Welcome to our Nursery We specialise in the breading of mini lionhead, mini rex and mini lop rabbits from our home in Manchester. Please take a look around our website and in our nests to see what babies we have available or will have available in the near future. We are always happy to hear from you so please contact us with any questions relating to our babies.

Sunflower Nursery aims to breed friendly, tame and good natured, quality rabbits for good pet homes. We are proud of our status as a Family Orientated Breeder. Our customer service has received an abundance of positive feedback. As we only breed a small number of rabbits, our approach is more personal. Once you reserve one of our babies you will receive a weekly update via e-mail, which may also include a letter from the rabbit itself and pictures of its progress (perfect for young children) if requested. We also provide a waiting list for future litters if required and people on this list will also receive updates of mating, pregnancy and birth of the babies and will be given priority in order of enlistment.

UPDATE: We now also provide video clips of your rabbit along with our normal pictures for your enjoyment. See our Nurseries for some of our videos. Buying from Sunflower Nursery is a pleasant experience and we aim to provide a personal service unlike any other breeder.

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A HOME FROM HOME FOR YOUR PET

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We are based in Droylsden, Manchester (Lancashire, UK).  All our babies are sold with a free care kit, comprising of care sheets, birth certificate and a starter food sample for the food change over period. We will have lots of information available about each rabbit and all our rabbits are handled daily so are extremely tame. See the Contact page for our contact details.

Our nursery was first based in Lancaster and we are still able to provide to this area, our customers come from all over the Northwest and sometimes further a field.

Please enjoy your visit to our website and don't forget to take a look at our Picture Gallery where you are able to see pictures of rabbits we have for sale, have sold and even post pictures of your own rabbits. Our FAQs have been set-up to answer the most popular questions and we have provided information on how to look after your rabbit.

Please Note: The breeding of our rabbits is for hobby purposes, any money made helps to feed and treat our rabbits who, although quality breeding rabbits, are kept solely as pets and not for show or as a breeding machine. We enjoy breeding and looking after our rabbits and are glad to be able to offer extremely tame family friendly pet rabbits of a high quality with ongoing support and guidance.

Why Sunflower Nursery?

We believe it is very important for perspective owners of rabbits to buy from a breeder. This said not all breeders are the same and some can be more trusted than others. Sunflower Nursery uses techniques from the most recent and trusted research to provide rabbits which are good natured, friendly and tame. Please consider the following, it will tell you more about why our rabbits are equipped with skills and kindness to benefit both yourself and the rabbit in future life. It is worth checking with any other breeder you contact if they have a Socialisation and Habituation programme before considering any rabbit for obvious reasons.

Socialisation & Habituation: You may be aware that puppies and kittens have well defined "socialisation periods" when young animals learn to recognise and interact with the species with which they live - which needs to include humans, as well as their own species, and any other they are likely to come into contact with.

There is now evidence to suggest that rabbits have a socialisation period, although the exact timing and duration of it are not yet certain. This conclusion is based upon experimental work showing that handling baby rabbits between days 10 and 21 resulted in them being more willing to approach humans at 48 days of age; and early exposure to cats and other animals reduces their fear of them later.

Hence, breeders must start to handle baby rabbits before 21 days of age to begin the socialisation process. Many novice rabbit breeders are afraid of handling baby rabbits until they leave the nest, in case doing so triggers maternal rejection of the litter. Although this is a theoretical risk, with a few simple precautions there should be no problems, especially once the litter have opened their eyes at 10 days. Such early handling is vital, and in fact, if breeding does are relaxed and well socialised themselves as ours are, it does not usually cause any problems to briefly pick up babies even in the first week of life.

Our does are relaxed and are happy for us to help them with their litter, they allow us to touch and handle the babies whenever needed. Sunflower Nursery employs the Socialisation and Habituation method and in doing so are able to provide rabbits which are not afraid of human contact and life as a pet.

Along with socialisation comes "habituation", which has been defined as "the process whereby an animal becomes accustomed to non-threatening environmental stimuli and learns to ignore them." Baby rabbits should become accustomed to as many people and experiences as possible before they are sold. We bring litters into the house to hear household noises; our rabbits are handled by children of various ages (our family and friends) who stroke and carefully handle the young stock under close supervision; we even take them for a short ride in the car as this will take away much of the stresses involved in travelling to their new home and through out their life.

The brutal reality is that baby rabbits whose breeders don't bother with a programme of socialisation and habituation are at higher risk of joining the thousands of other fearful, aggressive, unwanted and neglected pet rabbits that lead a miserable existence in back gardens across the UK. We are here to provide this much needed extra care, giving the best possible start in life to all our rabbits.

We are committed to our Socialisation and Habituation programme.

  News

* NEW LITTERS BORN: Mini lop and mini lionhead litters ready to leave now, small waiting lists * BEW mini lops are in very high demand at the moment with babies being reserved well before they are born * 

22.6.2008 - Daisy gave birth today to 6 healthy babies. This is Arthur's very first litter and he is proud to be a Dad. They are lovely babies and are doing really well.

8.7.2008 - Milly gave birth to 2 stunning babies today, a lovely chocolate otter and an equally lovely lilac otter - both have already been reserved.

13.7.2008 - We had our very first litter of baby guinea pigs born this morning. Guinea pigs are very different to baby rabbits and are born with their eyes open, with all their fur and are running around within an hour. We are amazed by our 3 little babies and cant stop going into the shed to have a peek at them!

15.7.2008 - Darla had 5 gorgeous blue eyed white babies this morning and all are doing really well. There is one very tiny baby but it seems to have a lot of fight in it to make up for its small size.

20.7.2008 - Sooty gave birth to a gorgeous litter of 6 babies today. Sooty is our stunning new sooty fawn lionhead and she is proving to be a great Mum. She has 4 lovely sooty fawn babies and 2 frosted.

21.7.2008 - Hazel had her litter today - a huge litter of 7 babies! She is looking after them all brilliantly and we cant wait to see what colours she has this time.

10.8.2008 - Today we had two lovely surprises, both Lotte and Eclipse gave birth. Lotte has had 3 healthy chunky babies, and Eclipse has had 6. Both are doing really well and seem happy to be Mums again.

20.8.2008 - Luna gave us a fantastic litter of 5 babies this morning. She has had some trouble being a Mum before, only ever having 2 or 1 babies and only ever rearing 1 to maturity. She is doing a fantastic job with her 5 babies this time though and we are very proud of her.

 

(Our Website was last edited on the 25/08/2008)

In the Nest:

Bailey (5 babies - 2 left)

Milly (2 babies - 1 left)

Hazel (7 babies - 3 left)

Sooty (6 babies - 3 left)

Eclipse (6 babies - 5 left)

Lotte (6 babies - 6 left)

Luba (5 babies - 5 left)

We have a few babies ready for their new homes now so please contact me if you are interested.

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AVAILABLE NOW FOR NEW HOMES

There are a couple of babies that are ready for their new homes now. These include a gorgeous orange male lionhead and an equally stunning orange and white male lionhead both from Bailey's litter and a gorgeous chocolate otter male mini lop from Milly. Please get in touch if you are interested in any of these babies.

We also have 3 lovely little guinea pigs born from Duchess that are now ready for their new homes so please get in touch if you are interested. 2 males and 1 female.

 

About our available mini rex litters

We are very pleased to have some fantastic bundles of joy from our newest breed, mini rex. Misty and Hazel are proving to be fantastic natural Mums and their babies are proving very popular. If you are interested in a mini rex baby let me know as soon as possible - these are stunning rabbits with lovely personalities and they make fantastic pets.