Rabbit care tips for new owners

Taking home your first rabbit is an exciting time but, as with any new addition to the family, can be a little daunting to begin with.  Sometimes it feels as though there are more questions than answers.  In this article, we will try to answer some of those questions.

Rabbits can make great pets for children

How big a hutch do I need for my rabbit?

The minimum size for a hutch should be 4′ x 2′.  If this can be divided up to provide interest, so much the better – can you make a box for him to go into?  Or a shelf to jump up onto?  Or divide off part of the hutch with a jump through hole?  Can the hutch have two levels?  The more variety you can provide for your rabbit, the more he can amuse himself and also let you know what he likes.  One rabbit we had used to spend all day jumping over the divider in his hutch – not through the hole which was made for the purpose, over the TOP of the divider.

If you can make it safe, all rabbits benefit from having a run in the garden that they can go out into during the day.  Make sure they have somewhere to shelter from the weather – either too much sun OR bad weather.  The opportunity to hop around outside and nibble the grass is a huge benefit to them.

Rabbits love to chew

Does my rabbit have to live in a hutch?

No, your rabbit can live in your house just like a cat or a dog.  He will need a litter tray which, apparently, they soon learn to use just like a cat.  You will need to be careful of electric cables which a rabbit could chew – maybe enclose them in plastic casing – and also be aware of anything else that he might nibble at.

What should I feed my new rabbit?

First of all, ask the seller what the rabbit is eating at the moment. Whenever we sell a rabbit, we always provide the new owner with a bag of food as a starter pack. This can then be mixed with any new feed and make the transition easier and less stressful for everybody involved. Rabbits can be quite conservative in their eating habits and sometimes treat new food with suspicion – even something that you think will be a treat for them, will only be nibbled at until they are used to it. As rabbits really need to keep food moving through their stomach, a couple of days without eating can be extremely bad for a them. Mixing any new food with something they are already used to can make the move far easier.

As a rough guide, you will need to feed your rabbit either pellets or a coarse mix designed for rabbits, hay, and green food.

Rabbits love to eat weeds like plantain

What kind of green food should I offer?

That is a personal choice for you and your rabbit (they have personal likes and dislikes just as we do). You can grow, or pick wild herbs, weeds and grasses. You can find out what he likes and feed him your carrot peelings, apple cores etc. Or you can buy veg specially for him when you do your weekly shopping. The choice is entirely yours, but he will need fresh feed to keep him healthy.

Some dos and don’ts on green food:

DON’T feed lettuce, cabbage, parsnips, frozen veg, evergreens.

DO try corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, lucerne (alfalfa), sugar beet, radishes, swede and trunips.  Carrots are good as long as they haven’t been sprayed with insecticide.  Strawberry leaves, raspberry canes and leaves, blackberry leaves, and any fruit bush or tree prunings.

From the flower beds you can try them on marigolds, asters, nasturtiums, roses, juniper, sunflowers and mallow.

Will my rabbit need vitamin supplements?

If rabbit feed is provided, then most of your bunny’s nutritional needs should be catered for, but it is always worth providing a mineral lick for him. That way he will take as much as he needs when he needs it.

rabbits enjoy company

What about water?

Rabbits, like all animals, should have constant access to fresh clean water. Here you have a choice between a bottle which attaches to the outside of the cage, or a bowl.

Very often a rabbit will play with his water bowl, tip it over, stand in it, poo in it etc. We have one bunny who, when he was younger, would deliberately tip his bowl over, pick it up and toss it from end to end of his hutch. So bowls need careful watching, topping up and cleaning regularly.

Bottles, on the other hand, seem a little easier but I personally find bottles harder to keep clean – they end up with a limescale deposit in the nozzle and a green film in the actual bottle that can be difficult to remove. The danger that we discovered with bottles comes from the wire with which you fasten them to the cage. We lost one rabbit very suddenly and unexpectedly and, when we had the vet do a a post mortem on her, we discovered that she had chewed off and swallowed a piece of the wire which had subsequently perforated her stomach. So we are now very careful about using bottles with those rabbits we know to be chewers.

Rabbits need worming occasionally

What veterinary treatment will my rabbit need?

Your rabbit will need worming 3 – 4 times per year with an approved rabbit wormer. You can do this yourself although it might be worth asking your vet to show you how the first time if you are worried about it.

Occasionally rabbits need treating for fleas just like any other animal. You don’t need to routinely dose them for fleas, but do make it part of your regular routine to check them carefully.

