Who owns bunnies?

Kiira

I know there are some people on this forum who own bunnies, so I was wondering if you could fill me in on how to take care of them and such.

We used to have a bunny back in March of '07. She was a plain black bunny, just a baby, really small, really cute. She belonged to my little sister, she got the bunny as a birthday present from a pet store (I know, I know, bad.) Well we had the bunny living in a cage on our patio. It had shelter, clean water and food all the time, my sister took good care of it. And she held it often too.
Well one day the pest guy came over to spray poison around our house to get rid of our bug problem. The guy came onto our patio to spray too and he carelessly sprayed our bunny, which died 2 days later. My sister was very upset about that.

So yesterday my little brother came home with two bunnies. Apparently our backyard neighbors' bunnies keep having babies (gee, I wonder why?) So now I have two baby bunnies living in my room. As of right now they're living in a small 10 gallon tank, but we plan to build them a rabbit hutch soon (I made blue prints yesterday and looked up the kind of wood to get for it.) But I was also wondering if someone could post pictures of their rabbit(s) hutch? Just so I have a good idea of what one looks like without having to go to a pet store to see.

And I was also wondering what the best kind of food to get for them is. Right now I'm feeding them Ecotrition and Timothy Hay.
Also, do I have to take them to the vet for shots and such? And how much would it cost to get them neutered? I'm not sure if they're boys or girls yet... But trust me, if one is a boy and the other is a girl, we're definitely going to separate them.

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Annamarie

we had bunnies when I was in high school. we thought we bought two girls but one turned out to be a boy. we got the female spayed and the male neutered (as un-neutered males can get grumpy) and they lived happily together for many years.

if you build a hutch make it as big as you can. also build them two rooms on either end because they'll tend to use one as a bathroom and one as a nest. i always just fed them rabbit pellets and gave them hay to nibble on and the occasional veggies. one thing you'll want to do periodically (especially during spring) is to give them a small dose of hairball remedy for kittens. rabbits are prone to intestinal blockages so this helps clear that up. you'll also have to clip their nails, something that you may have to pay a vet or groomer to do.

if you can, let them outside in a play pen for a few hours a day, but make sure to supervise. anything from cats to birds to the bunnies digging out of the enclosure can happen.

Shaina

We (by "we" I mostly mean "I") bred and raised Californian rabbits for over a decade, as show and market rabbits. I also had a pair of Mini Rex rabbits that were my pets. I showed both breeds, though I only actually bred the Californians...the M Rex's purely for fun. However, I think all the hutches have since been sold and I don't have any pictures handy...they are at my parents'. If you need approximate blue prints I could probably draw them up and send them to you...we had two different styles of hutches: One opens from the front and had removable sides to improve ventilation in hot weather, while the other was short and opened from the top. They all were wire/wood construction with wire floors, and had separate "den" boxes in each pen stuffed with straw for warmth and to give them a chance to relax off-wire (either in or on top of the box, whichever they preferred). The partitions between each pen were removable so we could give them large areas to run if we only had a few rabbits at that time. A word to the wise, however, these weren't house hutches...they were outdoor hutches and built accordingly (though they were actually located within a shed for extra protection). There are many good hobby hutches out there, though most are like rabbit dog crate and need to be kept in a warm, draft-free area. A den box would still be advisable, since many of the floors are wire for sanitary purposes.

We also made a movable wire pen to put in shady parts of the lawn to let them walk around outside (no chemically treated lawn and always supervised...they can and will dig).

We fed a complete pellet feed (I can't remember the brand for the life of me at the moment), a mixture of alfalfa and grass hays has for roughage, and access to mineral blocks. We also provided fresh vegetables according to the season (and mostly from our garden) for variety and to help with their teeth. And of course lots of water.

I don't know how much it costs to spay/neuter a rabbit--since ours were separated before sexual maturity we never worried about it. Even if you have two females you may need to separate them, especially if they are intact...they can become quite territorial. Vaccinations depend on your area...talk to your vet. We were never advised to vaccinate ours, and we never had any problems (perhaps luckily). You also need to check their ears periodically for mites/dirt, trim their nails, brush to remove dead hair, and check their teeth. As a frame of reference, our pet/breeding rabbits generally lived about a decade, and were very active until the end.

