Owning a rabbit

Caring for your pet rabbit

Excellent pet companions are rabbits. For overall good welfare, rabbits require suitable housing, exercise, socialisation, and a particular diet. Certain breeds of rabbits, especially the longer-haired ones, could call for frequent grooming. Before you buy a rabbit, you should be aware of all the needs for tending to one.

Depending on their surroundings and breed, rabbits usually live five to eight years, but they can live for as long as twelve years. Should you choose to buy a rabbit, be ready to look after them for that length of time.

Legislation

The Welfare of All Animals Act 1986 guards against cruelty to animals, thereby including rabbits.

Feeding your rabbit

Being herbivores, rabbits just eat plant matter. Their usual food is mostly young leaves from:

• vegetation
• bushes
• grasses

weeds occasionally the bark from trees and plants.
Rabbits must eat tiny amounts often. Every day is normal—about thirty feeding, comprising 2 to 8 g of food. Pet rabbits have to be fed a high-fiber diet if they are to keep their teeth and bodies intact. The diet must constantly wear down rabbits’ teeth because they grow so quickly.

Their diet has to consist of unrestricted availability to grass hay, and/or grass. Grass hay is another fiber source if you keep your rabbit indoors most of the time or if they lack access to grass for several hours a day. Lawn clippings should not be given to your rabbit since they ferment quickly and cause stomach disturbance.

Daily diet

Their daily diet should contain fresh green vegetables such as cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, and celery—about two cups a day. Fresh green vegetables must not be their primary source of nourishment, though; their low fibre count calls for other foods. Rabbits have to have a diet high in fiber.

Once or twice daily, rabbits need a tablespoon of commercial rabbit nuggets or pellets. Your rabbit will have dental disease if you feed it muesli. Muesli-eating rabbits also often leave pieces they find objectionable, which causes nutrient shortages.

Foods heavy in fat and sugar, including carrots, other root vegetables, and fruit, should only be given in modest quantities. One can utilize these kinds of foods for environmental enrichment.

You should steer clear of feeding your rabbit or cultivating in your yard numerous poisonous foods and plants.

Talk about the best diet for your pet to your neighborhood veterinarian, pet store, or rabbit breeder. Remember to always start new foods gradually to prevent stomach disturbance.

Fresh, chilled water has to be always available.

Housing your rabbit

To live in a safe from predators such as dogs and cats, rabbits need a hutch. It requires a location large enough for exercise and shields from the elements. Water-proof hutch designs have a dark, dry section for the rabbits to rest in and bedding made of soft hay. The other part of the hutch should be light and big enough to allow for a separate toilet and exercise area. The hutch needs good ventilation. Since metal hutches heat up faster, it is advisable to have a wooden hutch.

Their feet suffer if rabbits are housed in cages or hutches with wire flooring. As long as your rabbit has somewhere to stand on solid ground, it is okay for part of the pen to be constructed of wire. There are a few two-story hutches that offer this possibility.

Your hutch must be twice as big as your bunny and at least ‘three hops long,’ almost 4 times its length when spread out. Your rabbit will be too cramped for anything smaller. Remember, a young bunny you purchase will grow.

Bedding and ensuring rabbits

Removing filthy bedding and ensuring rabbits have a dry place to sleep helps to keep the hutch at least clean every second day. Lack of clean bedding can lead to respiratory problems, skin diseases, and insect infestations, including fleas and mites, among rabbits. Rabbits can be toilet-trained. Online, one can find a lot of material about toilet-training rabbits.

Rabbits should spend most of their time indoors, or equal time indoors and outside. Your rabbit should have at least some free daily roaming time when it is indoors. You could want to provide a room or two where your rabbit might run about and interact with the family. Remember that rabbits enjoy chewing on objects; hence, if you let your rabbit walk alone, you could find chewed skirting boards, cables, or chair legs when you get home.

Think about a pet pen or children’s play pen if you want your rabbit’s living space to be more than its hutch when you are not home. Attaching it to the hutch will give your rabbit more area for play and exercise.

Outside, your pet rabbit should have the chance to dig and forage. They should not be allowed to wander free; they should be limited to a contained space. Great is a safe backyard where no other animals—especially wild rabbits or cats—can access it; nevertheless, a sectioned-off grass area is also good.

Make sure your rabbit has access to their hutch or a weather-proof location with bedding if you leave them outside for extended lengths of time so they may relax.

Companionship for your rabbit

Social animals, like rabbits, will rather live in groups. Should you choose to keep a rabbit, always have at least two. You will have to become your rabbit’s friend, though, if you lack the room, time, or money to keep two rabbits. If you are away for extended amounts of time—more than four hours every day—you will have to supply your rabbit enrichment activities and toys to keep them busy and prevent them from growing lonely or stressed.

If you have two or more rabbits, you need to take care to prevent unintended pregnancy. Sort men and women into several enclosures or have your veterinarian desex them. The young age of the introduction of males will make them less likely to fight each other. Before they co-habit, make sure young bunnies get acquainted to each other in a controlled environment or via a mesh fence since both sexes and males can be prone to fighting with one another.

