RSPCA Norfolk West Branch

RABBIT HUSBANDRY, MADE EASY...

In our experience understanding the need for a good and sustainable changing routine could have saved many rabbits from coming into care. Just as importantly some owners may not have wanted their pet in the first place had they known that a changing daily routine and not weekly one was a must and not an option .This routine being necessary  to allow owners to quickly notice any problems with general health, eating or passing droppings etc.
Looking after rabbits is not rocket science and a few things right at the beginning will pay huge rewards and save paying large vet bills.(for more information see the article by the Vet Richard Saunders on how getting it wrong will cause suffering and bills).

KEEP YOUR BUNNIES ON TRAYS
Keep the bunnies on trays(see photos) and choose the black garden gravel trays with ribbed bottoms. These trays lined with a whole newspaper and topped with 4- 5 inches of hay almost act like a nappy. This keeps the urine in the ribs and soaked into the paper and in most cases  not in contact with the feet and hocks of your bunny(s).

If you can afford it buy 2 or more complete sets. In this way you will always have clean and washed trays rinsed, stacked and dry ready to use. If it is quick and easy to do you and your children won’t mind doing it. Bunnies should be changed every day or at least every other day. Allow about 4 trays for a single bunny. 6 for 2 , 8 for 3 and so on.  Remember looking after any pet in a household is primarily an adults responsibility.

House bunnies can be  easily trained to use trays and you will be amazed how much fun a house bunny can be.

ACCOMMODATION DESIGN
Build your rabbit hutch or accommodation to fit the trays as snugly as possible to help prevent urination over the edge (see the pictures of our indoor hutches and the prototype we have designed to be used in a run).It makes sense to buy the trays first!. In sheds or similar allow for at least a tray in each corner and a washable vinyl type floor covering.

BETTER TYPES OF ACCOMMODATION
If your rabbits are to be kept outside, budget for accommodation such as a shed instead of a hutch and a full height covered run that you can stand upright in. When it is blowing a gale and tipping down with rain you and your rabbits will stay dry. Rabbits can live into double figures so a good shed will last the lifetime of your bunnies and allow the bunnies to exercise when they naturally want to do it.

BUYING HAY
You can buy hay by the full size bale but ask for soft meadow hay. It is much cheaper this way and as 80-90% of you’re rabbits diet is hay you can easily afford to be generous with it, using it as food in a rack and as the bedding in trays as described above encourages your rabbit(s) to eat hay.
Most bales of hay fairly well fit into a standard 240 litre wheelie bin. Put it in, cut the two string ties and take it off from the top. With little or no mess it can be stored outside as the tops of the bins are even designed with a raised rim not to let the water in.
If you have a shed  for your rabbits obviously it can be kept there. You can divide part of it off to take a  wheelie bin or the hay in plastic wheelie bin liners that are now easily available.
Also now available are plastic garden wardrobe sheds (see picture) which make ideal storage for a number of bales if need be, together with space on a shelf for other rabbit items including cages etc.

DRINKING AND FEEDING UTENSILS

Always buy a large or giant water or dish for water. We recommend that the food is scattered in the clean hay trays as this allows for foraging and prevents one bunny becoming dominant over a food bowl.
All utensils should regularly be washed and sterilized in a baby sterilizing solution. NO BOTTLE SHOULD EVER ALLOWED TO GO GREEN! - IT JUST MEANS IT NEEDS TO BE CLEANED. A green bottle is a sure sign of an un-cared for rabbit.

LONG COATED RABBITS

Any rabbit with ,or mainly with, a long fine coat should be considered to be a  truly specialist pet which must have totally dry accommodation and never allowed to get wet. They should be considered as complete house bunnies only as even in these circumstances they will need daily grooming or clipping (see article by Richard Saunders on vet bills).

THOSE ARE THE MAIN POINTS BUT IF YOU WANT IT IN MORE DEPTH, READ ON…….

