To get a load of bunnies for the kids?

[JoanCollected]

Any rabbit owners who do it properly here who can advise me? I have finally agreed to get rabbits for my daughter and other kids. Mostly daughter (9) as she loves animals and has proven to be very responsible minding other pets and animals, as well as being organised and mature in general. I’ve tried googling and have a pretty good idea but it’s not the same as hints from real owners in the context of my own set up.

Ive an omlet run which I’ve bought a long tunnel and additional fox proof run off it for them to be in safely. They will be in a larger area that is chicken fenced and walled full of grass and trees. My chickens live there and I am planning to slowly introduce them to each other. (Anyone ever done this?).

Bunnies would be able to dig out of the area when let loose, but anyone know if I can get them to imprint enough on their big fenced area to at least go back or stay close when given freedom? We could only let them loose when supervised but ideally I like them to have as much freedom as possible while making sure they’re in their safe runs at night.

I think we’ve loads of space for 4 but is 2 better to make pets of? Would they be less friendly if they’ve more of their own buddies?

im planning on wood shavings in their hut as I’ve loads for my chickens. Is there anything easier for cleaning? Or better for bunnies?

I haven’t a good or water dish yet, any recommendations?

Anyone know if they are wise enough not to fall into a pond?

Thanks for any advice.

You do understand that they will eat everything in the garden ?

My husband rescued one and it has the run of the garden. It has killed every plant I had in the garden bar the bamboo (& she's trying her best to eat her way through it) and foxgloves( which she doesn't touch).

She's killed the ferns, the roses, the fuscia's, the lilly's. Everything.

Only upside is I've not had to cut the back grass since we got her, but she's trying her best to kill it as well.

I would not get another rabbit - As someone has said the amount of poo is unbelievable - but thankfully she chose a scrappy bit of ground to use and that's where she always goes.

I am quite sad reading this as we had a bunny when I was a child (teen). She was a dwarf rabbit and we did let her run around the garden free range (and lived in the shed at night) but I do wonder how miserable she might have been now. Same with guinea pigs, I think there is a lot more awareness about how to look after them properly now.

Agreed, she did eat everything in the garden (and tried to chew cables when she came into the house as well).

Vaccinations (annual) are about £85/year per rabbit. This is a must, as wild rabbits carry diseases which can be brought into your property on shoes if you take a country walk, for example.
Male neutering is about £100 (I don’t know about females, but the operation is more difficult, so I assume more?).
My bunny boarding for holidays is £15/day for my bonded pair.
Their digestive systems are complicated and delicate. If they stop eating hay, their guts back up. If their gut backs up, it’s too painful to eat. The gut must constantly be in motion, so it’s a viscous circle. GI Stasis is real, and if you don’t act quickly, they can be dead in a few hours. We had a Sunday GI Stasis emergency, requiring an immediate vet visit and gut stimulant injections/painkillers—£150.
On return from boarding, they need EC medication for 28 days. EC is spread through other rabbits leaving traces behind, and causes permanent damage/permanent head tilt, so a preventative course of EC meds is required after each boarding visit.
Wood chips are not good for bunnies—use straw instead.
They don’t like to be handled.
Each bunny produces approximately 200 poos per day, so the litter box mess is real (but there is still lots of sweeping up in their living area—probably only 80% of mine end up in the box).
Given that they don’t like to be handled, as a beginner, it’s best not to get a long-haired breed.

Only advice would be if your a first time owner would be get a bonded pair and make sure you get them neutered at the right age regardless of being male or female they need doing .
I rescued two males rabbits who had been kept in a hutch for the first 2 years of their life. Never was allowed out. Obviously they had already reached sexual maturity and when I got them home the amount of damage they had done to each other was appalling. Bites, cuts, gashes and scabs everywhere. For their own safety I had to separate them. The damage had already been done their bond was quite obviously broken. Got them neutered and nursed back to good health. Then I slowly rebounded which took months and numerous scuffles. Now they life together living happily and will lay together grooming each other.
I will prewarn you tho their bond can break at any point a bond isn’t guaranteed and you could have to go through the bonding process.
inregards to them living with chickens mine mingle with ours and do not bother each other

Oh and as a previous poster has already said vaccinations are an absolute must!

our local RSPCA always has rabbits, often bonded pairs.