Rabbit behaviour

Playful and curious, rabbits depend on other rabbits, people, and their surroundings to be stimulated. Active animals that require consistent play and exercise are. Taking care of your rabbit depends much on making sure it is sufficiently stimulated. Environmental enrichment helps one accomplish this.

Early morning, late afternoon and night time are the times when rabbits are most active. You should interact with your rabbit at this optimal moment.

For rabbits, scent is a quite vital kind of communication.

One prey species is rabbit. Other animals catch and eat these ones. Rabbits automatically hide from things that frighten them. The surroundings of your rabbit have to accommodate this. You have to give them hiding spots within their enclosure.

Rabbits naturally do the following:

gnaw on objects (it maintains excellent teeth).
nest (build nests out of their own fur, hay, and other items they come across)
thump their back feet against items.
See your veterinarian if your rabbit’s behavior changes quickly and you find:

concealing hostility when you try to touch or pick them up excessive cage or object chewing over grooming changes in feeding or toileting playing with water bottles over drinking repeated circling of enclosure.
Your rabbit could be stressed, in pain, or suffering.

Health problems

Many health issues can affect rabbits, including infections such as calicivirus and Myxomatosis. Generally speaking, these diseases kill pet rabbits. Introduced into Australia to help regulate the wild rabbit count, they have Pet bunnies are sadly equally prone to them. Since mosquitoes can bring Myxomatosis from the wild rabbit population to your pet, try to lower the likelihood of mosquito bites to your rabbits.

There is a vaccination for calivirus. Your vet can vaccinate your rabbit against this illness every six months.

One can find oral issues in rabbits. They should be continuously chewing something, either a gnawing block, grass, or hay. Their teeth develop two to three millimeters every week. Overgrown teeth can cause weight loss, extreme discomfort, and anguish. See your veterinarian about some appropriate choices for shortening the teeth of your rabbit if you believe they are becoming overly long.

Mite infestations can afflict rabbits. Among the symptoms are itching and hair loss. Disinfect and completely clean the hutch. One should see a veterinarian regarding the rabbit.

See your local veterinarian for guidance on any health concerns your rabbit develops.

Desexing your rabbit

Unwanted pet rabbits, who have been unintentionally bred, flood many animal welfare facilities. Talk to your vet about desexing if you intend not to procreate with your rabbit. In male rabbits, this is a really easy operation. For female rabbits, it’s a more significant operation. Desexing can assist toilet training and help to lower nesting activity.

You could alternatively split men and women into separate pens.

Heat stress in rabbits

Rabbits can experience heat stress. Your bunnies need constant monitoring if the temperature rises above 28 oC. During the warmer months, it is crucial not to expose the hutch directly under sunlight. Keep it in the shade even on days with mild to cold temperature. Heat builds up in small regions quite quickly. To lower the temperature in the hutch’s nesting space on hot days, one could have to supply an ice brick or frozen drink bottle.

Should your hutch be inside the house and the temperature is probably going to increase above 30 oC, you can have to locate the hutch somewhere with a wind. Should a breeze exist, you could open a window to help cool your rabbit.

A rabbit suffering with heat stroke could exhibit symptoms including:

frailty in coordination convulsions coma.
You have to have your veterinarian contacted right away if you believe your rabbit is under heat stress. Place the rabbit in tepid water or wrap it in cool, wet towels to start lowering its temperature as you wait. Never put your heat-stressed rabbit in cold or icy water.

Handling your rabbit

Children might find fantastic companions from rabbits. Still, they are delicate and young children should not handle them. By grabbing the bunny, by squeezing too hard, or by dropping it, they could unintentionally hurt someone. Children should always be under supervision when handling rabbits or, in the case of older children, interactively.

Appropriate handling of rabbits will help them avoid scratching or biting and enable a good interaction with humans. Handle rabbits often, particularly when they are young. While you are handling a rabbit, sit it so that it cannot fall. One should pick up rabbits with both hands. Holding them on your lap or close to your chest will help them relax their feet and feel safe.

Exercising your rabbit

Daily exercise is something rabbits require. Make sure your rabbit has a safe exercise area if it is housed in a minimum-sized hutch. Your rabbit requires access to it for at least four hours every day. Food rewards, toys, and challenges are environmental enrichment that motivates your rabbit to be active even when you are not home.

Rabbits and other pets

Your family would greatly benefit from a rabbit addition. If you have other animals, you should give your rabbit’s effects on them some thought as well as on you. Natural hunting and killing instincts abound in dogs and cats. Your rabbit must always be safe from other animals if you are bringing them into a home that already has dogs and cats.

Stress in your rabbit can also come from barking dogs. If your dog barks at your rabbit, make sure the run or hutch is inaccessible to your dog while you are not around to monitor.

It would be great if your rabbits got along with your other animals. When you cannot be with your rabbit, it will have another friend. Still, keep your bunny secure.