Forget Richard, the Lionhearted...I want to be Kelly, the Bunnyhearted!

I know this blog is called The Chicken Diaries, but along with our free range chickens, we also are blessed with a free range rabbit and a dog that tries to keep the whole bunch of them safe. The rabbit, Pippin, was a surprise that my husband brought home one evening from a customer that he had been to that day. Pippin has a problem with his teeth. Rabbits' teeth continue to grow throughout their lives, but Pip's teeth grow too fast for him to be able to gnaw them down the way he would if they were normal. We cut his teeth and keep them manageable but he is, for the most part, unable to eat anything but his pellets and a small variety of soft snacks, like bread and bananas, and just yesterday, noodles with pesto. Pippin lives in our front porch, and runs free. He is inordinately attached to the dog (we think it's love), but his relationship with the chickens is a different matter.

It might be different if the chickens hadn't any experience with hanging out on the porch. Pip's porch. But they do. Of course, I swoosh them off. And of course, they ignore me and come back. Pip has now taken over the swooshing. Frankly, he's better at it than I am.

Yesterday I mentioned Bruce the roo and his spurs. Bruce and Pip fight all the time. Bruce has spurs and a sharp, hard beak, he's much taller than Pip is, and the whole flapping his wing thing is pretty impressive. Pippin has...fur. He's short, not even up to Bruce's chest. Pippin is a small bundle of cute and bones in a luxurious fur coat. And he routinely charges Bruce, chasing him not just off the porch but lately away from the house.

I throw cracked corn on the lane way in front of the house so that the chickens will scratch there and maybe stick around. They have a habit of wandering, and the farther away they get from the house, the more vulnerable they are to birds of prey and coyotes. So, who meets them on the lane way near the tossed corn, ears flattened back, furry paws planted firmly on the ground, ready to defend his territory? Who said the entire front of the house belonged to the rabbit? Apparently it does. Pip has taken to head butting the chickens, including Bruce until they go away. And away means not just off the lane. He'll follow them, possibly muttering threats, until they duck under the lilac bushes on the edge of the far lawn.

Sometimes the chickens seem to have had enough of Pip pushing them around, and they will mob him. Puffs of rabbit fur fly, and I worry about his eyes with all those stabbing beaks coming at him. If it looks too nasty, I intervene. Lately, though, I've been letting Bruce and Pip go at it. Pip is adorable, even when he is fighting. He essentially head butts Bruce in the chest. Yup. That's pretty much it. It's oddly funny and impressive at the same time. Pippin will charge at Bruce, head bump his chest and disappear between Bruce's legs as Bruce dives down and tears tufts of bunny fur from Pip's behind. Sometimes he leaps out of the way, once even clearing Bruce's back and landing in front of the confused roo, all set for another head butt. Bruce, though, has to get a chance to reclaim some ground, and least in front of the girls. I mean, really. Being bested by a rabbit, in front of the ladies? Uncool.

The thing that amazed me about Pip is that he has no weapons, other than a hard head, and he has no protection. He's physically fragile. Even his teeth are weak and have a tendency to break off when they're not growing so long he could pick his nose with his bottom teeth. He just doesn't seem to know it. He's Super Bunny in his own mind. He has even irritated the dog to snarling distraction with his "loving", and after a brutal rough up (for which the dog suffers agonies of guilt and shame), Pip sits quiet for a moment to let the adrenaline go down, and then he's back at it, "C'mon, honey. You know you didn't mean it...let's get it on..."

Frankly, I think Pip is probably the most courageous creature around here. Pretty cool. So, yeah, when I grow up, I want to be brave like my bunny! Maybe not so darn irritating, though...