We had numerous rabbits when the DC were small - we had a huge garden and we ended up taking in rabbits other friends had rejected. I would not recommend them as pets, for every one that is quite sweet and likes to be handled you get one psychopath and two grumpy gits.

Vaccinations, fly strike, overgrown nails, biting...... they need a lot of space - not a good idea to mix them with chickens - we tried, unless you have a scrupulous cleaning regime the chick poo gets into their fur / embedded in their feet. Even worse if your chickens can get above the rabbits!

We had multiple pets, lots of different animals, but I would not recommend rabbits unless you really have a lot of time, space and attention you can give to them.

I would get a pair of kittens/cats instead - much easier to look after

I'm going to 'buck' the trend and say that rabbits make wonderful pets.... IF you put the time and effort in. They are sociable, intelligent, trainable, beautiful, entertaining and full of character. You need to interact with them patiently and frequently if you want them to be tame rather than feral!
It sounds like you have plenty of space for them, but unless their area is totally predator-proof and dig-proof you will need to supervise them. They will eat everything so you need to make sure that all plants they can reach are safe.
They need annual vaccinations and neutering (regardless of whether you have a male/female pair). Bonding rabbits can be tricky and take a long time. Even bonded rabbits can fall out and fight.
Where ever you live in the UK there will be a rescue you can get to. Just Google rabbit rescues. I'm in Gloucestershire and there are several nearish to me.
Good luck!

I’ve had dogs, cats, horses all sorts of livestock throughout my life, but rabbits as pets are a step too far for me. They just don’t work as pets without some very serious commitment and to keep on top of their welfare is really hard

Definitely monitored only. Its not just foxes, it's cats, birds of prey etc.

I know nothing about rabbits but I do know about chickens and I wouldn’t keep anything with them. Chickens can be vicious. Mine ate mice!

This is why I got my males (adopted from the same litter) neutered at 4 months. A lot of people mistakenly think that two males are okay form a breeding standpoint. They must still get neutered so that they don’t kill each other. So many male pairs 6mo-1yr old on the pet sites are available for rehoming—“All of a sudden, they started fighting and I can’t cope anymore, so I’m rehoming them.”

I also had a Dutch male as a kid, he was lovely and quite the rascal. He loved to snuggle and in winter, he'd come indoors for much of the time (just a few hours outside in the full daylight) and stretch out along my legs to watch tv. Very neat with his toileting. Otherwise he had a big hutch with secure run, but he had the run of the garden (about 1/4 acre) during the day.

He did get out of the garden (his domain, he'd chase dogs, cats and even strange people out) a fair amount but he'd always come back. He had a girlfriend at a neighbour's house, so he'd go off to visit her early in the morning and I'd find him stretched out in the sun on the back step waiting for breakfast when I went out. He'd lead me back to the garden. We couldn't work out how he was escaping until one day he took pity on us and showed us how he was using an old chair arm to springboard over a 7' high fence. Then he turned to face us like he was waiting for applause. He was amazing. But from what others' experiences are, I guess he was an anomaly. He was very healthy until he got cancer at age 13.

Get Guinea pigs instead- four girl herd. They are awesome

@vix3rd it’s true they nibble a lot!

I think with any plan for a new pet there’s an element of “suck it and see”. I would love to let my bunnies zoom and bounce all over my garden but it wouldn’t be safe - because some of my plants would upset their tummies and there are foxes nearby. I give them a good life, but one that is fenced in! Sometimes it feels cruel but they have plenty of room to run, so I hope they aren’t too frustrated. Like any animal or even human, we don’t get to do exactly as we choose all the time!