Rabbits should be vaccinated against mixymatosis.

His nails will need clipping regularly. This is something else that you can do for yourself – get the vet or vet nurse to show you how, and get a pair of proper clippers and your rabbit will soon get used to letting you do them.

Occasionally rabbits also need their teeth clipping. Not all rabbits suffer from this, but look at his teeth when you check him over. Although you can do this yourself, it is probably better to let the vet have a look at them, show you how, and discuss when they should be done.

Do rabbits need toys?

A common misconception with rabbits is that they will contentedly sit in a 4′ x 2′ hutch 24/7 and stare at the walls.  Rabbits “will” do this and it says a lot for their characters that they will survive this where most other animals would pine away.

But and it is a big BUT, rabbits are social, intelligent animals who really need more from life than this.

Treacle the rabbit slinky – jumping too fast for our camera to focus

If you place an object in their hutch, many will find a way to play with it. We use old sections of stove pipe for them to run through as tunnels, objects like plastic feed bowls or hard rubber balls are popular things for them to “fiddle” with. One of our bucks loves a plastic hosepipe hanger. It is lightweight and he moves it around and around his hutch until he is happy and then jumps backwards and forwards over it to his heart’s content.

If they are handled gently, rabbits enjoy being cuddled

Rabbit toys don’t need to be expensive, shop-bought ones. Just remember that, being rabbits, they WILL chew them so try to find things that are safe for them.

Do rabbits like being handled?

In my experience, the answer to this is a huge YES. As long as they have been handled regularly and gently, rabbits love the attention and company. When the apprentice was younger, she would sit IN the hutch of her buck “Smudge” and he would immediately hop into her lap for a cuddle. One of our current bucks, “Treacle” loves to come out of his hutch and jump over whatever obstacles the apprentice sets out for him. Rabbits are all individuals, but they are never “just rabbits” 🙂

Do you have any advice for new rabbit owners? Or are you a new owner and have a question? Click here to comment

Everything you wanted to know about baby rabbits

 

A tale of two bunnies

and a cat!

Mischief safe after her adventure

Miffy and Mischiefare two young sisters who share a hutch. They are this years babies so are still quite young and curious. One day, a couple of weeks ago, the apprentice called me in a panic. Miffy and Mischief had escaped! We managed to recapture Miffy quite easily, but Mischief was nowhere to be seen!

After searching until we ran out of daylight we finally accepted that Mischief was gone forever.

The next day we caught a glimpse of Mischief and the hunt started again. She obviously thought this was a great game and danced in and out of the bramble bushes and the shed. Twice I had her cornered and she managed to squeeze past me, and once the apprentice actually had a hand on her and still the little devil got away! We were now totally convinced that, either she would continue to evade capture and “turn native” or the cats (of which we have 4) would find her and eat her.

After a couple of days of this I had given up on ANY hope of catching Mischief, but every time we saw her I felt obliged to at least TRY to catch her. Then on the Saturday morning, after 3 days of hide and seek, we spotted her under the bramble bush gently hopping around exploring. Now, surely, we would catch her?

Shadow

Enter Badger and Shadow stage right. Badger and Shadow are two of this year’s kittens – Badger was born in May and is a big strong cat now, and Shadow (his younger brother who was born in August) is devoted to him and follows him everywhere – hence why he is called Shadow.

Badger

So, we watched with some trepidation as Badger and Shadow set out under the brambles on Mischief’s trail. They crept up behind her……..she spotted them and turned around………they sniffed noses………Mischief hopped a few more steps……….Badger and Shadow followed………..sniffed noses again…….Badger turned around and walked off………Shadow and Mischief followed him……they stopped for a chat. And so it continued for about an hour and all we humans could do was watch in amazement as what looked like certain bunny carnage to begin with, ended up an amazing display of inter-species trust and “something”. I hesitate to call it friendship as who knows what was really going on in the minds of either the cat OR the rabbits, but the cats certainly weren’t looking for rabbit pie, and the rabbit saw absolutely no reason to run.

Having watched this amazing scene for an hour we finally managed to persuade Mischief into a “trap” and caught her once more. I have to say that, in spite of her apparent reluctance to be caught, she was very pleased to be back in her hutch with her sister and I don’t think she stopped eating for about two days afterwards!

I can honestly say that, between all the animals in the yard, they never fail to teach me something new!

 

rabbit – caption anyone?

