What you should know before you start raising rabbits. Quite a few things come to mind, but one of the most important distinctions to make is that domestic bunnies are very different to wild rabbits. Make sure you leave any wild rabbits well alone, especially babies or kits, as they will probably have their family close by, and you would not be doing them a favour by trying to ‘rescue’ them.
If you’re reading this, then chances are you have decided to get yourself a little furry friend, so what’s the best way of making your home, their home too. There’s quite a few ways and we will focus on the indoor homing methods, although it is possible to obtain outdoor rabbit varieties.
Arguably, the nicest way to house your bunny is to let them run free around your home. This will require you to bunny-proof your house, see the text below. You can designate a single totally bunny proofed room as their home, placing litter, food and water trays and dishes strategically around. If you go down this route, then build them a castle of cardboard for nap times.
If having a room set aside just isn’t practical in your house, then you’ll probably have to invest a rabbit hutch or rabbit cage. If this is the way you will be housing your bunny, make sure that the cage is the largest you can afford and fit into your intended spot. Rabbits need lots of room to lie down and roam around inside the cage, and there must also be room to have plenty of water, food and a litter tray. Also, it’s worth providing lots of toys inside the cage for your bunny to play with. Make sure as well that you don’t shut the little fluffy one away in a room where they will feel lonely!
So on to your home in general. Unquestionably it’s worth bunny proofing! Rabbits are naturally pretty destructive, so you need to prepare to protect things like TV and hi-fi centre wiring, lamp and computer power cords to limit the damage done to potentially both your rabbit and your equipment.
To prevent that worst case scenario – bunny electrocution, ensure all those wires are covered with hard plastic covers, try flexible tubing, or locate them all underneath carpets or behind skirting. Rabbits love to squeeze into tight spaces, so block them off, and amazingly some bunnies can leap to heights of 36 inches or so, so move easily damaged objects up to high shelves. Make sure your bunny has a lot of toys to chew on too.
Every home needs greenery and houseplants to liven up rooms and freshen the atmosphere, however many plants can be extremely poisonous to rabbits, especially plants like holly, tomato, tulips and poinsettias, but make sure you check which plants you have around the home and search on the web to see if they are dangerous to rabbits.
In terms of what you should actually be feeding your rabbit, a mixture of fresh clean hay, fresh pellets – go for high fiber and low protein varieties, and lots of fresh vegetables like romaine lettuce, carrot tops, broccoli leaves and water cress. You can definitely introduce the occasional piece of fruit as a treat, maybe strawberry pieces or apple chunks.
If you are looking for more information on rabbit hutches and cages then be sure to check out RabbitHutches.com.au.
