Exclusively Hand Feeding Rabbit?

[Lykan]

Good morning!

It seems I’ e been all around this forum lately, and I’ve really appreciated all the advice that everyone has been giving! Anyway, I adopted a second bun a couple of days ago and named her Tess. While I didn’t get much information about her, I’ve noticed a couple prominent traits of hers, mainly her skittishness. She seems to WANT to be friendly, but any movement (no matter how slow) sends her flying back to her cage. To remedy this, I’ve been giving Tess all of her breakfast and dinner from my hand. So far, it’s seemed to help quite a bit — last night she was even walking alongside me from the other side of the cage!
Before I continue this practice, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t fostering any sort of bad habit or causing unhealthy amounts of stress. She’ll typically eat, let me pet her while she does (yay!), bolt after a couple seconds, and then come back; rinse and repeat until she finishes eating. I know that this is a pretty common behaviour, but I worry that doing it with her main food source could cause a problem. I tried only hand-feeding her treats at first and leaving her food in her bowl, but she seems to love her pellets more than anything in the world and won’t come to me for treats — only pellets. As such, is it alright that I keep hand-feeding her, or is this eat-bolt-return habit causing too much stress (or is there some other negative effect that I should be worried about)? Is there another method that would work better?

Thank you!

[Lykan]

Addition: when I adopted her, all they could tell me was that she “was in a foster home with two kids, so she’s pretty used to being picked up.” I don’t pick up my bunnies unless absolutely necessary, and my working theory is that the kids would lure her in with treats just to pick her up. She’s okay with her face being touched, but does the dine-and-dash strategy as soon as I pet her back at all. I’m also thinking that they probably did this with treats but never with regular pellets, which could be why she only comes to me for pellets?

[DanaNM]

I think that sounds like a fine strategy! She always has hay available, so it’s not as though she has to come to you to eat anything, just her pellets (and salad?). The only thing is I wouldn’t force the petting all the time while she’s eating. You could use the time while she’s eating to brush her too. It would be good to just pet little bits, not to the point of making her dash away.

The other thing that can help with buns like this is to spend lots of time around them, but ignoring them. When you aren’t feeding her, play “hard to get”. That way she will learn that your presence is OK and safe. As prey animals, when buns are being watched closely it makes them feel uneasy.

She’s also only been with you a couple days, so she’s still settling in. It can take buns a while to trust new people, so she very well might have been more tolerant of touching with her previous humans. Backs in general can be touchy areas for buns.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Wick & Fable]

I also think you have a fine approach, paired with Dana’s mention of petting during eating — you want your presence to be associated with security, as opposed to consistent action/reaching towards the rabbit, so positive passive association can be very powerful in building trust with a rabbit.

If you suspect a rabbit has an association that causes stress, it’d be good to provide continually non-reinforcing experiences to that stress. For example, if you believe there is a hx of being lured in with treats in order to be picked up, I would increase experiences where you “lure” her in with treats, but then don’t actually interact with her beyond that — weaken the association and ideally she’ll learn over time not to be as anxious/stressed about the cue.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Lykan]

Thank you both for your responses! I’ll be sure to keep these things in mind and act accordingly!

[LBJ10]

I agree. Hand feeding is fine and will help you gain her trust. I would hold off on trying to pet her while eating. Play a little harder to get. If you aren’t trying to pet her every time she is eating, she will stop being so wary and thinking you might pick her up.

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