Click here to add a caption for our bunny

 

Sorry Miss….the rabbit ate my homework

hmmm algebra – my favourite

 

Worming the rabbits

Worming animals is one of my least favourite jobs on the smallholding. I always make the mistake of reading the data sheet that comes with the wormer (which I am about to pour down the inside of the animal) and read how I shouldn’t get it on my skin, to “avoid skin contact”, then I start to worry. After all, a wormer is essentially a poison right?

Unfortunately, when we keep animals in domestication we are keeping them in an unnatural environment. No matter how much we might try to imitate nature, we can never recreate it entirely, and worms and other similar problems are largely a problem of domesticity.

Over the years since we had the rabbits we have read time and again that it is very rare for rabbits to need worming. It isn’t really a problem that rabbits suffer with. However, we lost two rabbits in close succession recently. The first one suffered what appeared to be a massive stroke – her co-ordination started to go one-sided and ended, very rapidly, with her having a huge fit and dying. The second one had nothing obvious wrong with him – he was just very quiet and quietly faded away. We had more time with him so we took him to the vet who tried her best with him, but he basically just lay down and died.

I explained to the vet about the “stroke victim” and it appears that there is a worm called e cuniculi which attacks the brain and can cause stroke symptoms. So, we came away with wormers for all the rabbits. Having now done some research on e. cuniculi, it appears that young rabbits can catch this one from contact with an infected mother or an infected cage mate. So, if it IS the cause of our problem, one of our original rabbits probably had it and it has just been waiting to strike! 😦

The rabbits all need a nine-day course of this wormer. It comes in a handy syringe with gradations all marked on the plunger. All you need is to know the weight of your rabbit, turn the stopper to the right dose, and administer it to the rabbit.  One thing to remember is that each mark on one side of the plunger is two gradations.  To measure one gradation, you have to take the difference between the mark on one side and the next mark on the other side .

The apprentice cuddles all the rabbits regularly so this is a comparatively easy procedure.

Sit somewhere where you have plenty of room – if the rabbit does struggle the last thing you need is to be perched on the edge of something, trying to keep your balance, trying not to shove the syringe down your own throat, whilst juggling a rabbit.

Sit the rabbit on your lap, wrap your spare arm around the back of him and hold him with your thumb behind his ears and your fingers under his chin.

With your “good hand” (right hand for us) place the syring in the corner of the rabbits mouth and gently squeeze the paste into his mouth. The easiest way to get the syringe in the right place is to put it in just behind the front teeth and then slide it back. Ideally you want to be placing the wormer on the back of the tongue – this makes it harder for him to spit it at you if he doesn’t like the taste 🙂

Repeat for nine days for all rabbits in your rabbitry.

I will have to check back with the vet about re-dosing. The dreaded data-sheet says they should be wormed 2-4 times per year but, as I said before, every rabbit book we own says that rabbits shouldn’t need routine worming. Oh well, I suppose that once we have done this round we have a few months to do some research on the subject 🙂

 

Caption this

Give this picture a caption – the apprentice was taking photos of her bunnies tonight, and this opportunity arose – guess what happened next?? 😀

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What no-one tells you about goats until it’s too late

Pictures of rabbits and goats

 

Disappearing babies

We had a sad event over the weekend.

Sugar, who is my rabbit doe, lost her babies. She had 3 baby rabbits on Saturday, and today’s post should have been about them. She made them a beautiful luxury nest (judging by the amount of pulled fur in the nest, poor old Sugar should have been nearly bald) and she was very protective of them – she came to the door when we fed her to make sure we didn’t hurt her babies.

Because we know she is like this, we left the nest alone – with all our other rabbits we are able to take the baby rabbits out and handle them, but Sugar is more highly strung so we dont attempt it.

But on Sunday the baby rabbits disappeared without a trace. One of two things must have happened. Either she has eaten them, or a rat has got in and taken them.

Do rabbits eat their babies?

Yes, a rabbit mother eating her babies is not terribly uncommon, although we have been very lucky in this respect.

Why do rabbits eat their babies?

Rabbits eating babies tends to happen when the rabbit becomes stressed for some reason. It is thought that is it a misguided attempt to protect the baby rabbits that makes them do it. Sugar does tend towards stress, so it isn’t impossible that something scared her enough to eat the baby rabbits. Although our rabbits live a fairly quiet life, when a rabbit is as stressy as Sugar, it probably wouldn’t take much.

What about predators?

