If you're a rabbit owner, you need to read this! Did you know that GI stasis is a common health condition that can affect your furry friend's digestive system? It can cause them to stop eating, poop abnormally, and even lead to death if not treated properly. But don't worry, I'm here to help you recognize the signs before it's too late.
GI stasis is a condition that causes a rabbit's digestive system to stop moving. This causes them to stop eating and poop abnormally (if at all). It's important to catch it early. To prevent GI stasis, make sure your rabbit has a healthy high-fibre diet, plenty of exercise, and access to fresh water at all times. If you notice any abnormalities, visit a vet immediately. This is an emergency!
In this article, I'll be discussing everything you need to know about GI stasis, including the signs, causes, and treatments. So, let's get started!
NOTE: This blog is meant to inform and is not meant for treating your rabbit without medical advice from a vet. If you suspect GI stasis, see your vet immediately!
Gastrointestinal (GI) stasis is the slowdown or complete stoppage of a rabbit's digestive system. In other words, it’s a gut condition where a rabbit’s intestine becomes static and ultimately stops moving.
It happens when certain factors, like the absence of fiber, alter the rate at which materials move through the gut. As a result, the stomach and cecum will no longer empty their contents as quickly as they should.
This can be distressing for rabbits' and leads to a lack of appetite for food and water. As a result, the bunny will become severely dehydrated leading to further issues.
Dehydration promotes the compression of the contents in the gut, including food, hair (from grooming), etc. This makes it difficult for rabbits to move this solid mass through the gut which leads to problems like impaction.
Rabbits experiencing this will feel bloated and uncomfortable, making them lose interest in eating or moving. Rabbits need to eat every day, all day long. If they refuse food for an extended period of time, they will develop fatty liver disease (hepatic lipidosis), which will eventually lead to death.
Gut stasis in pet rabbits can result from a variety of factors. See some of the major causes below:
Dehydration – inadequate water intake
Stress (change of location, loss of a rabbit companion, noises, etc.)
Lack of dietary fiber
High-sugar diet
Intestinal blockage
Pain from other illnesses and disorders
Dental issues
Prolonged use of antibiotics
Inadequate exercise
Hair ingestion (especially during the shedding season)
Mobility issues
Take Note:
Any rabbit illness is capable of resulting in GI stasis. Hence, whenever your rabbit gets ill, monitor them for any symptoms of stasis. This will help you catch it early.
Rabbits experiencing gut stasis normally feel reluctant to eat or drink anything. This is a very common sign that gastrointestinal stasis has set in.
Since GI stasis affects the gut mobility, your rabbit’s poop will change and look different from normal. See some of the poop you might notice if your rabbit is experiencing gastrointestinal stasis:
Strung Poop: This poop appears as fecal pellets tied together on a string. This string is normally tied together by strands of hair ingested during grooming.
Tiny Dry Fecal Pellets, which look much smaller than normal rabbit poop. Aside from seeing this abnormally tiny poop, you might also see a reduction in poop production or no poop at all.
On-again/Off-again diarrhea accompanied by abnormally shaped poop
Regular or mushy poop accompanied by irregularly shaped fecal pellets
Tiny fecal pellets covered in yellowish or clear mucus
It’s normal for a healthy intestine to make soft gurgling noises. If a rabbit suffers from gastrointestinal stasis, these quiet gurgles become very loud and aggressive. This is a painful movement of gas in the stomach.
In severe cases, the rabbit’s intestine might make no gurgling sound at all. This means the gut stopped moving completely and is an emergency.
A rabbit might become lethargic (weak and less active) if s/he suffers from gastrointestinal stasis. If a rabbit stops moving due to pain, you can recognize the signs by your bunny sitting in a hunched position or pressing the belly to the floor while refusing to move.
GI stasis is an emergency. If you suspect that your rabbit is suffering from GI stasis, take steps to help your bunny immediately. The key is to recognize this condition before it becomes severe.
At these early stages, a tweak in your rabbit’s diet and some additional care can help your rabbit recover. You can force-feed your bunny baby food made of vegetables and fruits, force-feed critical care for herbivores, and encourage eating by offering tasty greens.
Make sure to call your vet in advance. Here are a few more things you can do while waiting for your vet to respond:
There should be a steady supply of hay available to your rabbit every day. You can change to a different kind of hay to encourage eating.
Moreover, you can do this for about two days. This will help increase a hungry bunny’s appetite for hay. Giving rabbits a fiber-rich diet is the goal!
It’s not just by offering your rabbit clean water at all times. Interestingly, you can help increase your rabbit’s hydration by offering them very wet veggies.
Toys do the trick! As they move around and play with interactive toys, the motion helps their digestive tract to work better. You can also let them free roam in a rabbit-safe area to pique their curiosity and get them moving.
Take Note:
After these practices, you should see some improvement. But if nothing changes about their poop or more signs of gut stasis begin to show, do not hesitate to see a veterinarian.
Gently massaging your rabbit’s abdominal region can help stimulate and restore motility in a static stomach. Do this by placing your rabbit on your lap or any surface where it feels secure.
Just make sure your rabbit can't hop down from the surface and get hurt. When you’ve made your pet comfortable, start to massage the stomach area.
With your fingertips, try to gently press your rabbits stomach in a right to left motion to move feces along the intestine. Make sure to use firm pressure but soften your touch if your bunny shows signs of discomfort or pain.
What’s more, if you could slowly raise your bunny’s rear legs a few inches to stretch them. It stimulates the easy flow of gas in the stomach.
Alternatively, you can also use electric vibrating massagers for bunnies. It’s also effective in relieving a static gut. Above all, massage regularly, so long as your rabbit allows it.
Monitoring your bunny's body temperature is critical in dealing with GI issues. Since a rabbit's normal body temperature is around 101-103°F, a sudden change in temperature can indicate that something is wrong.
For instance, a high temperature (more than 103°F) normally indicates infection or stress. Lower body temperatures (less than 100°F) or hypothermia, are cause for concern.
Hypothermia is a sign that your rabbit might be experiencing shock or bacterial infection in the bloodstream (septicemia). Visit a rabbit-savvy vet immediately after you notice your rabbit’s temperature drops.
Before that, you should try to restore your bunny’s temperature to normal. You can do this by placing warm water bottles (wrapped in a towel) around your rabbit. Or placing them on a reptile heating pad. Just make sure they can't chew on it or bite the cables.
In rabbits, anorexia can quickly result in hepatic fatty liver disease and stomach ulcers. It is dangerous for a rabbit to go 12 hours without eating food.
Hence, you should keep your rabbit eating as long as your vet confirms that there isn’t any blockage in the GI tract by doing x-rays or ultrasound scans. The vet will prescribe medication for pain and gut motility which should help with appetite and gut movement.
All of these are to prevent the rabbit from getting other complications. “Critical Care" is a great ready-to-mix emergency supplement for rabbits that are sick and unable to eat.
When you can’t access critical care for your rabbit immediately, you can use homemade alternatives. Simply add about two to three teaspoons of rabbit pellets to warm water (about half a cup).
Allow them to soak till they become soft. The goal here is to blend them into a fairly liquid paste (pudding-like consistency). Add more water, vegetable baby food, canned pumpkin, or tea to the pellet fluff to do this.
Next, use a large bore feeding syringe to administer the food to a rabbit after it cools. Use extreme caution. Getting food in the lungs could be fatal!
Giving a warm, clear water enema with a very small amount of odorless laxative-grade mineral oil may be beneficial. Epsom salts can be added to the enema fluid (at around 1 tablespoon per 30–40 cc of water). Do not do this without an okay from your vet, however.
They aid in hydrating compacted materials by drawing fluid from the surrounding tissues into the intestines. However, if you use Epsom salts, you must make sure the rabbit is properly hydrated with a subcutaneous lactated ringer solution. This must be done by a vet.
This is necessary to prevent the body’s reservoir of fluid from draining. Please ask your vet to walk you through this procedure before you try to administer an enema to your rabbit.
Since gut stasis also results from a lack of fiber, rabbits prone to it should have high-fiber foods as part of their daily diet and preventative treatment. Dietary fiber is essential for a healthy gut.
It also facilitates good bowel movement. An excellent and steady source of dietary fiber is hay. And rabbits can eat hay as much as they want to.
Make sure there is an abundance of timothy or other grass hay for your rabbit. Stay away from alfalfa hay if you have an adult rabbit. This is because alfalfa contains too much protein and calcium to be a nutritious portion of the diet for rabbits. It also is more likely to cause bloating in rabbits.
Metoclopramide (Reglan) or Cisapride (Proposed) are common intestinal motility agents that resolve static intestines. That’s right! Giving rabbits these motility drugs can help restore movement in the intestines.
Furthermore, both drugs mentioned above work pretty well. Moreover, the side effects associated with long-term use of Cisapride are lesser than those of metoclopramide.
What's more, your rabbit may need to take these drugs for up to two weeks before their intestinal motility is fully restored.
Your rabbit can take cisapride and metoclopramide at the same time in severe cases of GI stasis. The two drugs work on separate sections of a rabbit’s digestive tract. Hence, together, the effect is greater!
Take Note:
Your vet should carefully check for any possible drug interaction between these motility drugs and any other drug(s) your bunny is taking, regardless of the illness.
For instance, your rabbit should never take narcotic painkillers with Reglan (metoclopramide). Together, they have the potential to cause a deadly drug interaction.
When a rabbit is dehydrated, associated with GI stasis, it will weaken and eventually fall sick. Additionally, the desire to keep living will fade away to a well-hydrated rabbit.
When rabbits do not want to eat or drink during this condition, it’s ideal to give such a rabbit subcutaneous fluids to prevent the worst from happening.
However, there’s an exception to this treatment. This is when your rabbit suffers kidney failure or other health conditions that do not support a rabbit taking these subcutaneous fluids.
Interestingly, administering subcutaneous fluids to your rabbit is something you can do at home. Hence, ask your vet to teach you how to do it properly.
Your vet can also prescribe these drugs for your rabbit’s GI tract. They help soften and loosen the compressed mass of contents (food, hair, etc.) in your rabbit's gut. And this eventually helps to restore intestinal motility.
Papain and bromelain are common protein-dissolving enzymes. They come in powdered form and are available in most health food stores around you.
Some common appetite stimulants are B-complex vitamins (oral or via injection) and Periactin. A good thing about B-complex vitamins is that it doesn’t just stimulate appetites alone.
They can equally cover up for what a rabbit loses by not eating cecotropes for long. Your vet should give you instructions on how to use these stimulants. Normally, Periactin comes in 4 mg tablets.
A regular-sized bunny, about 4-6 lbs., can take 1 mg of this particular stimulant orally. And s/he should have it two times a day. Your rabbit must stop eating, so stimulating their appetite or force-feeding them isn’t bad.
It’s normal if your vet prescribes antibiotics for your rabbit battling with GI tract issues. These antibiotics help to prevent Clostridium spp. from overgrowing. And for this particular bacterial issue, Flagyl is mostly used.
Additionally, your rabbit can take antibiotics to fight against any lesser bacterial infection. For this purpose, a vet may prescribe antibiotic drugs like sulfas or fluoroquinolones.
Bacterial infection contributes to the stopping of the GI tract as well as intestinal blockage. But overuse of antibiotics can do the same. So make sure your rabbit does not unnecessarily take antibiotics.
The abdominal pain associated with gut stasis is much. And many rabbits facing this issue easily give up and die when they can no longer bear the pain.
So this means that a part of treating your rabbit suffering from GI tract issues involves pain relief. Your rabbit will need to take pain-relieving drugs, particularly analgesics, that will help it fight the abdominal pain.
