First thing, no pet store rabbit cages unless you are getting a teeny tiny baby and then only use one until bunny’s head is too big to fit through dog crate, xpen, or NIC grid spacing. Store bought rabbit cages are just too small.

Bunnies don’t really use hammocks (like ferrets), but a piece of fleece on the floor or laid on top of a hay mat makes a nice bed. I wouldn’t buy anything like a dog or cat bed intil you see if bunny is going to be a chewer (most don’t chew fleece). The cheapest way to get fleece is to go to a fabric store and buy it by the yard and cut to whatever size you want. If my three, Kieko has fleece and a small dog bed but also sleeps in her litterbox. The M&Ms have fleece covering the floor in their room plus extra pieces of fleece where they lay and sleep. Marlee will occasionally chew a few tiny holes in fleece but can’t be trusted at all with regular beds or carpet. Moshi would just as soon push everything out of the way and sleep directly on the floor.

Natural willow chew toys and sticks are a must. Cardboard boxes, tunnels, hidey houses — anything cardboard — gives bunny a place to hide and something cheap to destroy.

Even if you can’t order online from some of these places, look at what they have to get ideas — Binky Bunny store. Lieth Petwerks, Bunny Bytes, Busy Bunny.

Also, take a read here in the Bunny Info section. One of our BB members also has a website with lots of info, including bunny emergency kit list — check out thebunnychick.com (formerly wheekwheekthump.com).

if its warm I feel like tiles are a must have. My boy Tenzin LOVES his.

Oh, bunny shopping! So much fun! I am guilty of spending way too much time (and money ) on my rabbit. It sounds like you’ve put some great thought into what you’re buying and how you’re setting up his home. Although I’m far from experienced and a new rabbit owner myself, here are a few thoughts and ideas.

As far as the flooring goes, I think having a few carpeted areas in your house would be nice, because floors can be slippery. That being said, I’d recommend holding out on buying carpet for his room until he’s litter trained or putting something over the carpet at first. I haven’t used them myself, so maybe someone else can chime in about whether they’re easy to chew/scratch, but maybe you could think about getting a few reusable puppy pads or other water resistant pads (not the disposable ones). Unfortunately, buns produce a lot of waste, and I had to clean up after Hugo a lot before he was litterbox trained.

My gut says he probably is likely to use the carrier as a litterbox, especially if it has bedding and hay in it. But that doesn’t mean he won’t sleep in it, too! I wouldn’t stress out too much about the bed, at least not at first. You’ll want to get a feel for how much a chewer he is, and if he has a hidey home and fleece, he can use those. I was concerned about not having a bed for my rabbit, but he staked out his corner litterbox bed for sleeping in (I later switched to the litterbox on the Binky Bunny site, which has worked better as a litterbox).

If you can, I’d recommend getting a hidey house that also has a platform on top, so that he has a place to hop up on, too. Though it took him a few weeks to hop up, my bun has loved that. If his hidey house is made out of a rabbit safe wood or hay, he can chew on that, too.
Grass and seagrass mats are pretty cool, as well. And while I second the willow suggestion (the balls are fun to take apart!), I know I wish I’d spent less money on chew toys ahead of time, as my rabbit turned out not to be a huge chewer and prefers cardboard and yucca to willow. So aside from the basics, which it sounds like you already have covered, I’d recommend just waiting to meet him and seeing what he likes best and then buying toys that engage his natural interests.

Water bottles are generally better as buns hop around excitedly and topple the water bowls over and get everything wet, which is especially not good if you have carpet. My bunny had no idea what to do with a water bottle the first day I got him until I rubbed some strawberry on the end. He went over to lick it off and soon learnt that water came out. He now drinks the whole bottle every day and I believe it’s something like 600 mls.

Also, I have carpet in my buns condo. I used self adhesive carpet squares from the DIY section as it’s easier to remove if he pees all over them and they go gross. So far, he’s good at peeing in the litterbox only but he hasn’t reached bunny puberty yet so we’ll see!

Are you planning on feeding him young rabbit food with alfalfa pellets? If so, you shouldn’t need the alfalfa hay.

A word about bowls vs bottles…… bowls can get toppled, tossed, stepped in, sat in, but bottles are a pain in the butt to wash. They are too bad if you only have one bunny, but it is so much easier to just toss bowls in the dishwasher than to try to clean and fully rinse bottle spouts.

All of mine started out with bottles, and now have both. Kieko’s bottle is for backup. The M&Ms share a bottle and a gravity water bowl, but they only want their bottle. I wish a thousand times that I had never started them on bottles. I would much rather have multiple water bowls than to have to deal with tiny brushes and pipe cleaners with those spouts — the only way I’ve found to keep gross black stuff from building up on the spout balls! Yuck!

Hay…..good quality alfalfa based pellets for young rabbits is important. Alot of people do give alfalfa hay and alfalfa pellets. Both vets we’ve been to have told us to go with timothy hay instead of alfalfa hay even with young rabbits because of the high calcium content. We did timothy hay with alfalfa pellets and began transitioning to timothy pellets around 4 months old when I bought our last bag of alfalfa pellets.

I use water bowls. I got the small crock ceramic style. They have never been tossed I think because they are too heavy. They do have plastic food dishes. Sometimes they toss them. I usually only feed them a bit at a time so I pick them up when they are empty but they have played with them before when they were empty.

As for pellets I fed mine alfalfa based until around 5 or 6 months then switched to adult pellets. I have always fed timothy or orchard type hays and grasses. I bought one small container of Alfalfa once for Kilala and she wouldn’t eat it. So timothy hay is your best bet.

The stores that JR listed are good places to check out for rabbit related items. I also buy my rabbit items off of Amazon as well. They do love cardboard items like she metioned. Magazine or phonebooks are good choices to play with as well. My two love to rip up magazines.

Water Bottle or bowl for water, Dish for pellets and or veggies, Hay trough, toys for chewing, bedding, hay, and pellets. will get you started. Everything else you can pick up on the way. Also a carrier for vet visits. My Basil’s favorite thing is a tipped over hoover box from our new vacuum, she loves hiding in it and hanging out in it. Don’t be disappointed if you think your bunny might like a certain toy and then when you bring it home she ignores it, they can be fickle little critters.