If you do end up with a female (or two), I would recommend getting her spayed. Our males always really enjoyed playing with each other (we usually had 2 which lived together), as did the females before maturity...I'm sure they'd be much happier living together and as I already said, that's often not possible with two intact females. An intact female with a male is obviously a problem :P

I didn't mean to write a novella....got carried away. If I missed anything or was annoying redundant with stuff you already know, I'm sorry!

Kiira

Thanks for telling me about the intestinal blockages! I'll be sure to get them the hairball remedy. I was planning on making the hutch as big as I could... about 3 feet wide and 2 feet tall from the front view, and 1 1/2 feet wide from the side view. I also was going to make 2 rooms and one door in the front that also comes down as a ramp for the bunnies to walk down on. And I was going to make the roof open up also, so that I can open it up from the top to get the bunnies out. Just wondering, should I use screen as the flooring in one room for their bathroom, or should I just put a tray in the bottom of both rooms so it's easy to clean?
And don't worry about the bunnies not getting time outside. My siblings loved bringing our old bunny out to play all the time, so they're bound to bring our new ones out to play a lot. And since I have so many siblings, I doubt the bunnies will ever have a chance to escape unnoticed.

BTW, Annamarie, I LOVE your avatar picture.

Kiira

Ah, thank you for all that information Shaina! Our bunnies will most likely live on our patio, which does have a roof. But the roof tends to leak and that's why we're going to make the roof to the bunnies' hutch be tilted one way to let water run off, and also have shingles on it.
I hope they're not both girls. But it's hard to tell... I don't even know how old they are. Here's a picture.


How can I tell the boys from the girls? I'm usually good at guessing (actually I'm 100% right when guessing) what sex my mice are (I breed mice as snake food), but with bunnies... well... they have a lot of fur. Is there a certain age where it will become obvious?

And I already have blue prints (that I drew up) for a rabbit hutch, but if you could send me some blue prints, I'd really appreciate it, as I have no idea what I am doing!

I guess tomorrow I will call the vet and ask them how much it costs to get a rabbit fixed... Does PetSmart's clinic deal with small animals? I've never checked...

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Annamarie

i built my bunnies a wire bottom bathroom but found they would ALWAYS go to the bathroom on the solid floor. so i just put a removeable cat litter pan there and it worked pretty well. mine always liked to hang out where they could see everything we had a pretty posh setup though. we had an old playhouse in the backyard with windows about 12x12 that obviously nobody ever used since we were too old, so we had the bunnies in there. all we had to do was build a shelf with opening doors and a little bedroom area. we kept all their food and hay in there and let them run around outside when we were around.

the first hutch we had was outdoors and they got much too cold in the winter and had to be brought inside, but in the playhouse they were nice and toasty. we even had a heater in there (ceramic so it wasn't flammable).

i also forgot to mention even if you have females get them spayed, the incidence of cancer in unspayed female bunnies is something like 80%. but make sure your vet uses a certain anaesthetic that is safe for bunnies as there is one type that is fatal to them. i don't remember what kind it is but a google search should tell you.

Shaina

If you use treated wood for the roof, you may be able to get away with not having shingles...we never had shingles on ours (two of the hutches were kept outdoors on the south side of the shed). The roofs were high enough that they couldn't chew on the wood, and they also had their den boxes in case of a minor leak. Roofing works too of course, though you'll probably want a front-opening hutch in that case.

I won't even begin to guess their age, especially since the breed is unknown. As for the "magic age", that depends on how good you are and the individual rabbit...I've heard people claim they can tell as early as 2-3 weeks, but IMO they are only getting a decent guess. I wouldn't commit to an answer they are about a month old.

It's hard to explain sexing a rabbit without pictures, and short of going out and getting a rabbit for demonstration purposes, I don't have the appropriate pictures handy I checked out a few sites, and this one seemed the most clear...hopefully it will help you:

http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/sexing.shtml

If they are both girls, don't sweat it...just try to get them spayed prior to sexual maturity if possible.


Sure, do you have an email or something you could PM me? I could probably get them drawn, scanned, and to you by sometime tomorrow, just to give you an idea of some options available.

I have no idea...many vets will tell you they can handle them (this goes for most small pets: lizards, rodents, rabbits, etc.), but don't really have much experience/expertise, so be careful about that.