Some pain relief drugs (analgesics) will not only relieve pain but also promote peristalsis. Make sure a veterinarian prescribes the analgesic for your pet. They know better, especially the pain-relieving drug suitable for your rabbit.
Furthermore, your veterinarian would also give you instructions, especially on how often your rabbit should take them.
Rabbits in GI stasis may be given motility-modifying drugs, antibiotics (in the event of a bacterial infection), anti-inflammatory medications, and pain relievers. Your rabbit will also need nutritional support and fluid therapy for rehydration.
As alarming as this condition seems, it’s something you can handle and treat at home so long you’ve made necessary plans for the outcome of this condition.
It’s always better to see a vet, but this doesn’t mean you can’t have some home solutions to this problem any time your rabbit faces it. This comes in handy when you can’t reach the nearest vet or have none in your area.
Currently, no scientific veterinary study proves pineapple can effectively treat GI stasis in rabbits. However, bromelain, a digestive enzyme in pineapple, helps loosen the protein materials that bind fur balls together in a rabbit’s stomach.
For this reason, many people regard fresh pineapple juice as a natural remedy for stasis. However, that’s not the case! Rabbits have a very acidic stomach with PH levels that can destroy these enzymes before they work in the gut.
Unfortunately, pineapple can hurt your rabbit instead. It’s packed with sugar, which is bad for a rabbit’s digestion. And if a rabbit is in stasis, extra sugar in the gut is risky. It’ll worsen their condition.
This is a major sign of constipation in rabbits, which can eventually lead to serious health issues such as gut stasis, liver diseases, and dehydration. As soon as you notice unusual eating or pooping patterns (less than normal) in rabbits, don’t hesitate to see a vet immediately.
Rabbits can go for more than a day without pooping. However, this isn’t a good sign, and if they stay longer and closer to two days, it could be fatal.
So when you notice your bunny hasn’t pooped for a while, see a vet right away. A rabbit that doesn’t poop regularly isn’t healthy.
Now you know what GI stasis is all about in rabbits. With this article, you can identify the symptoms and catch this condition early when it happens.
Though it might be uneasy, your rabbit shouldn’t stay without eating when they’re experiencing stasis. Treating gut stasis is mostly focused on getting a rabbit’s digestive tract to move again.
A veterinarian will prescribe medications as part of the treatment of this gut issue. It is also important that you visit the vet on a regular basis to monitor your rabbit's recovery.
Don't leave without checking out our Complete Rabbit Care Guide!
Naturally, rabbits love to dig and chew on stuff. It's very normal!
Unfortunately, the things around your home are no exception when it comes to their chewing needs. This makes them destructive when moving around your home unsupervised.
Aside from ruining your valuable furniture and possessions, your bunny can also get hurt. Hence, this is why you must bunny-proof your house if you want a free-roaming bunny.
Keep reading as we discuss bunny proofing and the different ways to do it in detail.
Bunny proofing is an essential part of rabbit care. And the purpose is to keep your rabbit safe from harm and protect the valuable properties around your home.
In addition, bunny-proofing helps bunnies use their instincts in productive ways. This equally means providing your rabbit with chewing and digging alternatives that are pretty fun.
If all this isn't in place, then your bunny can't roam freely around your home. For this reason, bunny-proofing is very important as long as you have your bunny living indoors with you.
Are you a new bunny owner? If yes, make sure you check out our Complete Bunny Guide!
Bunnies love chewing on things, and it’s a natural behavior. Wires just look like roots bunnies are used to chewing on in the wild.
So this is what every bunny can do and not a bad behavior your bunny developed. Besides worrying about your bunny destroying wires, you should worry more about the risks to your pet.
Wires are toxic to rabbits when they chew them. In addition to this, if a rabbit chews through a live wire, things can be fatal.
Hence, if you have a house rabbit that will often allow it to roam free around your home, you need to cover the wires. Here are ways to do this:
If you have many wires littering around your home, keep them in drawers, boxes, or any container your bunny can’t reach.
Alternatively, you can keep wires high above the floor level. This applies to cables and wires of your TV and other electronics that are normally on the ground.
Do this by clipping or fixing the wires on the walls – a height your rabbit cannot reach. It’s equally important that you make sure no structures are close by which your bunny can hop on to get to the wires.
If you have rooms in your home with a lot of unprotected wires, just block off the entrance to the room using metal baby gates. This way, your rabbit can have access to the room.
Another way to prevent your rabbit from chewing wires is to cover them with wire tubing. Instead of blocking off areas with wires or keeping wires out of your rabbit’s reach, you can use wire tubing to cover wires.
Amazingly, this method protects your wires pretty well. These wire tubes are thick, making rabbits less likely to bite them.
Additionally, if your rabbit is determined to chew through the tubes, it will be hard to get to the wires. This difficulty can help you catch your rabbit in the act on time.
Bunnies in the wild do a lot of burrowing! And this equally involves a lot of digging, which has become a natural rabbit instinct.
At home, they will try to dig and chew through surfaces like your carpet and rugs. No doubt, this behavior is destructive. Unfortunately, you can’t end a rabbit’s digging habit.
However, you can prevent your rabbit from destroying your carpet. Cover the carets first before you allow your bunny to free roam, particularly in carpeted areas.
Your main target should be doorways and corners of the room. These areas are common digging spots for bunnies. It’s ideal to use plastic mats to do this.
They are durable and are very effective in keeping bunnies from chewing the carpet. But without these plastic mats, you can use old cardboard boxes or bath mats.
Bunnies will also chew on the baseboards in your house (if you have them). Like hay and chew toys, baseboards are chewy and can help a rabbit control its ever-growing teeth.
Moreover, baseboards aren’t the structures you would like to see destroyed. To prevent this, you need to also bunny-proof them.
As long as your rabbit will be roaming free indoors, baseboard protection is important, and here are ways to do it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu-6VyKfn50&ab_channel=Sincerely%2CCinnabun
An effective way to bunny-proof baseboards at home is to cover them with cat scratcher mats. Of course, you don’t need to cover every part of a baseboard.
Just protect the areas your rabbit can easily reach. Do this by fixing them to the wall (one that has baseboards).
Moreover, it’s ideal to use flexible cat scratcher mats for baseboard protection. This flexibility helps to cover baseboards around corners of the rooms and doorways.
In addition, these scratcher mats must be flexible and thick enough to prevent your rabbit from getting to the baseboards.
Thin cat scratcher mats can be disappointing. Rabbits can easily chew through them and get to the baseboards.
Now, using wooden planks to bunny-proof baseboards is pretty effective. Here, you’ll have to attach wooden planks to the baseboards in your house. Though it requires some skill, it’s a solution that can last for ages.
However, not everyone can do this, especially if you live in rented apartments, where that’s against making such modifications. In such cases, cardboard boxes can come in handy.
You only have to flatten them up and cover the walls like you use scratcher mats. Nevertheless, this alternative might not be that good-looking.
Fences can also help protect your baseboards from your rabbit. This method involves fencing the perimeter of your room – it should reach all the sides and edges of a room.
It serves as a blockage and prevents your rabbit from chewing on baseboards. Furthermore, you can build a protective fence out of storage cubes.
Get many storage cubes and link them up to form a fence. The fence should be able to cover the perimeter of the room where your rabbit will be free-roaming.
Funnily, you can protect your baseboards with butter apple spray. However, they fade off quickly, requiring you to spray them frequently.
In addition, the bitter taste will keep your rabbit from chewing on the baseboards.
Pro Tip:
It’s very easy to prepare a bitter apple spray at home. Do this by mixing 2 cups of apple cider and a cup of normal white vinegar.
Afterward, shake the mixture thoroughly and pour it into a spray bottle. That’s all it takes!
Another area in your home you will need to protect from your rabbit is the space below furniture. These spots are possible nesting areas for rabbits.
And when your rabbit finds such areas, it can start digging carpets or rugs under the furniture. Moreover, you might not notice it easily due to the spot where it happens. Hence, you need to prevent this on time.
Whether it’s a bed, sofa, or any other furniture with legs, block the spaces under them. A DIY storage cube fencing can come in very handy here.
Get a couple of these fencing panels that cover the furniture you want to be bunny-proof. Afterward, link them up together with zip ties.
Once you’re done creating a fence, fix it to the furniture to ensure your rabbit can access the space beneath it.
If you dislike blocking your furniture with fences, you can cover the rugs or carpet beneath them with plastic mats. It’s an effective solution to prevent your rabbit from damaging the carpet or rug under furniture.
In the absence of plastic mats, you can use cardboard boxes. Just flatten them and place them underneath the furniture legs.
However, this alternative requires you to change the cardboard occasionally. Rabbits can chew through cardboard until they get to the rug or carpet.
If you have houseplants in your home, rabbits can start to chew or eat them and destroy them. In addition, some houseplants in your home might be toxic to bunnies.
Hence, keep your houseplants out of your rabbit's reach, especially on high surfaces. Alternatively, you can keep them hanging from the ceiling.
Above all, the best way to go about this is to restrict areas with houseplants from your rabbits. Even if you keep toxic houseplants to bunnies high above the ground, their leaves can fall off, and your bunny can eat them.
It’s not new to say that rabbits love chewing and shredding paper. Bunnies will happily hop on the shelves or areas with books they can reach.
They’ll then take out books and papers only to rip them apart. So, if you have a bookshelf or library at home, you should restrict your rabbits from getting close to them.
What’s more, you can block the entrance of your library room using baby gates or any other suitable blockage.
If you have a pet bunny staying indoors, you must be very careful of the items you keep around your home. No doubt, many objects in your home can harm your bunnies.
These items include appliances, sharp tools, chemical-based products, and other materials that can hurt your bunny. It can also be food items that are unsafe for bunnies.
To proof your home, you must keep your bunny safe from these items. It’s either you block off your rabbit's access to them or keep them in places your rabbits cannot reach them.
When you let your rabbit out of its enclosure, ensure they don’t stay with other pets. Bigger pets like dogs and cats can hurt your bunny. And this can be unintentional in most cases.
Even if these pets are friendly or well-trained, they are still dangerous anywhere near your bunny. You should let your bunny roam alone or with another house rabbit in a separate area. Your dog or cat can roam freely in other parts of your home.
First, you’ve taken care of things in your house that your rabbit can destroy and could hurt them. Good job! It’s time to keep our furry friend’s attention away from where you distract your bunny.
Naturally, rabbits love to dig and chew stuff. It’s impossible to make them stop! However, you can give them safer alternatives to keep them busy and prevent them from destroying your properties. Let’s look at these elements of distractions for your rabbit below:
Among all the categories of rabbit toys, chew toys are the most important ones! They offer your rabbit more productive ways to use their chewing instincts.
Some examples of chew toys for rabbits include hay balls, toilet paper rolls, sticks, and wooden toys. Additionally, you can get in stores.
However, you can get creative and make chew toys for your rabbit with simple household items.
Owing to a rabbit’s digging needs, you should also give them something to dig to their satisfaction. Get a cardboard box or basket that contains your house rabbit and allow it to dig freely.
Afterward, fill the box with shredded paper, crumpled-up papers, toys, and treats. Let them have fun digging in these boxes while you prevent them from digging through your carpets and rugs in your room.
To sum up, you now know what rabbit proofing is all about and the need to do it. Remember that bunny-proofing keeps your home as well as your rabbit safe.
So, if it's your first time owning a rabbit, it's ideal to bunny-proof your home before letting your pet out of its cage. Certainly, this article has revealed the different ways to do this.
