Despite being potential dinner for just about every predator imaginable, prey not just to other creatures but to devastations like Mixamitosis, that spread from France to England in 1953 and wiped out 99% of the rabbit population, rabbits have managed to survive and in spite of being on the menu of almost every predator on the planet, they not only survive, they thrive.
Rabbits have different personalities so it is difficult to make generalizations about breeds. Adult rabbits are more easily litter-and house-trained, especially after spaying or neutering. You will also have a better idea of a rabbits personality if you choose an adult who is spayed or neutered. Dwarf breeds tend to be more excitable, energetic, and ag-gressive. Baby rabbits are very active, often nippy, and chew everything in sight.
A common mistake that humans make in meeting/greeting is to present their hand to the rabbit for the rabbit to smell, as you might do with a dog. Rabbits have 360 degree sight (their eyes are on each side of the head) except for this one blind spot under their nose where they can’t see, so this gesture is both confusing and threatening. If you wish to pet a rabbit, keep your hand in view (anywhere but under their nose) and move calmly and firmly.
Rabbits are herbivores with a marvelous gastrointestinal (GI) tract that allows them to extract nutrients from a variety of sources. Rabbits were designed to live on a diet composed of large quantities of grasses and leaves. They might also browse on flowers and fruits as they could find them at different times of the year. Rabbits are very successful at making the most out of the food they eat, food that many other animals could not even digest. One of the keys to their success is the production of cecotropes, which is peculiar to rabbits – and it is peculiar from the human point of view, although an amazing form of adaption – in a way rabbits literally produce some of their own food – producing cecotropes, a special type of dropping made up of waste materials but not waste, rich in organisms that have come from the area of the intestinal tract called the cecum. Thus, they excrete a special type of dropping that is then consumed and then digested, enabling the rabbit to extract maximum nutrients from low-energy food materials.
Of general interest to those who care about and for rabbits, are questions like bathing, which is typically neither necessary nor well-advised. Rinsing off a soiled rear end occasionally with clear water is one thing, but bathing the entire rabbit – even with the gentlest of shampoos – should not be necessary. Rabbit fur takes days to dry; unless you’re a breeder of long-r will take several days to dry. Angora breeders will apparently blow out dirt and loose hair on their show rabbits by using a hair dryer on cold or warm.
What to use for bedding: In solid bottomed cages, most use pine shavings; cedar ones can be toxic due to resins. For wire bottomed cages, many rabbits will soil bedding, making more of a mess and creating more problems than it is worth.
However where bedding is needed, straw especially in front of the feeder is best, leaving the back of the cage with bare wire flooring so urine and droppings can fall through. Plastic floor pieces (”Mighty Mat”) are also useful for rabbits with feet problems (although watch to make sure your rabbit is not eating the plastic!).
Check with your vet, but the ARBA site says that currently there are no approved vaccines for rabbits. There is no licensed rabies vaccine for rabbits so they should not be vaccinated for this. Even though this has been required by some fair shows, it has been associated with death of the rabbits.
And a cautionary: Although viral diseases usually do not spread between species, r bacterial diseases do cross from people to rabbits and back. Strep throat is one such example. You should wash your hands after you blow your nose before touching your rabbits, other animal pets or people. Likewise, you should wash your hands after handling rabbits or other animals, or shaking the hands of other people.
For more facts and factoids, The Rabbit Handbook: Purchasing, Feeding, Health Care, Housing, Understanding Rabbit Behavior comes highly recommend as one of the best books around on caring for a pet rabbit. Written by Karen Gendron, a veterinarian in New England who specializes in small animals like rabbits, who also hosts a weekly call-in radio show about pets, “The Vet Line,” on WESX in Salem, MA, “It covers …selecting, caring for, breeding, and showing rabbits.,” among many other things in its 144 pages.
Finally, if you should ever see a baby rabbit in the wild – do NOTHING unless you are absolutely certain that its mother is killed and can’t care for it, according to champion breeder Molly Kinkaid (www.rabbitweb.net/wild-babies.asp): however, as a last resort, and after contacting state wildlife rescue authorities who are hopefully on their way to help, here’s an emergency formula for feeding them with an eyedropper in the interim (you have to keep them warm in a cardboard box and massage their tummies – it’s rather involved and, only as a last resort!) -
RABBIT MILK FORMULA
1 can of sweetened condensed milk or fresh goat’s milk (don’t use cow’s milk)
3 tablespoons heavy cream
3 tablespoons Karo corn syrup
1 egg yolk
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