Woman Who Had 90 Rabbits Found Guilty of Neglect

An Ojai woman who lived with 20 rabbits in a minivan and kept 70 more in a squalid barn was found guilty this week of failing to care for the animals and faces up to six months in jail.

Prosecutors said Norma Keyzers, 60, hoarded rabbits, many of which suffered from disease, broken backs, broken necks, open wounds and chewed ears.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Connors said Keyzers still does not believe that she abused the animals.

“She thought she was running a rabbit rescue,” he said.

Keyzers is scheduled to be sentenced Monday.

Before she was charged, Keyzers, whose last permanent address was in Ojai, had turned over 141 rabbits to a ranch for abused and neglected animals in Santa Paula. A volunteer at the ranch notified the Humane Society of Ventura County, which tracked Keyzers to a barn on Gonzalez Road in Oxnard.

They found 70 rabbits living in cramped pens. Some cages had piles of manure more than 2 feet high, prosecutors said.

Twenty other animals were discovered in her minivan. Of the 90 rabbits, only seven survived. Most were euthanized.