Mailing Gift Packages through USPS

rabbitor packages

A set of Christmas/New Year packages that I sent out in December.

Since joining the /r/rabbits community, especially the IRC channel, I have been sending many more gift packages to people all over the world than I did before. Frugal as I am, I did tons of research to figure out what would be the most economical way to ship these packages to everyone. Some caveats though is that I did not try to figure out how to ship something enormous or extremely heavy.

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Hay Bale Sources in the SF Bay Area

bales of hay

Bales of hay at Mary's Tack & Feed

The best money-saving tip I received about caring for rabbits is to buy a bale of hay from a local feed store instead of the tiny packs from the pet store. In California, bales are often ~100 lbs for only around $20-30 a bale, and these typically last about four months for two ~4.5 lb rabbits in my experience — disregarding Squishy since I have only had him for two months. I have heard from other bunny friends in other states that their bales are more like $5 for one!

For reference, anecdotally, I have bought bales of timothy for $30 and orchard grass for $26 in San Diego at Mary’s Tack & Feed, and I have bought bales of orchard grass for $28 and forage hay for $21 from Sam’s Downtown Feed in San Jose.

Regardless, having enough hay to feed two rabbits for over three months for less than $40 is quite a bargain in my book! I remember the first days of having Bao Bao, I would buy these $8 8 oz bags of timothy hay that would last less than two weeks. I can feed multiple bunnies hay for a month now for that price!

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