When it comes to trays we find the ones with sloping sided ribs on the bottom of the tray  are the best (see tray on far right of tray picture), these are easier to clean and don’t stick together when wet and stacked. The tray shown in the middle is another garden gravel tray and is OK and works fine but you will find it harder to keep clean and they do tend to wedge together when wet and are hard to separate. Finally the large smooth bottomed cat litter type tray is far better than not using a tray at all (shown on the left of the picture), but it is not the best and caution needs to be shown in purchase as some of these are quite brittle in nature and do shatter in colder conditions. If you do choose cat litter trays make sure the sides are straight for better fitting in any accommodation. Even with regular washing you will find that after a while the trays do get chalky type deposits from the urine .This does not smell and to date we have found this causes no problem as it is not in contact with any rabbit.

Using trays allows for very young children to easily help change the rabbits as they can swap clean ones over with the dirty ones in use without the unpleasant smelly scraping of hutches that most people think is par for the course. Mostly a simple sweep out is all that’s required. If you have your rabbits in a shed and run, allow for a least one tray in each corner. In addition to this consider lining the floor of the shed with an off-cut of kitchen lino, secured with batons at the edge.

When buying or making any rabbit accommodation the better the fit the less of anything that goes over the edge! This sounds so simple but ask yourself when the last time you saw rabbit accommodation that was designed in such a fashion around common  cheap trays with the emphasis on ease of changing ( note also the lack of any ridges in the pictures which would impede sweeping out).

Put quite simply if you cannot afford the right accommodation, properly designed you are not starting on a level playing field so to speak and you should consider not having rabbits in the first place as your chances of long term happiness are much reduced. We recommend building any hutch out of ¾ inch or 18mm water resistant plywood or similar as shown as this allows for a construction without battens and the trays to fit unimpeded. The RSPCA recommend a traditional hutch size of not less than 5ft x 2ft x 2ft with a permanently attached run. The run size needs to be adjusted for the size of the rabbits , the bigger the better with even the smallest  dwarf bunnies of say up to 1.5 kg needing an area of 6ft x 6ft in addition to the hutch. Bigger bunnies need much more..Use the following rule of thumb, if you would not permanently keep a pair of small dogs in your accommodation don’t keep rabbits there, they both need the same amount of space.

Ask yourself if your accommodation is exposed to the weather which in this country is variable to say the least, how pleasant  is feeding and changing going to be for most of the time ?.
When people come to us for rabbit(s) to be kept outside the house this is a major point we make. An exposed hutch and run must be considered the worst possible combination for keeping rabbits in.
Vector into your accommodation needs the requirement for lighting and dry access to your rabbits at all times of the day and year. Include children into the picture and it is far more likely that they will only want contact with their rabbits and be prepared to change or help change them with you if you get this right.

Think of it like this. Although you have to spend more money you will have much more and better contact with them. If you could work it out in pounds per hour you will quickly see that  house rabbits are the best  value. The small hutch exposed and on its own in the garden that nobody wants to visit or change and the associated lack of contact that comes with it suddenly seems really bad value. Further to that remember that most of the hutches sold in pet shops and the like are the way they are simply so that they can fit in your car and you can make that impulse buy. The vast majority come nowhere near the recommended minimum size the RSPCA has championed for years. The needs of you and your rabbit(s)don’t even come into it. Also remember with the new animal welfare bill likely to become law soon a greater responsibility will be placed on the owner of any animal to provide its correct environment. Get it right now!

Keeping your rabbit(s) in clean  spacious conditions that use easy to change trays, on large amounts of hay (bought by the full size bale), in properly designed accommodation really is the key to success and a great relationship with your bunnies.

Remember this, With rabbits you are providing their complete environment .Get it right and it will last their whole lifetime which could be up to 10 years or more. .

At the last count it was estimated that there were 33,000 rabbits in rescue centres around the country, make sure your bunnies don’t add to the figure.

Alan Pitchford