Don't go without checking our 9 Amazing Rabbit Facts!
Credit for the featured image here: Keith Survell
So you're interested in owning a pet rabbit but not sure how much it will cost. Have you considered the cost of food, housing, hay, and even medical care if something happens?
If you've considered the living and maintenance costs, the only thing bothering you is the initial purchase! How much does a pet rabbit cost?
Rabbits cost $20-$50 on average. This is the price a pet store will offer. Alternatively, you can adopt one from animal rescue shelters for a lower price, around $5-$25.
Expect to pay more if you plan on getting specific breeds of pet rabbits from a breeder. Common pet rabbit breeds can cost $50 or less. However, rare breeds usually cost more, about $100 or more.
Now you know the price of a rabbit. But it doesn't end here, as there's much to owning a rabbit. Your new bunnies will need supplies!
This article helps you estimate how much a rabbit costs initially and in the long-term bunny care.
Before bringing your new rabbit home, you must get a few necessary things.
Moreover, these items all add to the cost of owning a bunny. See some rabbit core supplies below:
Your new rabbit will need a hutch or cage, whether it will be living indoors or outdoors. Moreover, getting an indoor rabbit hutch is more expensive than an outdoor hutch.
Indoor hutches cost around $50-$400, depending on the quality. Rabbit cages are less expensive items than hutches. Expect to spend about $50-$100 on a rabbit cage, depending on the quality.
Moreover, you’ll need to get a cage with enough space and good flooring. Abnormal flooring like metal grate or wire flooring can cause health problems like sore hocks for your bunny.
RECOMMENDED READING: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RABBIT HUTCHES
Rabbit feeding bowls are very important items that you need to make available beforehand. Your rabbit will need a separate bow for food and one for water.
Price varies and depends on the quality of food or water bowl that you want to get for your pet. It starts as low as $10.
Trimming your rabbit nails is an essential part of rabbit care. Hence, you need to have a pair of rabbit nail clippers available that can always come in handy whenever you need to keep your bunny’s nails short.
It normally costs as low as $5-$50 to get a pair of animal nail clippers (suitable for rabbits).
SEE ALSO - COMPLETE GUIDE TO CLIPPING RABBIT NAILS
If you plan to litter-train your new bunny, then a litter box needs to be available. Litter-training your pet helps reduce how your pet scatters its poop and urine.
See our complete step-by-step guide to potty training rabbits! A litter box won’t cost you much – about $5-$10 will do!
Every day, your bunny will need time outside its cage or enclosure. And this is when playpens come in handy.
Additionally, rabbits need plenty of exercise, so you'll need to provide them with a safe place to run and play. So, playpens are also great rabbit-proofing structures.
Hence, they are items you might want to get before bringing your new bunny home. Playpens can cost $70 or more.
To have a healthy and happy bunny, keep boredom far away from your pet! Your rabbit should have interactive and fun experiences. And a great way to do this is with toys.
It could be chewing toys, hanging toys, puzzle toys, or digging toys. Whichever rabbit toy, you will need to get a variety of toys for your new bunny. These can cost you from $20.
Rabbits live for about 5-10 years on average. And this means you will have to spend on them for a while. Some particular breeds might need more ongoing supplies and care than other rabbits.
So the monthly cost of having a bunny differs. Generally, here are the things every rabbit owner will be spending on monthly:
A rabbit’s diet mostly consists of hay. And your bunny needs a steady supply of fresh hay every day.
Mixed-grass hay is just recommended for bunnies. This could be a mixture of timothy hay, orchard grass hay, oat, and meadow hay.
Getting hay, especially from pet stores, will cost you around $20. However, a cheaper alternative is to get hay for your bunny from local farmers.
Fresh vegetables, especially leafy greens, and herbs, are important additions to your rabbit diet after hay. Rabbits not only love eating leafy greens but also benefit a lot from them.
This means your rabbit will need it often. What’s more, you can get them from a pet store that deals with rabbit supplies or those of other small animals.
However, if you grow some of these veggies in your garden, it’s the best and equally saves you money.
No doubt, a rabbit can have a diet free of pellets.
Pellets are less important parts of a rabbit's diet but still, help balance the nutrition your rabbit gets. It will cost you around $5 a month.
Remember, we discussed litter boxes as part of the upfront costs of rabbit care. A litter is different, and you need to change it frequently.
This litter is the absorbent material placed inside a litter box. Expect to spend as little as $20 on every litter change.
Hygiene is important in rabbit care. So expect to do some regular cleaning. What’s more, you can’t just use any cleaning materials to tidy up your rabbit's cage or feeding bowls, litter box, etc.
It’s important that you use pet-safe cleaning materials! They can cost as little as $2 monthly.
Your new pet bunny will need to be spayed or neutered, especially if you get it from a breeder.
A spay or neuter surgery is incredibly important for your rabbit’s health. And it's mostly important for female rabbits. This surgery reduces behavioral issues bunnies have.
They'll be less aggressive and won't mess the whole house with their urine often. Sadly, spay and neuter surgeries can cost you a lot of money, around $300-$600. However, it's worth it!
In addition to this, spaying surgeries for female rabbits are more expensive than neutering surgeries for males. This is because spaying females is more complicated.
What's more, you'll benefit more if you get your rabbit from a rescue center. These spay and neuter their rabbits before allowing any adoptions.
When you get a new rabbit, pet insurance can lessen your worries during times of emergencies such as accidents and illnesses.
Pet insurance equally helps you save money by slashing vet bills. It can cost about $25 a month for basic coverage.
It’s your duty to safeguard your home from your rabbit and your rabbit from your home. Rabbits love to chew stuff and might end up destroying your valuable properties.
Moreover, they can end up chewing on harmful materials that can hurt them. Hence, if you plan to leave your rabbit to roam free around your house too often, then you need to bunny-proof your home.
It will cost you. These can be an upfront purchase, but you might need to replace them over time. See some bunny-proofing materials and their cost below:
Cubes fences ($40)
Wire Covers ($15)
Scratching Mats ($15)
There's no denying that pet rabbits can be expensive. These cute creatures require a lot of care and attention.
Additionally, their diet must be carefully monitored to ensure they're getting all the nutrients they need.
Furthermore, you should know that you will spend less to own a pet rabbit compared to other common pet animals like dogs or cats. But this doesn’t mean a bunny is a very cheap choice.
Nevertheless, you can keep the cost of owning a bunny down. See some tips below:
1. Buy in bulk. Purchasing hay, pellets, and other bunny food in bulk can save you money in the long run.
2. Make your rabbit toys and accessories. With a little creativity, you can make many of the toys and accessories your bunny needs at home.
3. Shop around for veterinary care. Not all veterinarians charge the same fees for care, so it's important to shop around to find one that fits your budget.
The cost of a pet bunny varies depending on the type of rabbit, where you purchase it, and whether or not you have it spayed or neutered.
However, there are some breeds of rabbits that are more expensive than others. For example, fancy or show rabbits can cost hundreds of dollars.
This depends on a few factors, including the type of rabbit you choose and the level of care it requires. Generally, rabbits are less expensive than dogs.
Rabbits also have different care needs than dogs. For example, adoption fees at animal shelters are typically lower for rabbits than for dogs. You'll also need to purchase less food and supplies for a rabbit than for a dog.
A house rabbit in the UK can cost anywhere from £45 to over £100, depending on the type of rabbit and where you get it from.
Rabbits are relatively low-maintenance pets, but they still require some care and attention. In addition, owning a rabbit in the UK can cost you up to £1000 yearly.
To sum up, pet rabbits can be a great addition to any family, but it's important to know how much they will cost you before you make the commitment.
Remember that a pet rabbit costs more if it's a rare breed and needs special care. Moreover, where you buy a bunny from equally how much you'll be getting it.
The initial purchase price is only a small part of the equation – you'll also need to factor in the cost of food, bedding, toys, and veterinary care. All of these are important if you want a happy and healthy bunny.
With all of these costs considered, a pet bunny can still be an affordable option for many families.
Bunnies are very social animals. So keeping them engaged and active is always good for their well-being. This is where toys come in handy.
Understand that the best rabbit toys can keep a rabbit active, ones that allow them to keep chewing, digging, foraging, and exploring their natural behaviors.
However, just like humans, rabbits have preferences. So don’t be surprised if your rabbit dislikes a toy another rabbit is obsessed with.
You have to try giving your rabbit different toys and know the ones it loves playing with. It’s all about trial and error!
In this article, we'll look at 10 of the best toys to entertain your rabbit to offer the best bunny care possible. But before we go into that, let’s see why your rabbit needs toys.
By Fran Chartres from UK - IMG_2224, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3188100
Providing your rabbit with toys to play with is very important. Let's look at the benefits below:
Rabbit's teeth keep growing throughout their lives. for this reason, they must keep eating chewy foods like hay and grass to wear down their teeth consistently.
However, a chewy rabbit toy can help! Most rabbit toys are chewable, especially ones made of hay and safe, natural items. So, your pet rabbit can play with these toys and keep its teeth busy at the same time.
Rabbits do not need to be inactive. It’s unhealthy for both wild and domestic rabbits. Hence, regular exercise is important for your pet’s health.
Interestingly, toys greatly help to keep rabbits active. Equally, giving your rabbit toys to play with gives them what to chew on, crawl under, climb on, dig into, etc. These are great ways for rabbits to exercise.
Above all, toys help to keep both a rabbit’s body and mind in good condition.
If your rabbit lives alone, they are likely to feel bored very often. And bored rabbits tend to feel easily depressed.
As a result, your rabbit can start to destroy things a lot. And this is a behavior you do not want, especially if the rabbit is out of the cage and moving around your house.
For this reason, you need to keep your pet occupied, especially with challenging activities. And rabbit toys can help you achieve just that. As rabbits creatively play with toys, they equally learn a lot.
Toys do not benefit rabbits only! No doubt, rabbits chew on stuff a lot and can destroy things around your home. Moreover, they can as well be exposed to dangers in your home.
So when it comes to bunny-proofing a home, a toy does two things at a time. They’ll keep your rabbit safe as well as your properties.
Just like wild rabbits, our pet rabbits need things to chew on. It’s a rabbit's instinct! However, you can satisfy their chewing needs with toys, specifically chew toys. They give your rabbit a safer and more beneficial way to use their instincts.
The following bunny toys come in different categories: chew toys, foraging toys, hangings, hides, etc.
We'll be looking at ten rabbit toys, which happen to be the favorite of many rabbits. Let's get started!
A very good way to keep your pet rabbit entertained is to provide it with toys it can play with in different ways. Ball toys are just the best!
Hay balls, in particular, are chewy, and your rabbit can toss them around at the same time. In addition, plastic balls and willow balls are also good options for rabbits.
Understand that the nature of ball toys allows them to keep moving and rolling. So it’s just very entertaining for bunnies.
Interestingly, many other pet animals, like guinea pigs, cats, and dogs, enjoy playing with ball toys. Hence, if you’re giving your rabbits toys to play with, balls shouldn’t be left out!
No doubt, tunnels, and rabbits are just best friends! Many small animals love it!
Remember, rabbits do a lot of burrowing and live in underground tunnels in the wild. Similarly, a tunnel toy mimics this natural living environment of bunnies. This makes them excellent toys for rabbits.
In addition, you can make this more interactive by placing treats in each tunnel for your rabbit to find and eat.
A tunnel toy for bunnies is easy to make from a cardboard box or similar material. However, you can still get some amazing-looking bunny tunnel toys from pet stores.
These are very common chew toys for rabbits and other small animals with ever-growing teeth. Pet rabbits mostly play with these toys by chewing on them.
As a result, it helps to keep the rabbit's teeth from overgrowing. Furthermore, a stick toy could be a twig, tree branch, or a piece of log.
Most importantly, every stick toy must be untreated wood and pesticide-free. Not every tree is suitable for making stick toys for a rabbit. Safe woods for rabbits come from trees such as willow, apple, maple, birch and polar, etc.
Nevertheless, if you can’t prepare safe wooden chew toys for your rabbit on your own, you can always get them from pet stores. “Kaytee apple orchard sticks” are very popular stick toys.
No doubt, a cardboard box can be fun for rabbits in many ways. They are just interactive and help to build a rabbit’s brain power!
A popular way to use cardboard boxes is to create hidden compartments or hides for your rabbit. They equally make great platform toys for bunnies.
This way, your rabbit can always hop on the box and down from it. No doubt, it's just a great way for your bunny to exercise.
Digging is a part of every rabbit’s life. Hence, it’s great if your rabbit has something that allows them to do that in your home.
Moreover, a woven mat is an excellent bunny toy that allows a rabbit to do some digging. These toys are normally made of woven timothy hay or seagrass.
And because of this, rabbits can equally chew on the toy mat as they dig into it.
These are natural rabbit chew toys for bunnies. They are just in their natural form! Some common natural rabbit toys are pinecones and loofahs. Rabbits will have fun chewing on them.
However, you have to make sure it’s safe for your rabbits. Since these are natural and come from outside, you have to make sure it’s clean and safe for rabbits to chew on.
So wash them first and dry them up thoroughly. Pine cones, specifically, will have to dry for about 4 months.
This is yet another toy for rabbits that they can chew on. Interestingly, many rabbits love wicker baskets.
Just make sure they are untreated and have no chemical finishing—paints, polishes, etc. These are chemicals you do not want to get into your rabbit’s mouth. Remember, a good rabbit toy should be made of rabbit-safe materials.
Moreover, make things more interesting by filling these baskets or boxes with timothy hay, shredded paper, or untreated straw. Don’t forget to hide some treats in them too!
These kinds of toys steal a rabbit's attention. Moreover, the fact that they are hanging from the cage just makes them very interesting.
Your rabbit can chew, pull, or bat hanging toys. Moreover, hanging or dangling toys provide mental stimulation and will keep your pet entertained.
What's more, rabbits will mostly love a hanging chew toy. These hanging chew toys could be hanging toilet paper tubes, chew sticks, or even wooden chew toys made from untreated wood.
Moreover, there are lots of attractive rabbit hanging toys you can get in pet stores. If possible, you should include treats in some of these hanging toys.
Let them try to reach for these treats in their toys. It's a much more fun way to have a snack!
Interestingly, even some toddler and infant toys will make good toys for your rabbit. However, you should give your rabbit only hard plastic toys.
First, your rabbits love tossing them around. Secondly, hard plastic toys are safe. Unlike soft plastic toys, rabbits won't be able to tear and eat pieces of them. It's bad for their system.
These plastic baby toys that are pretty fun for rabbits include stacking cups, blocks, rings, rattles, and teething toys.
These kinds of toys are just about creativity. If you know some common items in your home your rabbit loves, that's a good start!
Get some of them and make cool but safe rabbit toys out of them or use them that way. These items could be bottle caps, toilet paper tubes, cans, etc.
Interestingly, you could crumble paper towels into balls for your rabbits to toss around. Any rabbit owner can do this!
It's normal for rabbits to lose interest in the toys you get them. This is even common in kids!
A rabbit might fall in love with a particular toy and then completely ignore it later. This can make you spend often just getting new toys for them.
It doesn't have to be this way. As a bunny owner, you can keep your rabbit interested in its toys.
All you have to do is some rotation. Giving them a particular set of toys every time isn't right! That's how they lose interest in them.
So swap their toys very often. Let them have a different set to play with every couple of weeks. Two sets of rabbit toys are enough!
This will prevent them from getting bored with their toys and, at the same time, keep their interest intact.
Your rabbit should have plenty of toys to play with. They should be able to get different experiences from each toy you offer them.
Giving your rabbits a few toys might not meet their needs. A better way to go about this is to offer your rabbit different kinds of toys that allow it to use its different instincts very well.
It depends on the kind of item the toy is or the material used to make it. Some soft toys like cardboard boxes or hay balls are safe for rabbits to chew on.
However, you should avoid things like soft plastic or rubber. There’s every possibility a rabbit will chew these items. And since they are soft, your rabbit might eat them, and that’s not good for their health.
This is why any unnatural rabbit toy needs to be hard. This way, they won’t get any piece of them.
Rabbits can play with toilet paper rolls just the same way they can play with paper towel rolls or any other cardboard rolls.
Toilet Paper rolls are great for tossing toys your rabbit will enjoy tossing around. Additionally, they are more fun when you create DIY toys out of them.
To sum up, toys are essential to keep your bunny entertained. Bored bunnies don't do so well and start to give their owners concerns.
Moreover, only provide your rabbit with safe toys to play with. Some of these toys can be common household items.
However, you can get some amazing bunny toys from pet shops. It's worth spending on so long as it enriches your rabbit's life!
Among all rabbit toys, chew toys are very important. Rabbit chew toys include wooden, hay-based, cardboard, and other safe chewy materials.
That's our list of some favorite rabbit toys. Get them for your rabbit and find the ones they love the most.
Bell peppers are healthy veggies with great flavor that does wonders in salads and many recipes. It's equally full of many healthy nutrients which seems like a good veggie for bunnies.
But you need to be sure about this first. So, can rabbits eat bell peppers?
Of course! Bell peppers are a good veggie snack for rabbits. But rabbits can only eat these treats in moderation.
This is because of the high sugar and calcium content. Bell peppers are healthy for rabbits because they contain many nutrients.
They include vitamins C, A B-6, and E, magnesium, potassium, etc. which are important for your rabbit’s well-being.
In addition, bell peppers are also known as sweet peppers. They are tasty and crispy, which is why rabbits love them!
It's clear now that bell peppers are healthy treats to feed your bunny. Still, it's equally important to know what part of bell peppers to feed your rabbit.
That being said, keep reading below as we discuss this next.
RECOMMEND READING: COMPLETE RABBIT CARE GUIDE!
The flesh, which is the main part of bell peppers, is what you should feed your rabbit. This is the inner part of the bell pepper as well as the safest part to feed bunnies.
In addition, bell peppers have many other parts including the leaves, stem, skin, core, and seeds. But are they also safe for rabbits to eat? Let’s find out next!
Feel free to serve bell peppers with the skin. Similar to the flesh, bell pepper skin is safe for rabbits to eat.
But since it’s the outer covering of bell peppers, it’s more exposed to dirt and chemicals. So make sure to wash bell peppers very well before serving them to your bunny.
Although bell pepper seeds and core aren’t toxic to rabbits, it would be better to ignore them. The seed and cores lack nutrients and rabbits can’t digest them easily.
They're tough and can choke your bunny. Hence, you should take out the core and seeds from bell peppers before you feed them to your rabbit.
It’s a bad idea! Bell pepper stems aren’t toxic but are hard to chew and digest for rabbits. These can cause choking hazards for rabbits.
What’s more, it’s tough enough to cause blockages in your rabbit's gut. Hence, to be on the safe side, feed bell peppers to rabbits without their stems.
Yes! Red bell peppers are equally suitable for bunnies. However, this color contains the most sugar.
Hence, you need to feed red bell peppers to rabbits in small amounts. Rabbits should have them as treats and never as a main meal.
Wash peppers properly and remove the seeds and the stalk. Preparing them is easy and similar to what you might do to any other pepper.
Rabbits can also eat orange bell peppers. It’s safe for them to eat when you serve them in moderate amounts.
That’s right! Orange bell peppers have high sugar content next to red bell peppers. Hence, it's risky to feed them too many orange bell peppers.
Above all, orange bell peppers are packed with healthy vitamins and minerals that rabbits need to stay healthy. What’s more, this orange variety has a good flavor and many rabbits enjoy it.
Rabbits can eat yellow bell peppers as long as the stems and seeds are removed. This pepper is sweeter than the green but is less sweet the red bell pepper.
As with other varieties, you should offer yellow bell peppers to rabbits as a snack only.
Absolutely! Rabbits can eat green bell peppers. Green bell peppers are the kinds that have been harvested earlier, in their growth.
This, in turn, makes their taste slightly bitterer.
They have the lowest sugar content, which makes them safer for rabbits to eat than all other bell pepper varieties.
This doesn’t mean you should freely give so much of it to rabbits. Rabbits should have green peppers only as treats too.
These peppers have more calcium in them than other varieties. So stick to feeding only small amounts to bunnies.
Funny enough, most bunnies do not like green peppers at all because it’s less tasty.
Jalapeño peppers are a type of chili pepper which means they're very hot peppers. Rabbit's digestive system does not process very spicy foods.
Hence, feeding your rabbit Jalapenos or any other chili can create serious issues for them. That being said, avoid this pepper and other chilies.
Bell peppers are packed with healthy vitamins and minerals. Here’s a table showing the nutritional information about bell peppers, particularly the red variety.
Note: Per 100g serving
Fiber - 2.1 g
Calories - 31 Kcal
Sugar - 4.2 g
Carbs - 6.03 g
Protein - 0.89 g
Fats - 0.3 g
Vitamin C - 127.7 mg
Vitamin A - 157 μg
Vitamin B-6 - 0.291 mg
Vitamin E - 1.58 mg
Vitamin K - 4.9 μg
Calcium - 7 mg
Potassium - 211 mg
Magnesium - 12 mg
Folate - 46 μg
Above all, bell pepper treats make a great addition to your rabbit’s diet due to their nutritional value. These peppers are loaded with nutrients that offer several health benefits to a rabbit.
Fiber - Dietary fiber helps to keep your rabbit’s digestive system in good condition. It also promotes smooth regular bowel movements and prevents digestive issues.
Vitamin A - Improved eye health and decreased risks of various ill effects.
Folate (Vitamin B9) – Folate enhances the production of red blood cells in your rabbit’s body. This vitamin also helps convert glucose to energy. It boosts fertility in bunnies.
Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine) – Vitamin B6 helps regulate rabbit metabolites. It is beneficial for digestive function and good health.
Magnesium – This nutrient helps to prevent and as well treat bladder sludge in bunnies.
Potassium – This nutrient is essential for your rabbit’s health. It equally helps to reduce stress and improve sleep quality in rabbits.
Understand that you don’t just feed bell peppers to rabbits that way. It’s very important that you prepare them before serving them to your bunny.
This is to eliminate any risks of bell peppers on your rabbit’s health. To ensure you do it right, follow the few steps below:
Avoid leftovers or rotten bell peppers for rabbits. If you have ones growing in your garden, they’re the best peppers to use.
These parts include green art like the stem and leaves. Additionally, you should remove the core and seeds.
This is necessary to eliminate dirt, debris, pesticides, etc. hygiene is important when it concerns what your bunny eats.
Slice the bell pepper into bite-size pieces so your rabbit can eat them easily.
Serve your bunny the sliced fresh bell peppers. Serve bell peppers in a bowl mixed with other healthy veggies.
Take Note:
Remove the leftovers from your rabbit eating area once you know your bunny is done eating. If the leftover bell peppers stay for long, they can develop bacteria and start to rot.
Certainly, these leftovers aren’t what you want your bunny to put in its mouth.