I grow plants round the edge of their hutch - they love herbs, roses and strawberry leaves - and rotate the pots so that the plants get chance to recover and the bunnies don’t gorge themselves. This way the bunnies get a varied diet and I retain my garden. I also give the bunnies the branch clippings from my pear and apple trees to gnaw on and nibble the leaves. It’s really been fun planning the garden to be entirely “edible” for them!

As long as you know you can cope with the long term care of the rabbits go for it.
As loads have said they just aren't the wonderful child pet they are portrayed to be .
I've always enjoyed having them friendliest ones were the Dutch ones .They are all different and watching them run about in a huge space is lovely.

Please do not get rabbits. They're more akin to livestock than pets. They need a huge amount of exercise and are prone to biting and kicking. They're prey animals and their instinct is to escape and hide. Some people manage to turn them into pets, but this takes a lot of time, perseverance and effort. They're not suitable for children.

You'd be better off with guinea pigs. I never had any problems with my guinea pigs, but I'd never have rabbits again.

We have wild rabbits in our garden (neighbours tell us they were escaped pets about 10 years ago) and I love watching them hop about together. They need space and exercise and freedom to run around. The little buggers dig holes in our garden and eat our plants but I do love watching them and I think it would be so sad and a real shame for them to live in a box on somebody’s patio.

Rabbit are amazing pets. We've just adopted one from the RSPCA and one from PAH. No, they don't like being picked up, but if you have a large walk-in run, then you can sit in with them. Mine come up for rubs and are so cute and entertaining to watch! My 10 year old loves them! Mine are litter trained, so not much mess. We also have chickens and when we are sitting with them let them out to a fenced off area together, they're still getting used to each other rabbits ignore the chickens but the chickens are a little bit freaked out but will soon settle as they have with our dogs and cats. I'll attach a picture of our set up we have an omlet run with hutch inside.

Exactly! I knew how much work and time they needed but I could not leave them in that tiny hutch fighting to what could have been death. So I took them on. One of them had severe urine burn from sitting in filth and needed steroid cream for the wounds. They now have all the room they should have to be normal rabbits and they have turned out to be the most lovely rabbits. When I got them you couldn’t handle them without them bucking continuously and scratching arms to shreds and one will now will quite happily run up and nudge me and jump on my knee. The other is still very weary but he’s the one that got the brunt in all the fighting. Trust is building but will take more time

This is our set up the run is 3mx3m and we have been letting them out supervised into a bigger area too.

There are loads of rabbits in rescue. Check out http://www.rabbitrehome.org.uk/

As others have said, they do not make good children's pets. They find handling very stressful. I would also not really recommend keeping them with chickens - interspecies communication will be difficult and one or other is likely to get injured.

A mixed sex pair where both are neutered is the best. If getting from rescue this will probably already be done, but otherwise call around your local vets (but don't just go with the cheapest, make sure they are very experienced with rabbits as not all are). They also need annual vaccinations. Check out the rabbit welfare association for loads of information.

If you get baby rabbits, they won’t have a true bond, just a baby bond, and you’ll have to rebond later once they’re neutered (and they do need neutering).

The omlet runs aren’t great and not fox proof.

I got rabbits. I don’t recommend them!

I bought a rabbit for my son and it was a terrible decision. It hated being touched, and bit and scratched when we had to move it to clean its cage and runs. Rabbit urine really smells and constant cleaning was needed. In pet value there was zero return but we persevered. Never again!

Just to reiterate what others have said - please, please, please do not buy rabbits. Rescues are overwhelmed with rabbits. I know you said you'd contacted a rescue place, but there are many others full of rabbits needing homes. And the beauty of a rescue is that they can give you a bonded pair, and also, will be able to tell you about their personalities. If you are near Bristol, this place can help: thelittlestlivesrescue.org.uk/