Mr Wild bun, as the name & photo suggest was an actual wild bunny who became part of our bunny family. Many years ago we used to have a reasonable amount of wild bunnies living in the fields surrounding us. Then one year they all disappeared except for Mr Wild Bun. We don’t know what happened to them all, either disease or more likely to have all been shot.
So this meant that Mr Wild Bun was now on his own, but soon realised there were in fact actual bunnies still living on his territory albeit in a weird way.  This is when Mr Wild Bun started to visit. All mine are always vaccinated against Myxo & both VHD strains & as it was just one rabbit I deemed the risk low – I mean what else was I going to do shoot him?

Year after year Mr Wild Bun visited on a regular basis & absolutely loved winding mine up, eating & dozing next to their pens.  He was also the best boredom breaker for my lot that you could ever get.  Mr Wild Bun was never fazed by, what must have been the weirdest bunch of looking rabbits he’d ever seen.  I mean there were giant bunnies who he looked at in awe, lop eared bunnies, fluffy bunnies & an assortment of sizes & colours.  Whether he registered colour or not, that was a lot of abnormal bunnies to him.

As the years went by he spent more & more time with my bunnies, even getting to the stage of tolerating me.  I must point out I never made any attempts to tame him, that wouldn’t have been right.  He eventually got to the point where he would spend all day with mine & would quite happily doze next to mine, of course the mesh was always between them.  When I did let mine play out running ‘free’, even though I was supervising, he’d charge over desperate for some interaction, so giddy with excitement. Every year all my bunnies would turn orange where he had tried to claim them as his own.

Then this year (2022), Mr Wild Bun got old, very old.  At an estimate he must have been around 7 years, I have photos going back to 2016 & he wasn’t a youngster then. He had slowed down quite a lot but not like a domestic rabbit slows down, he was still pretty fast compared to them.

Unbelievably, another single male wild bunny started visiting.  I mean what were the chances of that? Sadly, this took it’s toll on Mr Wild Bun & despite my efforts to protect him he kept having to fight this young buck.  To get away from this youngster, who we incidentally named Bob, he’d even come into the rabbit shed.  Chaos ensued as he had to spray everything & my lot were a touch livid. However, it became a regular thing & everyone calmed down. (Mr Wild Bun must be one of the few wild bunnies to hop on carpet & gym matting)!

Bob eventually ousted Mr Wild Bun away which was awful to see. He suffered so many injuries it was quite distressing.  Mr Wild Bun didn’t leave though, he kept to another part of the garden & occasionally dared to venture back to mine if I was about.  Then one Sat afternoon I was walking along the path when something moved & there was Mr Wild Bun, sat on the back garden, only a couple of feet from me, chewing some grass & looking at me intently. I spoke to him & he just sat & listened.
A few hours later I had noticed he had gone to sunbathe next to some young shrubs, I kept an eye on him & began to worry when he was there for the most part of the afternoon.  Surprisingly, Bob paid him a visit & sat with him for a couple of hours, which I thought was odd, & I began to feel quite anxious. Another hour passed & I saw Bob digging into Mr Wild Bun & knew what was happening, as I have seen this in one of my paired bunnies before. It meant he was sick, really sick. I monitored him for the next hour in which Bob left him. On one of my checks I saw him collapse, I watched through binoculars & was alarmed to see the crows heading for him.  Immediately, I went out to him, he was still alive but very poorly.  I gently lifted him up & took him into the rabbit shed.  The bunnies immediately sensed something was wrong, all the young bunnies went outside as I laid Mr Wild Bun down.  Thumper joined me & we stayed by his side until he passed. It was a most surreal experience knowing Mr Wild Bun & the end was like a Disney movie – he came home to die.  He didn’t just die in his burrow like we all expected him to.  It was a real privilege to have had the experience with him & an honour to be there with him at the end. My beautiful Mr Wild Bun.