Even though bell peppers may be beneficial to rabbits, they can still have negative effects when you don’t feed them the right way. Bell peppers contain so much sugar, especially the red varieties.
And if your rabbit eats too many bell peppers, it might experience digestive issues due to excess sugar. These issues could be bloating, diarrhea, etc.
In addition to this, overfeeding bell peppers to rabbits increases the risk of them getting excess calcium. This is not good for bunnies and can lead to urinary problems like kidney and bladder stones.
Rabbits should have a handful of bell peppers per serving. However, you shouldn’t rush the feeding. Introduce bell peppers to rabbits slowly.
This is to prevent them from reacting to it just like how most rabbits do to new foods. Start with smaller sizes, and if your rabbit shows no negative reaction, then feel free to give them a bigger yet moderate amount.
Not at all! Serve bell peppers to rabbits, not more than twice a week, especially the red, orange, and yellow varieties. They are high in sugar so your rabbits should not eat them too often.
Furthermore, your bunny can have green bell peppers more often than the other varieties. But still, you don’t have to feed them green bell peppers every day.
These bell peppers have more calcium content than other varieties. So you should also be careful about your rabbits getting too much calcium.
Of course, you won’t feed bell peppers to rabbits every day. Try swapping the treats your bunny gets from time to time.
And to do this, you would need to use other healthy veggies just as bell peppers. See some of these healthy bell pepper alternatives below:
Celery
Tomato
Carrot
Brussel sprouts
Cabbage
Lettuce
Beet greens
Cilantro
Cucumber
To sum up, rabbits can eat bell peppers (sweet peppers) but only in moderation. These veggies cannot be a main part of your rabbit’s diet.
Regardless, your rabbits will still benefit a lot from eating bell peppers as treats. These peppers contain many healthy nutrients including vitamins C, A, B6, folate, among many.
Remember, you should properly prepare bell peppers before feeding them to rabbits. Follow the steps in this article to make sure you’re doing it right.
Preferably, serve this treat with lots of hay and green leaves. For more information about a rabbit's diet, refer to this guide!
Summer means soaring temperatures, which can be dangerous for our bunnies. Rabbits struggle to regulate their body heat in very high temperatures, making them susceptible to heatstroke.
But don't fret! You can easily help your bunny stay cool and comfortable. This guide shares 12 effective tips, starting with their natural cooling strategies. Let's dive in!
RECOMMENDED READING: COMPLETE BUNNY CARE GUIDE!
By Josefine S.
Unlike humans, rabbits lack sweat glands. How do they stay cool then? Here's their secret arsenal:
While these mechanisms are impressive, the summer heat can still overpower them. Stay tuned for tips on helping your bunny thrive in the warm weather!
By Gribin Isaf
While some pet owners believe animals handle heat better than humans, rabbits are particularly vulnerable. Unlike dogs and cats who can pant effectively, they struggle to regulate their body temperature and are susceptible to heatstroke.
Therefore, air conditioning is crucial for your rabbit's well-being during hot weather. Even if you're not home, consider keeping it on at a moderate setting to ensure a safe and comfortable environment.
By Adamantios - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
During scorching days, consider moving your rabbit's enclosure to the basement! Basements tend to be significantly cooler than main floors due to being underground, with fewer windows and less sun exposure. This can be a great, air-conditioning-free option for keeping your bunny comfortable.
Ceramic and marble tiles can be helpful for regulating a rabbit's body temperature during warm weather. Unlike other surfaces that heat up quickly, these tiles retain coolness longer. It's true that people find them refreshing due to this property, but there's no evidence that rabbits specifically use them to mimic human behavior.
Here's how to use tiles for your bunny:
Additional tips:
While it's true rabbits lose heat through their ears, spraying their ears will help to cool them down, but it isn't always the best cooling method. In fact, the Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund (RWAF) advises against it due to various risks:
Safer alternatives:
Remember:
By focusing on safer alternatives and prioritizing environmental cooling, you can help your bunny stay comfortable and healthy in warm weather.
While frozen water bottles seem to work great for some, expert advice recommends against them due to safety concerns.
Potential dangers:
Safer alternatives:
Good air circulation is crucial for keeping your rabbit cool in summer! But while air circulation is important, direct air blowing can be harmful to rabbits. Here's why:
Safe air circulation methods:
Preventing dehydration is crucial for rabbits, especially during summer heat.
Hydration Essentials:
Ice cubes:
Remember:
While the idea of using a DIY ice-fan system is creative, it's not always the best choice, but in an emergency situation, go right ahead.
Reasons to avoid:
Safer alternatives:
Rabbits naturally adjust their fur to the seasons, shedding their winter coat for a lighter summer one. Here's what you need to know:
Molting:
Clipping:
Remember:
Shade is crucial for rabbits, both indoors and outdoors, especially during scorching summer days. Here's how to ensure your furry friend stays cool and avoids the dangers of overheating:
Shade Essentials:
Heatstroke Alert:
Remember:
While the idea of giving your bunny chilled greens sounds refreshing, experts advise against it for several reasons. Room temperature wet greens on the other hand is always a great option.
Risks of chilled greens:
Safer alternatives:
READ ALSO - HOW TO FEED RABBITS
Removing SOME bedding is great, but you need to make sure there's enough left to provide some comfort to your bunny.
Risks:
Safer alternatives:
Understanding Heatstroke:
Rabbits lack sweat glands and thick fur, making them vulnerable to heatstroke, a life-threatening condition during hot weather. Both indoor and outdoor rabbits are at risk, especially young, old, or stressed ones.
Signs of Overheating:
Immediate Action:
If you suspect heatstroke, seek immediate veterinary attention! While waiting, try these temporary cooling measures:
Prevention is Key:
Remember, quick action and preventive measures are crucial to keeping your bunny cool and safe during hot weather.
A temperature that’s above 25℃ (77℉) is too hot and equally dangerous for a rabbit. Bunnies do not tolerate so much heat. Due to high temperatures, rabbits can suffer heat stroke, which can eventually lead to death.
Anything below 15℉ is too cold for bunnies. As long as they are not wet and exposed to direct wind. If you live in cold parts of the world or during winter when it gets pretty cold, you should try to keep your rabbits warm and comfortable.
Moreover, it shouldn’t be too warm to avoid overheating in bunnies. A rabbit can tolerate the cold more than heat.
Wild rabbits live in burrows underground, which provides shade. This is why they can control heat.
In addition, they are most active during the cool times of the day, usually in the morning and the evening. Hence, this practice helps keep their body temperature cool during the summertime.
Keeping your furry friend cool during hot weather is crucial for their health and well-being. While rabbits have natural cooling mechanisms, extreme temperatures can still pose a risk.
The information provided in this guide offers various safe and effective options to help your bunny stay comfortable throughout the summer. Remember, you don't need to implement every single tip; choose the ones that best suit your rabbit's needs and your environment.
Key takeaways:
By following these tips and prioritizing your rabbit's well-being, you can ensure they enjoy a happy and healthy summer!
No doubt, it delights every bunny owner to see their pet hopping happily around. Their powerful feet need to stay healthy!
However, certain foot infections can arise and cause your pet to move less frequently. And a common foot infection in bunnies is sore hocks. Here’s what you need to know about it.
A sore hock or bumblefoot (medically known as ulcerative pododermatitis) in rabbits is a condition where the skin around a rabbit's hocks suffers infection from bacteria.
This article will explain in detail what sore hocks entails and how you can easily identify it on your own!
In addition to this, we'll be providing ways to effectively treat and manage this condition.
Now, let's get started!
A rabbit having bumblefoot will start developing soreness on its hocks – the heel of the rabbit’s foot.
It can appear in different ways depending on how far it's occured. What’s more, these sores can become infected or start to bleed.
Furthermore, if ulcerative pododermatitis stays for long without treatment, it can become worse and bring about the following:
Deep Cellulitis – this is when the deep cellular and connective tissue—tendons, ligaments, etc.—around the affected skin suffers severe inflammation
Deep Pyoderma – this is a worsened condition characterized by severe inflammation of the sore accompanied by wounds that are filled with pus.
Understand that sore hocks can happen to rabbits even if they receive proper care.
This is because a lot of factors bring about ulcerative pododermatitis in rabbits. See them below:
This is a major reason for sore hocks in rabbits. Hard flooring—tile, wood, etc.—tend to place pressure on the hocks of a rabbit.
Moreover, wire flooring squeezes the feet and causes them to bend abnormally. This can gradually create sore hocks. In addition, abrasive surfaces can cause rug burns and can wear away the fur around the hock, which can lead to sores.
So much weight places more pressure on the hind feet of a rabbit. What’s more, when a rabbit is overweight, it will adjust its posture in a way that adds more pressure to its feet.
Additionally, if a rabbit does not exercise regularly, its feet can start to develop sores from being in one spot for a long time. What’s more, the surface they stay on almost all the time might be a contributor to the ulcerative pododermatitis issue.
A rabbit with long nails will have most of its weight placed on the back of its foot, which happens to be its hock area. This can gradually create sores on their hocks.
This brings about the greatest dangers of bumblefoot – infection! When a rabbit often sits on urine-soaked feces, they are prone to skin infection.
This kind of environment encourages the development of sores on rabbit’s feet. Bunnies with weaker immunity are likely to get bumblefoot this way.
Damp bedding, damp flooring and anything exposing a rabbit's feet to moisture too often, brings about bumblefoot. These are not good for a rabbit's back feet.
It's normal for rabbits to thump their feet. And when they do it so much, it can wear away their hocks leading to this issue. This is a rabbit behavior you can't control.
Some rabbit breeds like the Rex rabbits have a very fine fur that easily wears away with friction. It makes them more vulnerable to bumblefoot.
In addition, ulcerative pododermatitis is common with Large breeds of rabbits like the checkered giants and Flemish giants.
Ulcerative pododermatitis can also occur when rabbit's are infected by the following bacteria:
Staphylococcus aureus
Bacteroides spp
Pasteurella multocida (pasteurellosis)
Escherichia coli
Proteus spp.
Sore hocks in bunnies can come with symptoms that differ depending on the seriousness of the condition.
Here are some of the signs you will see if your rabbit is developing sore hocks:
Loss of fur around their heel
Swelling and redness
Broken skin
Ulceration
Pressure sores
Scab development
All of these can lead to further symptoms such as:
Abnormal posture (standing, sitting, and walking)
Unwillingness to walk
Refusing to eat
Nervousness
Abscess
Pain and discomfort
Inflammation of the tendons/ deeper tissues (tendonitis)
Bone marrow infection (osteomyelitis)
Swelling of the joint tissue (synovitis)
It's best if your veterinarian does the first treatment. Afterwards, you can continue the subsequent treatments at home.
However, here's how the treatment of sore hocks should be:
Understand that the affected area must be cleaned before further treatment. However, if your bunny is feeling so much pain from the infection, it might try to struggle during the cleaning process.
Try to keep your rabbit calm, as this process is one you should not skip. Use any suitable wound cleaner to clean the affected foot. Afterward, you can apply antibiotic cream to it!
After the sore and skin around the affected foot are clean, wrap it with a bandage. All you need is a bandage and a gauze pad or any soft cotton.
Start by placing a gauze pad right underneath the feet (right on the sores). After doing this, begin to wrap the rabbit’s foot with the bandage.
As you wrap the foot, wrap up to the rabbits lower leg - a little bit above the ankle area. The entire bandaging should look like a “bootie”. Your vet should show you how to properly bandage your rabbit’s feet.
Furthermore, there's no need to wrap their feet up to their toes. Moreover, make sure you do not wrap the foot too tight or too loose. If it's loose, it will easily shift away from the foot.
Probably, the bandage can slide up to their knee area or slide out through the toes. On the other hand, a tight bandage won’t allow blood to easily flow to the rabbit’s feet.
Remember, bumblefoot can be painful and rabbits can be uncomfortable during treatment. Hence, try to keep them calm and reward them with treats often while they receive treatments.
Since ulcerative pododermatitis is a bacterial infection, it’s important to include antibiotics during the treatment. Normally, a vet will prescribe antibiotics for you to use.
In addition, it could be oral antibiotics in liquid form. Rabbits can take this through a syringe. Moreover, antibiotics in this oral form are ideal for serious stages of ulcerative pododermatitis.
Additionally, you can use antibiotic ointments. Your rabbit does not need to take this kind of antibiotic into their bodies. Antibiotic ointments are applied directly to the sore instead.
Take Note:
Not all antibiotics are ideal for treating ulcerative pododermatitis. Most antibiotics can reduce the important bacteria in your rabbit’s guts. And this can lead to gastrointestinal (GI) issues.
Sore hocks normally come with pain as a symptom, especially when it’s in a severe stage. Hence, you should help your rabbit feel better by giving them pain medications.
It’s equally important that you get one recommended by the vet, especially for ulcerative pododermatitis. These pain medications are normally anti-inflammatory drugs.
When giving pain medication to a rabbit, it’s not easy for them to take it the way humans do. So you should try grinding it, especially if it’s in pill form, and mix with their favorite foods or treats.
Continue home care and treatment while your rabbit recovers. Rabbits don't like bandages, so do not be surprised if they rip it off very often.
However, it should not stop you from bandaging their affected foot whenever you need to do so. But do not forget to always clean the affected foot before bandaging it.
A veterinarian might give you some antibacterial solutions to do the cleaning at home. Moreover, always follow the instructions the vet gives you.
It's equally important that you change the bandages and pads whenever they get wet. If they are wet and remain on the rabbit’s feet, they will contribute to sore hocks rather than helping to heal them.
Above all, visit the vet regularly for check ups and inspection of the recovery process.
As a bunny owner, here are the things you need to do to keep sore hocks far from your rabbit.
Make sure you keep your rabbit’s nails short to ensure they don’t stand, sit or walk with much weight placed on its heel. Click here to know how to trim your rabbit’s nails properly.
Generally, poor hygiene is very bad for the health of a rabbit. Specifically, a dirty cage littered with poop and pee brings about sore hocks infection.
Most importantly, make sure you clean up regularly even before your rabbit's poop and pee accumulates.
In addition to this, you can potty train your rabbit so it does not mess up every corner of its cage. Disinfecting your rabbit's cage often can help get rid of bacteria.
If your rabbit has so much weight, adjust its diet and avoid foods that could promote unhealthy weight gain. Just keep their diet balanced!
In addition, you should encourage your rabbit to exercise very often, preferably daily.
Take your time to prepare suitable flooring in your rabbit’s enclosure. What’s more, you should avoid wire flooring or using abrasive materials for your rabbit flooring.
It should be soft enough not to place so much pressure on a rabbit's feet. Go for soft cotton or layers of fleece.
Keep your bunny's flooring and bedding dry. A damp surface will encourage bacteria growth and skin issues.
So whenever your rabbit's living area is damp, take your bunny out of it until it's dry.
Get a more spacious cage for your rabbit if it’s too small. If a rabbit can’t fully stretch out in their cages, then it’s too small for them.
If a rabbit can’t stretch out often, it will sit straight most of the time. And this puts more pressure on their back foot, which you don’t want.
Regularly inspect your rabbit’s hocks, preferably daily. It can help you catch the development of sore hocks earlier. An early stage of ulcerative pododermatitis is always easier to treat!
Carpets, although being somewhat soft, can cause rug burns, which creates soreness around the bunny's feet. This can eventually bring about sore hocks.
Ulcerative pododermatitis is normally not a fatal condition especially when treated early. However, you should know that it’s a deep infection in a rabbit’s heel.
Hence, when it reaches a severe stage, it will be very difficult or nearly impossible to treat. As a result, the infection will greatly affect the rabbit’s health in many ways that can lead to death.
No, sore hocks do not go away on their own. When it occurs, you have to treat it as soon as possible. It might never heal if it reaches a very severe stage.
This condition can easily return often. Hence, you should try as much as possible to reduce the chances of it happening again.
To conclude, sore hocks are bacteria infections on a rabbit's hock area.
Moreover, bumblefoot can occur from different factors including a direct infection from certain bacteria. However, the good thing is that you can prevent it.
Certainly, this article has shown you how to do just that. Remember that loss of fur around the rabbits heel is normally the first sign of ulcerative pododermatitis.
Hence, you should monitor your rabbit’s feet for this and other early signs everyday, if possible.
And when you notice any signs, do not hesitate to meet the vet for a sore hock diagnosis. It’s always better to spot it early so it doesn’t reach a more severe and painful stage.
No doubt, sore hocks can be a serious concern. Nevertheless, with the right treatment, your rabbit will happily hop around in no time.
If you're a new rabbit owner and just got a bunny for the first time, don't leave without reading our full bunny guide!
Bunnies can’t speak to us like kids do whenever they’re not feeling too well. For this reason, knowing about their health status can be a bit challenging. However, there are other ways to know about your rabbit’s well-being.
And a common way is through their poop. That’s right! If you just got your first rabbit, you might not know this, but rabbit poops say a lot about their health.
However, their poop can come in different ways and a majority are abnormal. This article will reveal all you need to know about the different rabbit poop and what they tell you about your bunny’s health.
That’s right, fecal pellets refer to normal and healthy rabbit poop. Fecal pellets are quite similar to cocoa puffs in appearance.
Furthermore, this is the kind you should be happy seeing your bunny producing. Moreover, you need to get familiar with your bunny’s normal poop.
It can help give you clues about what seems right or not in your rabbit's diet and health, in general.
By Pictoscribe
Moreover, you can easily identify a normal rabbit poop with the description below:
A normal rabbit poop should be about 7-12 mm in diameter. This means they could be as small as green peas to about the size of chicken peas.
They take the form of tiny round balls. However, some poops might occasionally have a slightly different structure and that’s normal.
But if you continue to see non-round poop very often, it could be a sign of digestive issues. Hence, you should take your rabbit to the vet.
A normal rabbit poop color can be dark brown to light one. Whether dark or light brown color, what matters the most is if the poops have a uniform color.
Healthy rabbit poop doesn’t smell bad at all. In fact, most of the odor in a bunny's cage or litter box comes from their urine.
It should feel hard, not soft. And If broken open, it should appear dusty inside.
Now you should know that rabbits produce two kinds of normal poops. And we’ve just looked at the first one – “fecal Pellets”. Moreover, the second normal rabbit dropping you may see are cecotropes.
Similar to rabbit normal pellets, cecotropes are also healthy kinds of rabbit poop. In addition, cecotropes are tiny clusters of soft pellets that are equally loaded with nutrients for your rabbit.
They are essential dietary items formed from the indigestible parts of a rabbit’s diet. So when you often see or hear about a rabbit eating its poop, these kinds of poops are cecotropes.
Rabbits eat them to receive all the nutrients their food offers. Cecotropes are important for your bunnies.
Moreover, here's how to easily identify cecotropes:
Appear tiny on their own with a diameter that’s only a few millimeters. However, when they’re in clusters, they can be about 1-2 in () small.
Their shape depends on how many single cecotrope clusters together. Cecotropes normally appear in a berry-like shape together.
These bunny poops are normally dark brown with a little shine due to the thin mucus layer that covers them.
They can stink a lot, especially when the thin membrane covering them is torn.
These kinds of rabbit poops have a sticky and soft texture, which can easily turn to paste.
Take Note!
It’s rare to see so many cecotropes lying around like normal fecal pellets. This is because rabbits normally eat them directly from their anus.
Moreover, rabbits don’t normally produce too many cecotropes. However, when they do, it mostly happens because their diet is high in sugar content.
So take note of this and make sure your bunny isn't getting too much sugar from the foods you serve to it.
Oftentimes, rabbit poop can be in a chain form. They’ll appear like pearls on a single string.
But in this case, the string holding these poops together is a rabbit hair strand. In addition, this poop is quite common and your bunny is likely to produce it.
However, it’s a common poop you’ll see long-haired rabbit breeds producing. During the seasons that rabbits shed fur, they tend to consume more fur. And this could also bring about this kind of poop.
However, your rabbit shouldn’t produce so much of this poop. A large amount of these kinds of poops indicates that your rabbit is consuming plenty of hair.
See how to identify strung-together rabbit poop below:
Poops strung together should all have a similar size. And if the gaps between every poop strung together are similar, it indicates your rabbit’s digestive system is doing pretty well.
They should appear in the form of well-rounded balls. However, some poops on the hair strand can be misshapen, but it’s not always like this.
Every poop on the string should be uniform in color. It could be a dark or light brown color.
Take Note!
Rabbit cannot vomit. So when so much hair gets into their system, they can only excrete it like poop. However, you should know that it’s a lot of work for a rabbit’s digestive tract to push these hairs through the system.
This can likely form hairballs and block your rabbit system. Hence, you can prevent this if you take your time each day to groom your rabbit.
Brush their fur at least once a day. This greatly helps in reducing the amount of hair your rabbit ingests.
Rabbits regularly produce new poop which is a sign that their digestive system is working fine. Bunnies' digestive system works in a very smooth and orderly way.
As a result, the normal poops they excrete are very similar in size and color, and structure. Nevertheless, a rabbit’s gut can slow down a bit sometimes.
This, in turn, changes the form of their poop. It can start to appear doubled – two poop colliding together. Moreover, this kind of poop appears longer but retains the color and texture of healthy poop.
Furthermore, if you see a few of these poop around plenty of healthy poop (fecal pellets), it’s normal and not something you need to worry about. It can be momentarily and occur when your rabbit gets stressed suddenly.
However, a lot of double poops and indicate that your rabbit’s gut is slowing down beyond normal. At this point, you should see a vet as soon as possible. Your rabbit’s gut health matters a lot!
Rabbits' poops are small, but there are times their poop can appear much smaller. And this tiny kind of poop is a sign that something isn’t fine with your rabbit.
Additionally, it can come from stress or a disturbing illness. Nevertheless, if you’ve checked and your rabbit has no sign of illness whatsoever, then you shouldn't panic.
Small-sized droppings should return to normal, healthy pellets if everything is okay with your rabbit. It can take a couple of hours.
However, if your rabbit's poo continues to be pretty small, it means your bunny is ill or experiencing discomfort. Hence, you shouldn't hesitate to take your rabbit to a vet.
These are small misshapen a rabbit's poop, which normally means your rabbit is not doing fine. When you notice these kinds of poops, you need to see the vet.
These deformed poop are normally caused by dehydration and poor feeding. In addition, it can result from gut blockage and when food can’t pass through your rabbit’s digestive tract easily.
Above all, you should take this seriously and have it treated like any other serious health issue in rabbits. However, there are situations where it’s normal to see your rabbit's poop like this.
A normal occurrence is when rabbits are recovering from GI stasis or surgeries they had.
Cecal dysbiosis is another kind of abnormal rabbit poo. Moreover, they are cecotropes that are uniform and not in clusters.
Furthermore, these uniformed cecotropes have a paste-like texture, which is equally sticky. This gummy texture makes it easily stick to a rabbit’s butt area and eventually form a ball of poop.
In addition, cecal dysbiosis stinks a lot and normally will attract flies. This abnormal rabbit poop can occur when gut bacteria in rabbit systems become unstable.
Moreover, these poops are common symptoms of stress or diseases. Some of the most common causes of this unhealthy poop include:
Low fiber diet
High sugar diet
Urinary tract disorders
Obesity
Upper respiratory diseases
Dental issues
Take Note!
Cecal dysbiosis isn’t harmful especially when it lasts for only a short while. It can resolve on its own.
However, if your rabbit's poop keeps appearing as uniformed cecotropes for a long time, you should take them to the vet so it doesn’t develop into a very serious condition.
Another mushy rabbit poop is true diarrhea. And just like the uniformed cecotropes, they are equally cecotropes but very mushy ones.
In other words, true diarrhea is just the same as runny stool. Moreover, this kind of abnormal poop is mostly common in baby bunnies.
That’s right! When baby rabbits are weaned very early, they’re likely to experience true diarrhea. This is because they don’t yet have strong immunity against harmful bacteria that can cause problems in their bodies.
On the other hand, adult rabbits can also experience diarrhea, but it comes mostly from poisoning or infections from parasites.
Nevertheless, mushy cecotropes are not common rabbit poops, but they are dangerous. Hence, as soon as you see your bunny producing these kinds of poop, don’t hesitate to see a vet.
Generally, rabbit fecal pellets dry up after a while and it’s natural. But when rabbits' pellets appear dry immediately after they poop, it can mean your rabbit is dehydrated.
These kinds of rabbit poop do not only appear dry but also crumbly and out of form. It can be dry to the extent that freshly secreted poop will be so fragile and can fall apart easily.
Additionally, you should know that intestinal disturbances, a low-fiber diet, or appetite loss can equally bring about dry rabbit poop.
First, this is way different from the thin mucus that normally covers healthy cecotropes, which we discussed earlier. This particular mucus in rabbit poop is very easy to notice.
This mucus has a jelly-like appearance with a thick and slimy nature. Moreover, it normally appears connecting rabbit fecal pellets.
Sometimes this mucus covers rabbit poop entirely. However, you can also see your rabbit producing this mucus separately without being attached to fecal pellets.
Furthermore, you should know that his abnormal rabbit poop mostly happens due to intestinal disturbances. And some common causes of these intestinal issues are cecal impaction, parasite infection, or mucoid enteropathy.
Moreover, it's very common to see your rabbit producing this poop when they are experiencing GI Stasis. More specifically, it happens when they are about to experience it or afterward.
In addition, mucus in poop is another rare kind of rabbit dropping. Nevertheless, it's the kind of rabbit poop you should worry about. If your rabbit produces it, visit the vet along with a sample of the poop.
Numerous factors can bring about an abnormality in rabbit poops. However, some factors are the most common causes and we’ll be looking at them below:
Feeding rabbits foods high in sugar can create problems in their gastrointestinal tract. And these problems can range from mild ones to serious ones.
Moreover, a diet lacking fiber can also cause problems in your rabbit's digestive system. Moreover, a major symptom of these gastrointestinal problems in rabbits is unhealthy poop.
Some common parasites in rabbits' guts include roundworms, tapeworms, and pinworms. These parasites can cause diarrhea or runny poops in rabbits.
Rabbits have a sensitive digestive system. And this makes their gut vulnerable to illness including the ones that aren't even associated with digestion.
Additionally, if rabbits experience discomfort due to certain illnesses or feel stressed, they can start to have abnormal droppings.
This condition does no good to rabbits and many other small pets. If a rabbit is overweight, it won’t move around very much.
Moreover, lack of movement or exercise normally makes their gut slow down. As a result, rabbits will start to excrete mushy cecotropes and some other abnormal poops that appear tiny or deformed.
When you notice your rabbit isn’t pooping at all or stopped pooping for a long period, it might be experiencing gastrointestinal Stasis. This condition has to do with the slowing down or total halting of a rabbit’s gut.
In other words, GI stasis means your rabbit’s digestion has stopped functioning. And the result is your rabbit not pooping. Furthermore, a vet needs to attend to this condition immediately.
Your bunny can recover if you notice the symptoms early. However, if your rabbit experiences GI stasis for long it can become a more serious condition and lead to death.
To help you easily monitor this condition, here are some signs that a rabbit is experiencing GI Stasis:
Rabbit refuses to eat – Not even their favorite snack!
Tommy produces loud sounds or none
Rabbit feels tired
Your bunny might have a hunched posture
A low-fiber diet
Very Little or no exercise
Dehydration
Intestinal blockage
Stress and anxiety
Sugar-rich diet
Pain from illness or injuries – kidney diseases, dental issues, etc.
Serve your bunny lots of hay every day. They are high in fiber!
Eliminate stressors. Ensure your rabbit's environment comfortable as possible
Encourage your bunny to engage in lots of physical exercises very often
Keep your pet hydrated
Visit the vet regularly for check-ups
Monitor your rabbit for GI stasis symptoms from time to time
To conclude, you now understand how the nature of rabbit poop can tell you about your pet's well-being.
As a rabbit owner, you need to be able to differentiate rabbit normal poops from abnormal ones. Hence, you know the kind of poops you should be happy seeing.
It's equally important that you make it a habit to monitor your rabbit’s droppings from time to time.
This way, you’ll be aware of their health status. More especially, it helps to keep you updated about the condition of your rabbit's digestive system.
Now that you know so much about rabbit poop, you shouldn't forget that rabbits can make a mess everywhere with their poop.
This is where potty training your rabbit comes in handy. It's easy to do. Click here for the complete step-by-step guide!
Rabbit nail trimming is an important aspect of rabbit care, especially when it comes to grooming. Pet rabbits do experience overgrown nails from time to time. These nails keep growing just the same way their teeth do.
Leaving it that way can be very uncomfortable for both you and your pet. If you hold your rabbit times and see scratches afterward on your arms, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
However, if you do not have a way to wear them down, you need to trim them often. However, if you do it wrongly, you might hurt your fluffy pet during the process.
However, there's no need to worry. To make sure you get it right, I’ve put up an article that will guide you in every step in trimming your rabbit’s nails.
Keep reading below!
GOT YOUR FIRST-EVER BUNNY? - READ THIS GUIDE!
Before we jump into the nail trimming guide, here are the few things you need to get your rabbit’s nails trimmed successfully.
Get a pair of animal nail clippers, especially the ones made for cats or bunnies. These kinds of clippers have a rounded edge, which suits the nature of your rabbit’s claws.
You will as well need a helping hand. S/he will help hold your rabbit for you. It makes nail trimming very easy.
Get dry towels. To wrap your rabbit as well as the surface where you'll place them.
Get a cotton ball and a styptic powder ready. They're both for emergencies. Just in case you clip your rabbit’s nails too short and it starts to bleed
Remember to get some treats for your rabbit. Your rabbit needs to be as comfortable as possible.
Take Note:
A rabbit has a vein inside each nail called a quick. This quick is the blood supply that goes into the rabbit’s nail. Moreover, you can spot the quick through its light pinkish color.
Most importantly, you should try to avoid the quick when trimming the nails. If you cut through the quick, it will bleed and equally hurt your rabbit. And you do not want this, right? So, your goal is to cut below the quick!
Start by placing your rabbit on a stable surface that’s high above the ground. This makes rabbit nail clipping easier as you don’t have to bend while doing it.
Additionally, it prevents your rabbit from hopping away. Moreover, don’t always place a towel on the surface before placing your rabbit on it. This helps your rabbit gain a good grip on it.
Once your pet is on the surface, wrap it in a towel. Now, this is when your holder (the other person) comes in handy. However, you can still do this yourself.
Simply hold your rabbit close to you (against your body). This way, they’ll feel secure. In addition, this process aims to keep your rabbit calm and under control for their safety.
However, if your rabbit gets uncomfortable and starts to struggle during this process, you should stop right away and restart the whole thing. As soon as your pet calms down, set them up again.
Moreover, you shouldn’t forget to reward your rabbit with treats for being calm. At the same time, this can lure them to be wrapped in the towel again.
Start by wrapping one arm around your rabbit. Afterward, grab and gently pull each front paw out from beneath your rabbit with the same arm.
This should be your left arm, as your right arm will handle the clipping. However, it should be the other way around if you are left-handed.
In addition, a better way to do this is to have someone else (your holder) hold your rabbit foot out for you to clip. All you’ll have to concentrate on is trimming your pet’s nails.
First of all, you should know that your rabbit has a total of five claws on each front paw – four true claws and a dewclaw. Hence, you will be trimming 10 claws in total on your rabbit’s front feet.
Nevertheless, when your rabbit’s paw is held out, do not clip it immediately. Try to locate the quick first! However, you can't spot it easily and most rabbits have darker-colored nails, which make it even harder.
An easy way to do this is to squeeze their claw gently with the clipper. This should be a squeeze that isn’t meant to clip through the nail. If you do this and your rabbit reacts or draws back its paw, it indicates that you’re too close to the quick.
However, if you accidentally cut through the quick and it starts to bleed, clean the injured nail with a cotton ball and apply styptic powder to it quickly. Afterward, continue to trim all the nails short on your rabbit’s front paws.
Pro Advice: Take a break from time to time during nail clipping, pet your rabbit to keep them calm, and equally offer them some treats!
Unlike the front feet, rabbit toenails are eight altogether. So you only need to take care of four nails each on their back feet.
However, trimming nails on your rabbit’s back paws can be quite challenging, especially if you do it alone. This is why you need to take care of their front feet first.
As you grab your rabbit by the hind feet, it might try to hop away. To make this easy, lift your rabbit by its chest with one arm allowing only its back feet to be on the table (surface).
If you have someone hold your rabbit for you in this position, it’s way easier. Whichever way you do this, carefully begin to trim your rabbit’s toenails.
However, if you accidentally cut through the quick and a nail starts bleeding, do not hesitate to use the styptic powder.
Carefully inspect all your rabbit’s feet to make sure you’ve given them a good nail trim. Moreover, you should do this one foot at a time to make sure everything is okay.
It’s equally important that you check every of your rabbit's feet for nails you clipped too short that might b bleeding. Clean it up and apply styptic powder to it immediately.
Give your rabbit treats as a prize for good behavior and a job well done. This can encourage your pet to comply much better during the next nail-clipping session.
When your rabbit's nails are so long that they begin to create problems, it means they are overgrown. These overgrown nails can leave severe rabbit scratches on your body whenever you handle your pet.
But that’s not all! If your rabbit nails keep growing beyond an appropriate length, the “quick” in the nails grows too. This way, it will be harder to clip your rabbit’s nails short.
To restore their nails to an appropriate length, you have to clip off only the tip of their nails very often – about every week. Moreover, this will allow the quick to adjust to the nail size gradually.
When a rabbit has very long nails can experience problems where its nails can get trapped on materials like carpets. As a result, these nails are likely to break or rip off when your pet quickly moves or struggles to set itself free.
Overgrown rabbit nails can equally stress the feet. Your rabbit will try to adjust its weight due to excessively long nails. This, in turn, can make your pet walk abnormally.
First of all, you should know that this rarely happens. However, certain accidents can bring about this issue.
For instance, a rabbit can suddenly move when its nail is about to be clipped. And as a result, the nail can completely rip off. Stop the bleeding with a cotton ball and then leave your rabbit to do the rest of the cleaning.
Furthermore, you need to inspect the wound from time to time to make sure there’s no infection whatsoever. In addition to this, swelling or redness around the nail root is not a good sign.
When you notice this, it means you need to take your pet to the vet right away. However, in the absence of any infection, your rabbit should be totally fine in a short while.
