House Rabbit Havoc (Introducing Rabbits)

Member Name: manonfireuk

Product:	Introducing Rabbits
Date:	21/09/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: They're very entertaining to watch and lovely creatures

Disadvantages: They can cause a lot of damage, take a lot of care, a lot of cleaning.

A few years ago I dercided I wanted a pet. My wife does not like cats or dogs and we didn't have an outside space and so I thought I would have to do without a little furry friend. However, after searching the internet for many hours for a suitable pet we discovered you can house train rabbits! I had a rabbit when I was younger and so I was very happy with the idea.

We bought a rabbit from someone who was planning to get rid of theirs and had advertised so on gumtree.com and I'm glad we rescued him because they had him in a small cage in front of a big plasma tv!

Before you bring your bunny home you need to make sure you've got a big enough cage. It should be long enough for them to have a little skip around and tall enough for them to be able to stand up and stretch. Also make sure you have plenty of sawdust, hay, dry food and fresh veg for when they move in. Also make sure you have a working water bottle, food bowls and a 'litter tray'. Rabbits are very clean animals and they generally choose to do their business in the same place all the time. Once you've figured out where that place is you can lay a tray down in that area with sawdust or paper or similar material. That way they will always go to the toilet in the same place. If your rabbit does start doing it's business elsewhere as well then i'm afraid you need to pick it up, put it in the litter tray and put your rabbit in the tray too just so it gets used to the smells and it recognises where it should be going to the toilet!

There are some downsides to keeping a house rabbit. For one, they like to chew wires, skirting boards and scratch paint off walls. There are a few ways you can try and combat this problem. You can buy an 'anti-chew' spray from the pet shop or vets. This has a horrible taste to the rabbits and should put them off. However, this doesn't always work. Option two is to cover your walls and wires up with boards or whatever you can find around your house but this will obviously make your house look very messy! Option three is you could put up with having to re-decorate every few months but that can be a pain and very expensive! Or finally, the best option that we've found is to not let them have access to your whole house and limit the damage! In our previous house they had the run of the spare room (but if you do this, don't forget about them, it's easy to not pay them so much attention when they're away in a different room). In our current house we have a fairly large living room and so far cornered off a corner for them which they're more than happy with.

If you're worried about the rabbits destroying your home it's also a good idea to buy some things to occupy them. Find tubes and fill them with paper, they love running through them and digging their way through a tube. Also if you have anything delivered to you in large cardboard boxes, keep a hold of them, they're very useful for creating little dens and hideaway places for your rabbits.

Another downside is, make sure you have the time to clean them properly. Rabbits cages can get very smelly very quickly and you don't want your whole house smelling like that either and so they will need cleaning every few days. That is why it is best to fill their cages with sawdust rather than carpet. Sawdust can be easily thrown away, cleaning carpet and having to keep finding scraps of carpet to fill their cages with can be a nightmare!

If you're planning to get more than one rabbit then this also has it's advantages and disadvantages. When we just had the one rabbit we found he was very affectionate. He would hop around the house and even jump up onto the settee and sit on our laps to be stroked. However, once we got a second rabbit he wasn't bothered about us anymore! He much preferred chasing his new friend around!
If you do get a second rabbit and you've already had your first rabbit for quite a while then it is best to introduce them in a neutral place where the first rabbit has never been. Rabbits like to scent their territory with their scent gland underneath their chin and so if another rabbit moves in it can make them feel threatened. Therefore we introduced ours in the bathroom! You need to be patient, it can take several 'meetings' for the rabbits to get used to each other and you need to be on hand to grab one of them with a towel or something if they start to fight. Once they have gotten used to each other one will always be dominant over the other and do a lot of chasing around but it's just something you get used to seeing, they're friends really!

Also, unless you want 100's of rabbit babies, make sure you get your rabbits neutured frist!

Finally you need to keep an eye on the rabbit's diet. If a rabbit hasn't eaten in 24 hours it's digestive system can shut down very quickly and your bunny will be no more. So always keep an eye on their eating habbits so you'll easily pick up on any problems. This means you also need to find someone reliable to look after your rabbits when you go on holiday. If you're just going away for a few days then they can survive if you fill their runs and cages with a mix of food but anymore than a few days and you need someone to check up on them.

To summarise, owning house rabbits can increase the levels of chaos in your home but they are also such nice animals. I can sit for hours watching all the silly things that they do, plus your visitors will love them too (unless they're allergic to animal fur!) :O)

Summary: Funny Furry Friends