Rabbit Care

Rabbits can be housed indoors or outdoors. Indoor rabbits should be confined to a suitable enclosure when their activity cannot be adequately supervised. A roomy cage with at least one-half of the floor's surface area covered with Plexiglass or washable towels is recommended. The Plexiglass or towels provide relief from constant and continual contact with the wire floor, helping to prevent hutch sores on the feet. A water bottle or ceramic crock, food dish and a litter box should be provided for the rabbit inside the enclosure.

Under no circumstances should rabbits be allowed total freedom within the home without supervision. Rabbits love to chew and can be very destructive to household furnishings.  They can also be seriously injured by biting into telephone and electrical cords.  Provide appropriate chew toys to help wear down their teeth because rabbit teeth continuously grow.   Rabbits like to play with small cat toys too. Cardboard boxes and paper bags can even provide entertainment to your bunny. Just make sure to have play time every day so your rabbit gets some exercise and doesn’t get bored.

Like cats, rabbits can be easily trained to use a litter box in the home. If the rabbit has already selected an area for elimination, the litter box should be placed in this location. It helps to place some of the rabbit's fecal pellets in the litter box to encourage its use.   Corn cob bedding, wood pellets or pelleted newspaper are good substrates for the litter box.

For outdoor rabbits, adequate shade and a "hiding spot" should be provided as well. Rabbits are typically anxious, wary animals and are easily frightened. This is especially true of newly acquired Pet rabbits. A concealed area into which these rabbits can retreat when they feel threatened is necessary to prevent injury that would result from excessive and futile efforts to escape from the cage. Hiding provides a safe alternative to useless and often injurious escape efforts.

Shade must be provided to prevent heat stress or heat stroke. All rabbits, even those housed indoors, are especially sensitive to high environmental temperatures. Adequate shelter must also be provided against wind, rain, snow and ice.

Improper handling may cause serious, life-threatening injuries. Fractures and dislocations of the back, most often resulting in paralysis of both rear legs, are the most common injuries. These injuries also occur when rabbits are suddenly frightened and attempt to escape from a small enclosure.

A rabbit's spine is relatively lightweight and fragile. When a rabbit becomes frightened, it violently struggles by powerfully kicking its back legs. The lightning-fast movements of the rear legs cause over-extension of the lumbosacral (lower back) region of the spine, which frequently results in fractures or dislocations. One should never try to overpower a struggling rabbit. If a rabbit violently resists physical restraint, it should be immediately released and approached later when it has calmed down.

A soft-spoken, relaxed approach with rabbits works well. Covering the eyes and lightly stroking a rabbit will usually result in a hypnotic-like trance that often renders them less prone to panic and injury.

Rabbits should never be picked up by their ears. If you are concerned about being scratched by the claws, place a towel over the rabbit's back and wrap it around the body to restrain all 4 feet before picking up the rabbit. An alternative method of picking up a rabbit involves sliding one hand under its breast bone and grasping both front legs between the fingers of this hand. The other hand is then gently worked under the rear quarters to fully support them as the rabbit is lifted upwards, in the same manner as cats are held and supported.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON RABBIT CARE, PLEASE VISIT THE HOUSE RABBIT SOCIETY WWW.RABBIT.ORG

WILD BUNNIES:

In the spring, you may run across a seemingly abandoned nest of bunnies in the wild. Your heart may prompt you to intervene, but the best thing you can do is LEAVE THEM ALONE.

Chances are they have not been abandoned, and by removing them from the wild you greatly reduce their chance for survival. Mothers do not stay in the nest with their babies like some mammals and birds. They build a nest with fur and grasses that help keep the babies warm between feedings. Mothers will stay away from the nest during the day so that predators will not see where her nest is.

If you happen to remove a healthy baby from the wild, put him back where you found him. The mother will most likely return to feed the baby. Mother rabbits nurse their babies for ONLY  5 minutes a day – once early in the morning and again in the evening. The milk is very rich and the babies fill up within minutes.  Then they can usually go 24 hours without another feeding.

Often, people find infant rabbits that appear to be too small to be on their own. The rule-of-thumb is that if the rabbits are 5 inches or longer, they are old enough to be on their own and should be released where they were found.

Baby rabbits should be picked up only as a last resort, such as when you know that the parents are dead or injured. Young rabbits are difficult to rehabilitate and more often than not, they do not survive the stress of being handled.

Do not attempt to take care of baby rabbits yourself. They require special conditions and diets that only a trained rehabilitator can provide. If you are certain that the mother is no longer able to care for the babies because of severe injury or death, contact a wildlife rehabilitation center. It is possible that they can find a foster mother – a rabbit who is nursing bunnies of the same age – to care for the babies.

The following is a brief outline of their aging process: