Few questions from a new bunny owner

[Louiseee]

Hi, my name is louise. I have adopted a 16 week old lionhead rabbit. I have done lots of research but have a few questions regarding him.

Firstly roughly how many pellets should i be offering and how many times a day?

I am trying to introduce a litter tray to contain his pee/poop, im putting stray poop in the tray and it has woodshavings on tbe bottom and hay on the top is that ok? He’s currently in the house in a hutch but has free run of the living room while i’m home.

I have a cat and so far they have only seen each other through the hutch. Is there a way to slowly introduce them safely? Any tips on this?

When i have to leave the house he goes back in his hutch. Is there a way to get him back in his cage without scaring him? So far he’s not keen on being picked up, is it a case of building up trust and patience?

Thank you for any answers!

[Luna's Mom]

I am a pretty new bunny owner too, so I can only speak of how things have went for us. With my cat she is very motherly to all the pets so I put up a baby gate to the door where Luna (the bunny) is and let Luna come to the gate and smell Ava (the cat) and when she started acting like she could care less I let Ava in the room. They lay together and Ava grooms Luna. They are buddies now. To get Luna in her cage at night for bedtime I use one of those dog treat games and I tell her it’s time to go night night and she goes right into her cage because she wants to get to her special treat inside the game. Luna did so good with litter box training I was amazed. I use catspot coconut litter and it works great. Luna does not eat her litter or fleece or anything like that so that may have something to do with which litter will work best for you. From what I have read on here you can feed unlimited pellets until 6 months old. Hopefully one of the more experienced bunny owners can give you some better tips!!

[sarahthegemini]

Posted By Louiseee on 2/13/2017 6:42 AM

Hi, my name is louise. I have adopted a 16 week old lionhead rabbit. I have done lots of research but have a few questions regarding him.

Firstly roughly how many pellets should i be offering and how many times a day?

I am trying to introduce a litter tray to contain his pee/poop, im putting stray poop in the tray and it has woodshavings on tbe bottom and hay on the top is that ok? He’s currently in the house in a hutch but has free run of the living room while i’m home.

I have a cat and so far they have only seen each other through the hutch. Is there a way to slowly introduce them safely? Any tips on this?

When i have to leave the house he goes back in his hutch. Is there a way to get him back in his cage without scaring him? So far he’s not keen on being picked up, is it a case of building up trust and patience?

Thank you for any answers!

You can in theory feed unlimited pellets but you’ll need to make sure your boy is still eating plenty of hay. I actually only gave my bunnies 2 tablespoons of pellets each because otherwise they wouldn’t eat much hay. I then found a hay they really loved and they’d eat buckets of the stuff but by this point they were 4 months old so I just continued with limited pellets. Make sure you give plain pellets, no colourful seed/muesli type mixes.

I would not use wood shavings, they’re not good for rabbitsc (can cause respiratory issues) Instead you could use wood stove pellets, or something like carefresh which is a paper based litter.

Most rabbits dislike being picked up, it scares them. Is he able to hop into his cage on his own or is it elevated? 

[bigbunnies]

Congrats on being a new bunny owner! I am also a new bunny owner and I did a ton of research (like months of research) before getting my bun! I agree I would take out the wood shavings because of the smell sometimes bunnies will choose not to use the litter box if the shavings are giving off too much of an odor. I use wood stove pellets on bottom and then carefresh on top and my bunny has never had an accident. He is only 12 weeks old and he found the litter box right away and has used it consistently ever since.
We also have cats and they met each other through the cage bars for about 3 days before I allowed them to meet during play time. They are still trying to get used to eachother but my bunny really could care less about them. He will hop up to them occasionally and sniff them but then he hops off and does something else. You can tell he isnt threatened by them at all which is good. I know that cats and bunnies tend to get along very well so I would introduce them slowly and I would bet they will be friends over time! Unless you have a super mean cat! Mine are extremely mild and dont really care about anything other than food lol

My bun also does not like being picked up! I tried it once and it took me a few days to build up trust again. So I have given up on trying to pick him up! When he needs to go back to his room I usually put my feet behind him and block off the rest of the room and slowly move him in. You could also use a gate to gently push him or get him into a dog crate then put the crate in the hutch.

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