We don’t have many predators as such, but we do have rats turn up from time to time, and Sugar has loosened some of the wires in her hutch door, so it is more than possible that a rat got in and took them. I have to say that this is my preferred answer. Maybe it is just that I don’t want to think that Sugar ate her babies, but I do think a rat more likely.

What is the solution?

Well, I am a belt and braces sort of person so, as we are not 100% sure, I am going to tackle both problems.

I will buy some small mesh weld-mesh and tack it to the inside of Sugar’s hutch door which will keep any rats out. I had to do this with a big expensive rabbit hutch that I bought early on – it is a lovely hutch, but the mesh on the run was WAY too big and the rats were slipping in and eating all the food. So I added smaller mesh inside hutch, and that solved the problem. Obviously we will bait for the rats as well. I only put down bait when I know we need to – with so many animals around, I don’t like to have bait down unnecessarily.

Well, that’s the rat problem taken care of, what about the rabbit eating her babies?

We need to make Sugar feel more secure when she has her next babies. Even if she didnt eat these babies, the fact that “something” has happened to them might trigger her to harm the next litter.

We have a roll of old carpet lying around in the workshop, so I will cut off a piece of carpet that can be rolled up on top of the hutch and, next time Sugar has babies, the carpet can be rolled down over the front of the hutch like a curtain. Hopefully this will make her feel a little more secure, and more “in a burrow” and also block out any excess noises. I will do this now so that, by the time she has a new litter, she will be used to having the carpet rolled down and up.

Thinking as I type, I might cut the carpet vertically as well into three sections, so that the hutch door can be opened without rolling the whole carpet up. That might be even better. I will have to experiment and see what works best.

Hopefully we can look forward to a less stressed bunny and a lively litter of baby rabbits before too much longer 🙂

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Baby rabbit FAQ

Baby rabbits at 6 weeks old

 

Baby rabbits at 6 weeks

Pastry’s babies are now 6 weeks old and are growing fast. This means that they are now just about ready to be moved out of their mum’s cage. This won’t be just yet, for them, as we have to make hutch space for them, so they can wait a week or two with no ill effects.

At this age the rabbits are very keen on exploring – from time to time they jump out of their hutches and explore the enclosure.

They are eating anything that is put in front of them, and love some fresh picked grass or greens like plantain, mallow or dandelion 🙂

Rabbits are very friendly, they always come to say “hello” when we open the hutch door 🙂

By six weeks old, a rabbit should have been handled regularly, and be happy to be handled and cuddled. If you are buying a rabbit, look for one that has been well handled.

The apprentice cuddles our rabbits daily (spends WAY more time cuddling rabbits than she does doing her chores!) so they are all very friendly and easy to handle.

FAQ about baby rabbits

Baby rabbits at 1 week old

Pictures of rabbits

More Pictures of rabbits

 

Everything you wanted to know about baby rabbits

How long are rabbits pregnant for?

The gestation period for a rabbit is 28-31 days

How do rabbits make their nests?

Most rabbit mothers will make a lovely cozy nest for their kits. First they gather hay or straw, collecting huge mouthfuls of material. Many rabbit breeders refer to this as “making bones” as the rabbit looks just like a dog with a huge bone in its mouth. Once a nest of hay has been made, the rabbit will pull out large mouthfuls of her own fur to line the nest ready for her babies.

How many times a day do rabbits feed their babies?

Rabbit mothers only feed their babies once or twice a day

How long do baby rabbits need milk for?

For the first three weeks of their lives, the babies will only drink milk. At around three weeks old, they will naturally begin to nibble at the mother’s food and hay, although they still need milk at this stage.

How is rabbit milk different to other milks?

Rabbit milk is three times more nutritious than cow’s milk. Rabbit milk is 15% protein, 10% fat, 2% sugar, 3% mineral and the remainder is water.

At what age should a rabbit be weaned?

Baby rabbits should stay with their mothers until they are 6 – 8 weeks old

When does a baby rabbit open its eyes?

A baby rabbit is born with its eyes firmly closed. At about 1 week to 10 days old, they start to open their eyes.

When do rabbit babies leave the nest?

Around the time their eyes open, the babies start venturing out of the nest. At this stage they are crawling rather than walking, and they stay close to the walls of the hutch for security. However they soon become stronger and begin trying out little hops and skips, and by about three weeks they are confidently hopping around the hutch

Leave a comment or ask a question about baby rabbits

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The baby rabbits at 6 weeks old

Preparing for kidding

Rabbit care tips for new owners