10 Year Anniversary Awards Time!
As we begin to wrap up our Celebration of our 10 Year Anniversary, we wanted to give away five different awards that encompass not only who Rabbit Hole Hay is, but also who our customers are!
We'll be showcasing our Award Winners through "Meet the Winner/Customer Spotlight" interviews here on our blog. This way you can learn about our award winners and hear their stories!
The Best Friend Award is hereby granted to Julia Wilkinson for being Rabbit Hole Hay's most loyal customer who has also been with us for a very long time! We've been lucky to have her as a customer with us since November of 2015!
Enjoy reading and getting to know Julia and Olive.
Q. How Did You Hear About Rabbit Hole Hay?
It was actually from a friend of ours and she used to live right around where their company is (Chico, CA). She ordered from them to see what it was like and she liked it, so I decided to try it and we liked it. As you can see, it just kind of went from there as we've been a customer ever since, which is about 7 years.
Q. Tell Us About Your Small Pets!
Olive is a Black Satin rabbit and she's 11-plus years old. We had her mother too. We adopted the mother first, Rosalind, and then we adopted Olive a year or two later. We've had Olive for about 7 years or so now and she is our last bun.
She can't walk or move around, but she still eats and scolds me (her two favorite things).
The photo is at Olive's 11th birthday this year!
Q. What Is Her Favorite?
Food? Absolutely bananas. After that it would be cilantro and parsley.
Activity? Since she can't walk or move, it would probably be scolding. Bunnies do a little growl thing when they are displeased with you. It's really funny, it sort of sounds like she's cussing me out. My daughter, when she was little, the bunnies would growl at her if she was giving them unwanted attention and she would mimic it perfectly. I wouldn't know if it was her or the bunny doing it. It was funny to listen to.
Rabbit Hole Hay Product? Olive and her friend like the Orchard Grass! Since it's just Olive, the hay that she doesn't eat we give to a friend of ours who has a horse. Our friend says that when she gets the good stuff from Rabbit Hole Hay, her horse gets really excited.
We've been there one time to see her feed the horse and witnessed how excited her horse gets (like really excited!). Our friend says that for some reason the hay makes them real frisky and they run around and are very happy because it's better than the bales she buys locally making it a nice treat for them.
Q. What Does Your Daily Routine With Olive Look Like?
First thing I do is get her up and we give her a bum bath because she can't walk, so she gets a little messy. Then she has her pain medication for her legs. After her pain meds I have to express her bladder.
She has a urine problem with her bladder, there's this sandy buildup residue, and so I have to give her fluids every day and then express her bladder to keep that sediment from building up and causing a bladder infection. It was the exact same way with her mother, so the urine problem must be genetic.
Once we get all that done (and she cusses me out with her growls), I put her in a clean play pen and give her little snacks for the morning. Throughout the day I make sure hasn't rolled onto her side since she can't roll back over.
Around three o'clock we give her greens and some carrot and she just eats. Later in the afternoon we do her hay and she gets that for the rest of the evening.
Really she spends her day eating and then scolds me if I come over there to do anything. She's just kind of sassy.
Q. Do You Have Any Advice Or Tips That You Would Want To Give A New Small Pet Owner?
Do a lot of research, particularly with rabbits. Make sure you have a vet that knows about rabbits because that's really important as they aren't like cats and dogs. Most people think, "Oh, I'll get a bunny and it'll be cute." But they can be a lot of work and they have very specific health issues that you have to address immediately.
The biggest two tips I have is:
Do a lot of research.
Get established with a good vet and follow the vet's advice.
Rabbits are very intelligent and if they are having a problem they tend to hide their symptoms until it's a full-fledged problem. GI Stasis is a really big problem with rabbits and if you don't get it taken care of it can be fatal, so you'll want to watch them. You can't just get a rabbit and leave them to run around on the floor and think it's an easy pet. If you want them to live a long time it's actually not really easy.
Q. Anything Else You Want To Share With Us About Being A Rabbit Owner or Rabbit Hole Hay?
We really love Rabbit Hole Hay. They really do have the best hay that we've found available and their customer service is fantastic. When any of my friends are looking to buy hay, I always tell them about Rabbit Hole Hay and I send them a link so they can go right to it.
It's fun having rabbits. It's kind of like living in a fairytale, because you have this little critter that most people don't have, so it's really fun. Yet again, it's a lot of work so you have to take that into account as well.
