly daily by people applauding our responsible breeding practices who then turn around and ask when we're going to have babies available. (Talk about frustrating!) It's not going to happen until at least five of them are placed (we currently have five listed, but Holly will be re-listed tomorrow and her sister Ivy will be listed next week, and we're trying to get spay/neuter appointments for Noelle and Loofah, which will bring the total of waiting Buns up to nine.) It takes a lot of time and energy to care for those nine additional Buns, so we're not going overextend ourselves by adding more babies to our lives, who require even more time and attention.
If you can think of anyone who is looking for a Holland Lop to love, could you please have them take a look at our waiting Buns?
June 11, 2025
Hot Cross Buns' Breeding Bun of the Day: Finnegan
Finn is doing great and continues to bring us so much joy each day. He is the most lovable and curious little guy, never sits still, and is a bundle of energy any time he senses a doe is nearby. The does adore him because he is quite the gentleman and knows how to woo. Finn is going to be five years old soon, and we can't believe how time has flown. When we decide to retire this little man from breeding, he will stay with us to enjoy his golden years. He's my best-est boy.
PS...Due to life happening, I'm going to be sharing posts a day later than their regularly scheduled days. We should be back to normal next week.
June 10, 2025
We're excited to announce that Parcheesi has been matched! Brittany and her wonderful family came to visit today and were introduced to Boggle, Nora, and Parcheesi. Nora was very sweet and happily accepted lots of pets, but she wasn't as active as they were hoping for. It took Boggle a little while to turn on her active, playful side, but she wasn't quite right, either. Parcheesi was the "just right" Bun who was affectionate and very interested in each member of the family. The only downside (from Parcheesi's perspective) is that she will need to stay with us until mid-July, when her family will be ready to bring her home. In the meantime, we will be reminding Parcheesi every day that she has a wonderful new family who are counting down the days until they can come back for her. She is so pleased and it shows in her demeanor. <3
Pikachu is settling in beautifully for his long visit. He isn't shy in the least and hops over for frequent pets and cuddles. We'll share some pictures of our most recent houseguest sometime soon. Today's job is more yardwork!
June 7, 2025
Hot Cross Buns' Waiting Bun of the Day: Noelle
We haven't spoken much about sweet Noelle lately. She isn't "waiting" in the sense of waiting for a family, but, rather, is waiting for surgery to repair her eye. When she was a tiny baby, Noelle was quite the little escape artist and managed to get out of her home with her mama and siblings on many occasions. None of the other babies followed in her footsteps, but Noelle's determination and sense of adventure were too much to contain. One day she got out and encountered another doe, who was not happy about a little trespasser entering her domain, and she gave the wee baby a nip to scare her away. When we found her cowering in a corner a short time later, we immediately knew something was wrong with Noelle's upper eyelid and were concerned she might not make it. We took her to the vet and she gave us instructions for her care. Little could be done at that point because she was far too young to be put under anesthesia. We were basically told to wait and see, and to have her eye repaired at the same time she was spayed. We were in high hopes that this pretty lilac bundle of curiosity and adventure would find a loving home, but everyone seemed to be turned off by her wound.
Because placements have been few and far between for several months since we have put further breeding on hold until we place some of our waiting Buns, we have not been able to save up the amount of money to have Noelle spayed and the eye repaired at the vet practice we typically use, because they are very expensive. We have been going back and forth with the idea of having her spayed at the spay/neuter vet we use (Friendship APL in Elyria) which is much more affordable, and then having the eyelid repaired at the other vet. This should reduce the cost somewhat. Conversely, we've also been considering having her eyelid repaired and adding her as a breeding doe since we retired her lilac sire, Gumption, much earlier than planned, and we love the lilac coloring.
While we make a decision, Noelle continues to be a sweet, adventurous girl, She's playful and spunky, and isn't above giving a little nip if she wants our attention. Her comical little face is quite expressive.
June 5, 2025
Tricolor Pikachu will be arriving later today (not to be confused with solid black Pikachu we bunny-sat last summer) will be arriving later today! We're so looking forward to getting reacquainted with this active, curious little Bun while his family is off having adventures of their own .
A new blog post has been published about bunny boops.
We had some concerns about our doe Rosie possibly having some GI Stasis issues, but she seems to be doing better this morning. She has been going through a molt, her poo balls were noticeably smaller, and she wasn't eating her food. We gave her some Sherwood Appetite Restore and did some tummy massage. We also chased her around a bit during some free roam time, to get her moving and work out any gas bubbles she might be having. Shortly thereafter, she began nibbling some hay, so we breathed a sigh of relief. She ate all of her food during the night, so we're optimistic that she will be well. Please observe your own rabbits carefully for signs of GI Stasis, especially when they are going through a molt.
June 4, 2025
Hot Cross Buns' Pet Bun of the Day: Sweet Tart
Sweet Tart actually belongs to our youngest son (he's now 19, so not that young any longer...). He purchased her as a baby from a rabbitry that was going out of business. We brought home several of their rabbits and our son was so excited to buy a bunny with his own money. Sweet Tart is a lovely broken sable point girl who had several babies when she participated in breeding at Hot Cross Buns. She had five litters with us, resulting in a total of 11 kits. We kept her daughter, Cake Pop, as one of our breeding does. Cake Pop was very successfully shown by Evelyn during her 4-H showing days, and was a Best of Breed winner.
In her retirement, following her spay, she mainly enjoys hopping around after us when she's in the mood to free-roam. Her favorite thing is to be cuddled like a baby by her Bun-Dad. She is amazingly good about having her nails trimmed, but is not so great with her litter box. She loves treats!
Sweet Tart has always been a quiet soul, who enjoys gently exploring and hopping about. She loves pets and cuddles and has the sweetest demeanor. She is a darling, and we love her so very much. As the eldest doe in our home, Sweet Tart is just over 8.5 years young. She is the apple of our son's eye and is a very precious member of our family, indeed.
June 2, 2025
We're excitedly getting ready for the arrival of Pikachu, who will be with us for most of the month of June. We so enjoyed his company last year and are thrilled to have the opportunity to see him again this summer.
Little Stewart is scheduled to come for a visit in July, so that's another joyous occasion to anticipate.
The Buns are all doing well. We're dealing with some out-of-the-ordinary things like cataract removal surgeries for my hubby, wisdom teeth removal for our two youngest sons, a huge event for which Evelyn is baking later this week, and trying to get our lawn mowers (push and riding) to both function. The last item is a frequent refrain in our spring/early summer lives, as this is the second year in a row we have unintentionally participated in No-Mow May. The riding mower repairs are supposed to be completed today and the mower will be delivered tomorrow. I can't tell you how excited I am to get to the task of mowing again! It's a jungle out there!
We've just added today's post...About Packaged Rabbit Treats...to the blog.
The house has been very quiet without Matilda keeping us company. She went home on Monday and we were sad to see her go.
We're in possession of our new dehydrator and I'm fiddling around with it in an effort to come up with some good recipes for homemade bunny treats to share with you. It's probably going to be at least a couple of weeks before we can share any potential successes in recipe development. I'm struggling to get proportions right. Some of the Buns are still giving a paws up to my less than noteworthy results, (thank you Sweet Tart and Finnegan for still eating the results of the first flop!). I ended up ordering a coffee grinder to help grind up some ingredients, so will keep plugging along, as time permits.
May 28, 2025
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
