I am going to go ahead and chime in now. I participated in the other thread, reported this one early this morning, and apparently staff is ok with keeping it open.
I have a friend of mine who is personal friends with Ms. Bell. I am really too tired to go into the whole mess, however, Ms. Bell is being railroaded. She has a stellar reputation in the community with 4-H and a stellar reputation in the show world as well. There is ALOT of false information being submitted to the public by the media. The dead rabbits were in the freezer. One dead kit in the barn, aged approximately 5 weeks, which is a high mortality age for a rabbit kit.
It is reported that her barn was a mess, with a filthy floor. There was a MAJOR storm the night before. I think all of us here get the condition of the barn - debris and mud, puddles runs, etc. Been there done that. It is also reported that her rabbits had no water. She watered them before she went to work. Rabbit breeders know that a rabbit is going to be just fine if there is 9-10 hours between waterings. She had an automatic watering system in place that was rendered useless by the previous nights storm. Yet she took the time to water them in the morning before she left for work.
Picture it in your mind. A lady that has worked for more than 20 years on her reputation. Large barn with 200 rabbits. Auto waterer broken by a storm, filthy barn floor from the same storm. What would you do?
I would water them, feed them, go to work and come home and clean up. She did not have the chance to do that.
