Family rabbits killed in Prince Albert on Easter weekend

Melissa Richardson and her five-year-old son Linden were hoping to have a restful Easter weekend, but it didn't turn out that way.

The Prince Albert family went outside Saturday to find their four Flemish giant rabbits had been killed and their pen ransacked.

"The house was picked up and thrown across to the one corner and my two adults that were in that cage were laying there dead," Richardson said.

She found two other dead rabbits in the next pen. They were all adults, weighing between seven and 11 kilograms.

"My son was like, 'Mommy, are they dead?' And I said, 'Yeah, buddy. A cat must have got them.'"

When she thought about it more, it looked like the work of a person. Chicken wire was crushed down, ripped off windows, and a screen was pushed in.

Four baby rabbits that would likely have been eaten animals were left alive. 

"There's no other evidence of animals or anything that got in there, besides a two-legged one," Richardson said. 

She said it looked as though they were either strangled or had their necks broken. There was no blood on the ground.

Disgusted by animal abuse

The family is shaken by the loss. Richardson said her son was especially sad about the loss of their first rabbit. 

"When he found our first rabbit Rexy, that was our first bunny and we had him since he was six weeks old. When we found him in the shed, he kind of lost it. He was holding on to his fur, crying 'I didn't get to say goodbye,'" Richardson said.

She said Linden, 5, is handling the loss better than she is.

"I'm just disturbed that someone would come into my yard and do that to my animals, or any animals. It's just disgusting."

In honour of their dead pets, Linden wants to name the surviving rabbits after the ones who died — Rexy, Jessica Rabbit, Elsa, and Haus.

Richardson told CBC News she has filed a police report and hopes the culprit is caught.