A day on the Swedish rabbit farm

Today I went to the Ekerö farm in Stockholm by taking a bus, a train, another bus, yet another bus and a car to meet with two wonderful women, Åsa and Christine, and of course their wonderful  rabbits. They have a rabbit production that sees to that all of the rabbits' natural behaviours are fulfilled. This was a rabbit production without any sign of the slightest hormone treatment or aversive net floors. These rabbits were in really good shape, although most people would imagine the opposite, since they are all kept outdoors (that is, in the snow for the time being). They were sociable, towards people aswell as towards their own conspecifics, some loved one kind of sticks to bite, whilst some prefered a piece of carrot or apple. And this, Åsa and Christine knew everything about, for each and every rabbit.

The alpha-female (the black gotland rabbit here below) is their toughest one. She's four years old, has a strong will and always gets what she wants. The one in the cage (Sanna?) is their biggest doe, she was very curious and interested in this odd new voice with a giant red winter jacket that speaked in a different way than foster mom and mom, standing outside of her cage. The two guys below, are from the newest brood. They were the smallest ones for the time being, and I got to try to catch and carry them first. Not a very easy task I might add, since my fingers felt approximately nothing thanks to the cold, the big red winter jacket wasn't the most flexible and non-frightening one, and lastly, the rabbit is not typically known for being a particularly slow animal. But I managed! The other kind of rabbit that I got to try and catch/carry, was a slightly more tired and calm doe, sitting in her corner, enjoying her piece of apple. Christine pulled her out, put her on a table, and the poor doe didn't understand a thing. I grabbed her, carried her back, and she continued eating her apple, a little bit confused.

The picture with the four rabbits is a picture of recent mother does that have given birth not very long ago. The one in the front is called Stina :) I got to pet her and she was nice. They live together outdoors and seem very happy. Keeping them this way is very nice, said Åsa, and Christine replied that it's nice but certainly a bit calmer for Åsa and Christine during the wintertime to keep them this way. During these cold days, the ground is a bit too frozen to dig through.

So this was my adventure for today. For the moment, I'm at Wayne's coffee, waiting to go to Mood to meet with Alex. There's quite a bit of a snowfall (huge) right now apparently, and it's super cold, so one of the things I'm looking forward to in Castanet-Tolosan is the "never-below-0" climate during my stay. One might say that I escaped the Swedish Ice Age this year, and quite frankly, it feels very, very nice.

I see I'm getting late for my AW!

Hejdå!

The blog (and I) go international!

So, as usual, this blog is left all abandonned and sad. However, I'm leaving for France on Sunday so I figured I could write about it, in English even, so that both sides of my family can keep up with me. 

So, France! 

Why? Masters thesis time! 

Where? Castanet-Tolosan, near Toulouse in the South-West of the country. 

How? I will be writing my project for the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in collaboration with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and their department of animal breeding and genetics.

What? "A phenotypic comparative study in maternal behaviour between sows and does" (mother rabbits).

How long? My stay in France will be from the 2/2 to the 29/4, and then I'll finish and present my work in the beginning of June 2014.  

The preparations before the trip are more or less done. During the days I mostly study Analysis of variance (ANOVA) (my absolute least favorite subject in the whole world), because I'll need my statistics skills for my project work. I'm kind of proud of myself however, since I've worked through 9 of 11 chapters in a week, more or less, which is quite cool. 

I'm also looking for scientific articles, which is quite easy and fun, until you have to read the ~100 articles that I, seemingly overambitiously, have collected for the time being.

Tomorrow, I have arranged for a meeting with a woman that has her own ecological rabbit farm in Ekerö, in the Swedish archipelago (yeah, I too had no idea this was the English word for "skärgård", the little Stockholm islands). It's called Arwen kanin and I'm super excited to go there. Less excited about how to go there, but I'll manage. After the rabbit-visit, I'll meet with my brother in town for a "goodbye-After Work", before I go back to Uppsala for a dinner that I'm invited to.   

Yeah, so that'll be all for today I guess. 

Arwen kanin rabbits