To be worried about the school rabbits? WWYD?

[lottieandmia]

Dd's school acquired two very cute little rabbits recently. She has been very keen to sign up to take them home to look after for the weekend so today we collected them for the weekend.

I'm really shocked to see that they spend pretty much their entire lives in a tiny living space which does not allow them to move around or stretch out. My guinea pigs have a much bigger cage than they do. The rabbits cage allows them to only do one hop from length to length (if that)

We're animal lovers and I'm very worried about them. So much so that I'm willing to buy them a bigger hutch to donate to the school.

In my situation what would you do about this? We have never had rabbits but I do know they are intelligent, complex and are often rehomed due to a lack of understanding about their care needs. What would you do?

Yes also guinea pigs are very fragile in terms of feeding them. If they get given the wrong thing they can just die very quickly :(

That sounds truly awful lost :(

I don't think they need to have a cut or scratch , I think if they have a piece of poo stuck on them , especially near their bum ( which can be an issue with rabbits that don't get out much ) the flies can lay eggs in that and the maggots just eat - it's truly disgusting . I've never had a rabbit with it but we had a horse with a scrotal tumour that got it when we allowed someone else to do his ' washing' for a couple of days , fortunately it was discovered quickly and before too much damage had been done but it was a very unpleasant Sunday evening with a vet picking maggots of a horses penis that I'd prefer to forget .

It's illegal to not allow a suffering animal medical care. It isn't illegal to not vaccinate.

I'm in no way arguing that the school should keep the rabbits and do as they are. For a whole raft of reasons - primarily that they are setting a supremely bad example for the children in the school.

I don't have insurance for my pets and when one of my buns had an allergic reaction after eating a bee I felt awful telling the vets that if the fee went over £300 I was sorry but I couldn't authorise it. The vets did do more work than we paid for in the end. They capped our bill at £300 and did the rest gratis as they said very few people take poorly rabbits to the vets as they're such cheap pets to buy, so none of them had ever seen a rabbit with anaphylaxis before and it was good for them from a teaching point of view.

What the school is doing is, sadly not that unusual for rabbit owners. It's not right at all, but the small hutch and no vaccinations is in no way rare.

At one time it was the norm for people to keep rabbits in awful conditions- most of these people I knew ended up with angry, unhappy rabbits who growled / but / kicked every time someone came near them.

I think that welfare has moved on luckily but yes apparently two thirds of hutches are two small for the rabbit who lives in them.

As a child I had a rabbit in a tiny hutch. I knew no better and nor did my parents.

A couple of times when we went away for a night or two my buns stayed at my parents in the tiny hutch.

But it was only for a night or two and I knew that my parents knew how to look after rabbits and mine are a miniature breed so tiny hutches aren't quite as tiny on them (not that I'd consider letting them live in one all the time).

The bun I had as a child was the most chilled happy bun ever. But I handreared him from a few weeks old when he was rejected by and had to be removed from his mother (the breeders lived down our road and I was friends with her daughter). They said he was a lost cause but I begged to be allowed to try to look after him. They spoke to my parents and I handreared a rabbit kit when I was 10. He was not vaccinated and I don't think he ever went to a vets. He lived to be 8 and just passed away overnight one night. (What I'm trying to say is that in isolation a tiny hutch and no contact with vets doesn't always make for an unhappy and poorly bun)

Yes but rabbits who are kept in a hutch all the time can't engage in their natural behaviours. It's one thing to have an open hutch when the rabbit had access to other space and can come and go but to keep them locked up in such a thing is cruel. And I think it is also cruel and irresponsible to not vaccinate a rabbit who is very likely to come into contact with wild rabbits possibly infected with myxi.

Rubbish , just because your rabbit managed to live until 8 doesn't make its existence happy , it just means it potentially lived a long , miserable life . Lots of people leave dogs home alone all day and don't walk them , it doesn't make it right just because the dog lives until it's 17 .

Floral. When did I say he was in the hutch all day??

He was in the hutch overnight, a large run in the garden when I was at school/we were out and had the run of the garden when we were in. In the winter he moved into the greenhouse and had the run of that in daytimes.

He was very friendly, more affectionate than any other rabbit I've ever had, more trained and tolerant than any other rabbit I've had. And yes, thank you, I do think he was happy.

I think that some animals are quite passive in temperament but that does not mean they are happy necessarily.

Maybe I'm not comparing like with like. But I think I'm going to step away from this part of the conversation now.

I do wonder what the point of having rabbits is if you aren't going to let them hop around at all.

Actually I think the reason the head is probably defensive about this is likely to be either that he keeps his own rabbits like this or he remembers rabbits being kept this way in the 80s as I do and thinks it must be ok then.

Are they in the hutch all the time?

Good on you for fighting for the OP. Bunnies are so intelligent. A friend of mine kept one as a house rabbit. It was litter box trained and everything. Totally adorable :)

"house rabbit" in terms of it had free range of the house

What I'm trying to say is that in isolation a tiny hutch and no contact with vets doesn't always make for an unhappy and poorly bun
That is the statement I was reacting to , and I'm sorry it might not make it a poorly bun but it certainly won't be a happy one .

Floral. I think I've misrepresented myself and my thoughts. If their hutch is used as overnight accommodation and they are moved to more spacious accommodation for most/all of the day then I stand by my statement. If they never move out of the tiny hutch then I guess no, it's almost certainly not true.

Fair enough , it did seem that some of your statements were contradictory and you've caught me in argumentative mode 😬

Maybe I'm being naive but I'd just assumed that the school had a run of some description.

Well the RWA say that rabbits shouldn't be locked up at night either. This is I guess why it's impossible for schools to care for rabbits adequately.

The rabbits do have a built fenced area around the hutch which they use in the day (I don't know how much) but they are locked in the hutch at night. At least they are now not literally on top of each other but the situation still isn't ideal.

It's the weekend/holiday issue that still concerns me.

If they have a safe area to exercise and a more appropriate hutch then the general during the week stuff -whilst not being entirely optimal - doesn't sound utterly utterly terrible.

Floralnomad was about to say the same, you do not need to have a cut for a rabbit to get fly strike.
We use a spray on ours every week, even in the winter.
Id like to know how many times they're cleaned out too.
Those poor buns.
lottie we've always had house rabbits too
One right now is currently trying to chew the bed spread

I think it's madness for a school to have pets of any kind because vet bills can be enormous for just about any animal. Unless the headteacher is willing to pay for veterinary attention he shouldn't have bought rabbits.

I can also quite clearly imagine the janitor telling the HT to bugger off at the mere idea that he comes in daily during holidays/weekends to let rabbits in and out. Some schools also have PFI contracts meaning that they can only be open for a certain number of hours or else they have to pay extra costs.

I've been thinking about this some more. It's maybe really not fine now that they have a bigger hutch (depending how big the new hutch is and whether it's all enclosed) like I said earlier.

Yes, many rabbit owners do secure their rabbits overnight in a smaller space than during the day but in the summer that's dusk, not 3/4pm.

If the caretaker (or someone) lived on site and they were basically their pet and their living accommodation was okay and all their needs were being met and the kids weren't taking them home and were being taught good animal care then that's one thing, but that's not this situation.

They're not vaccinated, there's no budget for insurance or vets bills, there's no sensible plans for weekends and holidays, their diet didn't sound too awesome, and it doesn't even sound like anyone at the school have given any thought to actually looking after them.

It is completely suboptimal. It's good that they now have much better living quarters during the week, and that the headteacher is now having to think through some of the things he should have considered before taking them on. But it just should never have happened.