As for the injured digit, the nail is likely to grow back or not. But regardless of the outcome, your rabbit will still move about freely without issues.
A rabbit needs to be properly restrained during nail clipping. If a rabbit isn't relaxed, many problems can arise.
Hence, you have to make sure the rabbit is calm before and while you trim nails. Begin this by slowly wrapping the bunny in a towel.
Afterward, you should pet the rabbit so that they are relaxed. Do this by gently stroking the rabbit’s head and back. A way to know if rabbits are relaxed is to watch their eyes.
That’s right! Their eyes should be slightly or fully closed. In addition, while trimming rabbit nails, talk calmly to them to make them feel more comfortable.
Make out time every month for rabbit nail clipping. However, I recommend that you clip your rabbit’s nails whenever you notice they’ve grown so long.
All you have to do is monitor their nail length from time to time. Spotting a rabbit’s overgrown nails differs from rabbit to rabbit.
For a furry rabbit with long hair, you should check if the nails are growing beyond the excess fur on the paws. If this is the case, your bunny’s nails are pretty long and require trimming.
Alternatively, you can check if your rabbit’s claws have started to curl. This applies to every breed. Moreover, it’s another simple way to know when your rabbit nails need trimming. Above all, whenever you trim, aim for only the tip of the nails.
Rabbits naturally trim their nails unknowingly and this is common with wild rabbits. In the wild, they live in warrens – a large community of rabbit burrows.
So, a major activity they do is digging burrows. They spend a lot of them doing this. As a result, it keeps their nails in check. While digging around their dirt, their nails often erode. And this prevents it from overgrowing.
Similarly, you can provide your pet rabbit with hard surfaces to walk on and areas to burrow very often. These are good ways to keep their nails short without clipping them.
No, do not clip rabbit nails with human nail clippers. These kinds of clippers are made for humans’ thin and flat nails. Rabbits on the other hand have very thick and round nails.
Hence, the ideal clippers to use are animal nail clippers, especially for small pet animals. However, in case you can’t find nail clippers made for small animals like guinea pigs and rabbits, cat nail clippers are fine to use.
To sum up, I hope I’ve shown you how to trim your rabbit’s nails easily. As part of rabbit care, your pet’s nails must be kept short. Remember never to use human nail clippers to do it.
In addition, it’s always good to start nail trimming when your rabbit is still very young so they can get used to it over time. As you do it, try as much as possible to stay away from the quick.
I understand that trimming your rabbit nails can be frightening, but don’t be discouraged. Many rabbit owners fear doing it at first, but with time they learned to handle it.
Hence, if you’ve checked and you’re sure that rabbit nail clipping isn’t something you can handle, feel free to take your pet to the vet.
Your rabbit’s health is very important. So your goal should be to have your bunny's nails trimmed in the safest way possible.
If you found this article helpful or have some more tips to add, please comment below.
Pasteurellosis is a common disease in many domestic animals including rabbits. It can appear to be a respiratory disease, inflammation, and many other conditions.
This can give you concern, especially if your bunny happens to be showing signs of it. Understanding what pasteurellosis is all about is an important step in helping your affected rabbit get better.
Hence, in this article, we'll be looking at this disease in rabbits, its symptoms, effects, and how to manage it more effectively.
Keep reading below…
RECOMMENDED READING: COMPLETE RABBIT CARE GUIDE
Pasteurellosis affects both wild and pet rabbits. And the pathogen behind this disease is known as “Pasteurella multocida” (a gram-negative bacteria). It’s among the many species under the Pasteurella genus. Unlike other species, P. multocida brings about various diseases.
So, it’s not just one way your rabbits can be infected but different ways. What's more, this pathogen can spread from one area of the body to other parts through the blood.
Rabbits can have Pasteurella in their bodies naturally. Moreover, they can also contact it. These bacteria normally stay in the mouth and respiratory tract of the rabbit. And it can remain there for as long as possible without causing any harm.
Reports from several studies revealed that if a test is conducted on a group of bunnies, about 20-60 % will carry the Pasteurella bacteria without signs of any infections. So this means that the outcome of this disease relies on something more than the pathogen itself.
On one hand, some infected rabbits can suffer a wild range of health issues caused by the P. multocida pathogen. On the other hand, some rabbits have strong immunities that control or get rid of the bacteria. This way, it doesn’t lead to diseases.
All rabbits aren't the same and you can't assume your pet has strong immunity to fight the bacteria. Pasteurella infections come with different symptoms, which will be discussed next.
Rabbits affected by the P. multocida bacteria will show some common clinical signs. Here are the symptoms that indicate the presence of this pathogen in a rabbit.
Watery Eyes
Running Nose
Sneezing
Matted Fur
Tilting of head
Sores on the Skin
Certain health conditions can result from the Pasteurella multocida infection in rabbits. See the below:
This a very common way Pasteurella can affect your rabbits. This bacteria can affect your rabbit’s respiratory tract which consists of the nasal cavity, mouth, larynx, pharynx, and sinuses.
As a result, rabbits can suffer an upper respiratory disease depending on the affected area. These kinds of diesases include:
Rhinitis - Inflammation of the nasal cavity
Sinusitis - Inflammation of the sinus cavity
In addition, this upper respiratory infection is also called “snuffles” and it comes with various clinical symptoms. A common one is sneezing.
In addition to this, you might notice nasal discharges from the rabbit's nasal cavity. They appear milky in color. Moreover, this nasal discharge can be uniformly thick or thin with the presence of lumps of white materials.
An affected rabbit can also experience an eye infection, which normally accompanies an upper respiratory disease. One of them is conjunctivitis where the rabbit's eyes look pink and inflamed.
Another eye condition is known as dacryocystitis. Here, a rabbit suffers inflammation of the tear sacs, which results from a blocked tear duct. This issue can be painful with clinical signs like watery eyes and eye redness.
Pasteurella multocida can easily get to a rabbit’s middle ear through the nasal passages. And when this happens, it can result in a disease known as otitis media.
If your pet bunny is scratching the base of its ear, this is a clinical sign that it’s already experiencing this disease. When pus build-ups in the infected part, it can further create vestibular diseases.
And the common signs of this disease are tilting of the head and uncontrolled movements of the eyes. Furthermore, this middle ear infection can cause a lack of muscle control and coordination. This condition can affect the movement and balance of your pet rabbit.
This is another respiratory disease that’s associated with Pasteurella multocida infection. But this time, it’s the lower respiratory tract that’s affected.
Parts of the lower respiratory tract of a rabbit include the lungs, trachea, and bronchi. And when they're affected, they can eventually cause pneumonia in rabbits.
Affected rabbits can also experience coughing and difficulty breathing. And in most cases, mouth breathing may occur. Mouth breathing isn’t a good condition for rabbits as healthy bunnies only breathe through their noses.
Lowers respiratory infections lower the amount of oxygen a rabbit receives. As a result, the affected rabbit can become weak and reluctant to move around.
What’s more, a lower respiratory disease is very critical. It can send your pet to the vet immediately.
This condition is also caused by the Pasteurella multocida infection and it can be pretty difficult to treat. An abscess is an inflamed area that surrounds a cluster of pus.
It forms anywhere on a rabbit’s body. What’s more, it can form inside their bodies too. As Pasteurella is mostly found in the nasal cavity, it can easily get into your rabbit wounds when they lick and groom themselves.
If this happens, abscesses may occur on the infected wounds. This is how abscess mostly forms on a rabbit's body.
Pasteurella can cause infections in the genital areas of rabbits. Male rabbits, they’ll experience inflammations in one or both testicles (orchitis). This disease can be painful and your male bunny can become sterile.
On the other hand, the uterus of females gets infected. This disease is known as pyometra and can also make them barren. Hence, if you need your rabbit to produce young ones, this condition is something you have to take seriously. Visit the vet immediately for the necessary treatment.
Stress is a major trigger of these bacteria in rabbits. And you don’t want these bacteria to cause health issues for your pets. So you must try to keep stressors far from your pet rabbits.
Rabbits shouldn’t experience heat as it can stress them. These creatures even tolerate cold environments much better. Bunnies are social pets and love company.
So keeping them alone can stress them. Make sure you get a cage mate for your rabbit. However, you should never allow their cage to be overcrowded.
It stresses them too! Getting them cage mates doesn’t mean including lots of rabbits in a cage. Above all, the goal is to make your pet happy and comfortable.
A proper diet helps optimize your rabbit’s health to battle pathogens in its body. And Pasterulla isn’t an exception here.
We’ve seen in this article that most rabbits have stronger immunity that helps them control the Pasterulla in their bodies than others. Now that you know this, you need to make sure your pet is eating right.
Hence, you need to offer your bunny steady hay and grass every day. Moreover, include moderate amounts of pellets, fruits, and veggies. Most importantly, you should always give them fresh water.
Feeding your rabbits will help strengthen their immunity against the Pasteurella pathogen. Poor nutrition will do the opposite.
A clean environment is necessary to keep your pet comfortable and healthy. Take your time to create a good living environment for your rabbit.
Clean their cages regularly and most importantly, keep the water clean at all times. This is basic care and it's very important if you want to prevent Pasteurella multocida from making your bunny sick.
Since Pasteurella multocida is transmittable, you should isolate affected rabbits from the healthy ones. This is important to keep other rabbits safe while trying to treat the affected ones.
Moreover, if you have other pet animals in the house like dogs or cats, you should keep them away from rabbits affected by Pasteurella. Doing this is necessary so you don’t add more to your problems.
Most times clinical signs aren’t enough to prove your rabbit is suffering from a Pasteurella infection. Pasteurellosis comprises health conditions that have similar symptoms to many common diseases.
So the best way is to visit a vet for a thorough checkup and tests. A culture and sensitivity test is a common one. However, a vet can also run a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test, which is more effective.
Through these tests, a vet can confirm if the disease your bunny is experiencing is caused by Pasteurella multocida or not. And this is pretty helpful so you know what exactly you’re treating and the best treatments for it.
Antibiotics can come in handy in treating infections associated with Pasteurella multocida. Some of the effective ones include:
Enrofloxacin
Chloramphenicol
Trimethoprim
Penicillin G
Azithromycin
Trimethoprim sulfa
Pasteurella in Rabbit is contagious to Humans. This equally means you can get it from your pet rabbit, especially when s/he is already showing symptoms of the infection.
A rabbit carrying Pasteurella can transmit it to you mostly through direct contact with its nasal discharges. Moreover, this pathogen is transmittable through the air.
When your rabbit sneezes, the pathogens are released into the air. And you can contact them when you breathe, especially during inhalation.
It depends on the strain of Pasteurella multocida. Not all strains of P. multocida have serious consequences If it’s mild and the rabbit has strong immunity, there’s every possibility for the rabbit to get better without any treatment.
However, the rabbit will become a carrier and the bacteria will live in them. Moreover, this shouldn’t be a concern. Rabbits with visible symptoms of it can live till old age.
Pasteurellosis is a very common issue in rabbits. Rabbits normally carry the pathogen behind this health issue – P. multocida. Moreover, this is an easily transmittable pathogen.
However, the health issues associated with Pasteurella can come with many clinical signs. And the earlier you spot the signs of the infection, the easier it is to treat it. A chronic condition might be difficult to treat.
As a conscious bunny parent, you can reduce the chances of Pasteurella making your pet sick. Mae sure your rabbit is happy and living without stress. Feed your bunny properly and make sure it stays in a clean environment.
Above all, do not hesitate to take your pet to the vet if it experiences health issues likely caused by the Pasteurella pathogen.