Shaina

Sounds like your rabbits lived luxuriously

I believe that the high intact female cancer incidences applies to females that keep having heat cycles but are not bred (ratherlike dogs).

Willowy

Females DO have a rather high incidence of reproductive cancers, I don't know if it makes a difference if they've had a litter or not. I don't recommend allowing them to breed anyway, unless you can live with the idea of most of the babies going to feed snakes. Because that's what happens, no matter how hard you try to screen the new owners. It's also recommended to neuter the males, as they get pretty aggressive once they hit sexual maturity. And they spray urine, although that only matters if you keep them inside.

I have 2 females, one is spayed already, I got her from PetCo already spayed. The other is not spayed yet, but she's 7 months old now and I need to find a vet soon. So I don't really know how much it costs. I've heard that it's about the same as a cat spay/neuter. The average price around here is $90 for a cat spay and $60 for a cat neuter. You should find a vet that has done a lot of rabbit alters in the past, a vet with too little rabbit experience could kill your bunnies without meaning to.

I intended to get a male as a friend for Clover, but it's not easy to tell with the babies. You should, at this point, at least be able to tell if they "match" or not. You might not be able to tell which is which, but you'd know if they were the same gender.

Baby bunnies need unlimited alfalfa hay. Buns over 6 months old need unlimited timothy hay. Hairballs should not be a problem if they get enough hay. Pellets are important, but it's also important not to overfeed the pellets. 1/4 -1/2 cup a day is fine for most buns, unless they're really big. This is once they're 6 months old, of course, babies need unlimited pellets. A plain, basic pellet is best, not the "fancy" stuff with all the grains and seeds---those can cause blockages. Greens are important. In the summer, you can give them dandelion and clover from the yard. In the winter, green-leaf, red-leaf, and romaine lettuces are good. Also carrot tops (the green parts), broccoli stems, and collard greens. Some carrots, but not too many (high in sugar). Don't start the babies out with too much fresh food all at once, it can give them diarrhea. Just about a tablespoon of fresh food to start with, then work up.

Here's my go-to guide for rabbit care: http://www.rabbit.org/

Kiira

I tried seeing if I could tell if they were boys or girls earlier, but I really couldn't tell. Didn't help that one of them kept pooing... I'll check again in a couple weeks. Lol...

You could send me the blue prints in a private message over dog forums couldn't you? Unless you really want to just email them, then I could give you my email address...

I guess I'll be calling a few animal places tomorrow then to compare prices and ask about how experienced the people there are. I just gotta hope they're being honest when they reply...

Shaina

Haha, yeah that can be a problem when you are checking

Yeah I can do it via PM...didn't think about that sorry. Like I said, I'll try to get something out sometime tomorrow. We'll see what my artistic skills are up to

As for the vets--you could do some rough elimination by doing a lot of research yourself on common illnesses, required shots, etc., then asking the vet the same questions (as if you didn't know) and comparing the answers to your research. Depends on how far you want to go with it.

Kiira

Thank you for the reply Willowy! I do not plan on breeding my bunnies. My friends don't even have big enough snakes to eat the babies and I don't know where the extra babies would go. The only reason why I have these guys is because my neighbors' bunnies kept having babies. Thanks for the advice on what to feed them. That will help a lot. I have Timothy hay for them right now, and I might be able to get them Alfalfa hay later when the Timothy runs out. But I'm splitting the hay between other animals in the house, so it's not all going to the babies.

When I looked at the babies earlier, I don't think they were the same... but like I just said in my last post, it was hard to tell.

*sigh* neutering, spaying, vet calls, proper food... this is going to be an adventure.

Willowy

I don't think there are any vaccines for rabbits available in the U.S., Australian and British rabbits do get vaccinated, though. If there is VHD in your area, maybe your vet can get some vaccine somewhere. So that's one expense you can dispense with .

Be sure to get some toys! Baby teethers (the hard plastic kind), rabbit-specific toys (Petsmart has the best variety), cat toys (especially jingle balls), and homemade/found stuff, such as phone books (fun to shred!) and cardboard boxes are great. My bunnies like to chew up my junk mail!

Kiira

Lol, okay, I'll be sure to look around for some toys. I always end up with cardboard boxes in my room (why? I dunno) but I could give them some of those to chew on until I can buy some toys at the store.

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