This is what happens when...

You cross a Miss Pepper bunny with a Mr Charcoal...

and this is what you get. A nest full of little ones. Now here's the part that made me freak out. Charcoal WAS taken to a vet when he a much younger bunny. Turns out the vet didn't do the job properly, and somehow, an 11 year old bunny who usually lounges around and doesn't do much, was able to chase after Miss Pepper and impregnate her rather quickly. The lesson to be learned is...double check that your boys have been desexed. :( You still need to keep them separated for at least 2 weeks afterwards as the boys can still have 'leftovers' and accidents can happen. Was a great educational experience for our family, I can tell you!

A female bunny can have LOTS of babies in her litter. This time Pepper had 7 live and one that didn't live for very long. Because her previous litter were still nursing (can you see why I felt so bad?) we couldn't keep all the babies. They were sadly put down humanely (professionally) by a friend as Pepper's health would have been in danger as well, and we didn't want to lose her. We kept 3.

So here they are. Rather fat roly poly looking babies, which is a good sign. One Havane Blue, one Havana Black and a smokey grey Havana we named 'Smokey' (funny that!)

This lot of bunnies were cute, but not as friendly as the white Havanas (that looked like Himalayans) of the first litter. I think they have their Daddy's stubborness in them.

I did let Charcoal have a sniff of his babies, under my ever watchful eye of course. Most of the time I had one hand on him ready to hold him back. He didn't like that so much. Rabbits can do unexpected things - they have a mind of their own, and I certainly didn't want him harming them. He didn't, but he was VERY curious.

So you can try and be as a responsible bunny owner as much as you can, but accidents can still happen. We have 8 bunnies now and each one is loved, and knows it. They are each so different with their own individual personalities. And yes, I did have to purchase another two large rabbit hutches to house them all separetely in. Lesson learned.