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- This topic has 13sd replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 8 months ago by
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Hi! I’m new around here, although I’ve been lurking via my phone’s 3G for a few days (just moved and only got the wireless up today).
My husband and i have been wanting a bunny for over a year, but hubby could never quite talk himself into paying the $400 pet deposit at our old place, not to mention the $10/month “pet rent.” Well, we just moved into a new apartment across town, and the owner’s wife said they’d require no deposit for a rabbit!
So we’ve been enthusiastically educating ourselves about bunnies for a couple of weeks, and last Monday visited the city animal shelter to ask if they ever got house rabbits surrendered. We hadn’t planned on getting a bunny until June 15th, but the shelter receptionist said they had had one dropped off the week before. So (of course) himself had to see the bunny, and (of course) both of us fell in love with him. (Although at the time we thought he was a she- I later decided to investigate further and discovered little bunny balls. So now we have to go get him fixed. 
) So the very next day we went to a local pet store and stocked up on all the things a bunny needs; we spent quite a bit! After that it was torture waiting for our new lease to start so we could pick him up from the shelter, which we did on Thursday. We didn’t want him to have tp stay another minute in bunny jail. All we know about him is that he’s a he and he’s an adult (or so the shelter people tell us). We suppose that he was purchased as a companion by a transient college student who ditched the poor thing when they had to move back home. That happens a lot in our town, as there are a large university and a high concentration of idiot students here. Hundreds of adoptions in the fall, hundreds of surrenders in the spring. It’s really just tragic.Anyway, we don’t know what breed he is, and even though it doesn’t really make any difference, we’re curious as to what he might be. Any thoughts?
LOOK HOW SWEET THIS FACE IS!! SQUEEEE!!
Our new place is so awesome. It’s like it was built with bunnies in mind. We managed to get the only unit in the complex with all-tile flooring downstairs, so it’s easy cleanup when Flopsy makes a mess. And instead of wooden baseboards, we have a tile border at the bottom of the wall- nothing to gnaw on! Flopsy gets to run around all day while we unpack, and he loves chewing on our empty cardboard boxes and the newspaper we used to pack. He’s been doing ‘Bunny 500’ back and forth in front of the TV and binkying all over the place, and crawling in and out of boxes and hanging out between the side of the couch and the wall, so much so that we’ve started calling that area the BunnyCave now. He’s also adopted an old WingStop bag as his home away from cage. HE IS JUST THE CUTEST THING EVER OMG!!!
We’ve been feeding pellets and hay as much as he can eat, although he seems to like picking the tastier colored bits out of his pellet mix and then moving on to the hay. He gets a 4-veggie salad as big as he is once a day (Romaine, alfalfa sprouts, cilantro, and carrot chunks). I’ve also been giving him a small piece of fruit every other day as a treat (apple, strawberry, orange). Please tell me if this is not a good diet.
Also, I will always welcome bunnykeeping tips and anything you guys think we should know. Thanks!
Rabbit Info:
- Rabbit name: Flopsy!
- Rabbit Age: Unknown, apparently adult
- How long has your bunny been with you? Exactly six days.
- Spayed/Neutered? Not yet, but it will happen soon.
- Rabbit Personality Traits: I don’t think we’ve had him long enough to tell, although so far he’s kind of a butt. He chews on everything but his wood blocks (tried to eat my favorite flip-flops), poos everywhere, throws noisy leporine tantrums when we put him in his cage for the night, and nibbles my clothes when I pick him up for cuddles. He does seem to love attention, even if it’s negative, and he can be very sweet when he wants pats. It’s like we adopted a two-year-old.
OH GOD I just found a cork coaster chewed to tiny little bits. WHAT A BRAT!
Cork won’t hurt him if he swallowed any, will it?
ETA: Does anyone know of anything besides lemon oil to keep the Flopsymonster from chewing our coaxial cable? We caught him licking the oil off it.
- Rabbit name: Flopsy!
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Welcome!! He’s gorgeous. I would have to say he’s definitely a holland lop (many people think they are mini lops because they are the smaller lop; however minilops are larger-and the head shape really makes me think holland lop)-and he’s a broken chestnut coloring if I’m not mistaken
Like my bridge bunny Chuck. The only thing for diet I would say is pick a pellet with no colored bits
plain is healthy 
Cork won’t hurt him in a small amount I don’t think but i wouldn’t let him get another -oh and here is great info on bunny proofing. But basically cords must be covered in hard plastic or blocked off.
https://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/BunnyProofingYourHome/tabid/61/Default.aspx -
Also, try not to “free feed”. Do you know his approximate weight? This will help determine how much food he should be getting daily.. I *think* it should be about 1/4 cup daily. You may want to feed him an 1/8 cup in the morning and an 1/8 cup at night if you see that he devours his food in one sitting.
There are three brands that I suggest and those are Oxbow, Kaytee and ZuPreem. It more just depends on where you shop for him and if you’re in the US. As far as larger pet stores go, Petsmart carries an almost full line of Oxbow products and maybe ZuPreem. Petco carries a full line of Kaytee and ZuPreem. It’s generally suggested that you look for a pellet whose first ingredient is timothy. All three of those brands carry timothy based pellets, but make sure to check labels as they also carry alfalfa based pellets. Alfalfa is higher protein and generally reserved for younger bunnies, 6-7 months or younger. Also, I see your feeding him alfalfa sprouts. These are good and in smaller quantities (aka they should take up the whole salad) you can keep giving them to him.
It sounds like he’s adjusted to life very well with you! What a lucky bunny! I know what you mean about those college towns. I’m in college right now but couldn’t imagine giving them up. I have encountered too many STUPID (
) fellow students that get pets for a school year and then just ship them out.. Ugh! -
Thanks, Kokaneeandkahlua. I’d heard about the hard plastic casing for cords; I think we’ll try stapling it straight up the wall instead of along the baseboard and up the corner. If that doesn’t keep him off it, we’ll definitely go for the plastic tubing!
Tate, I generally give him about 1/3″ depth of pellets in the morning and he grazes on them all day. I think it usually comes out to about 1/4c, but I’ll start measuring until I get good at eyeballing the quantity. I’m a terrible judge of weight, but I’ll have my husband give me an estimate and feed accordingly.
Thank you both for the information!
AHAHAHAHA I just caught him washing his back so enthusiastically that he tipped himself over backwards.
BUNNIES ARE AWESOME. Now he’s sitting there like, “What are you looking at? Nothing to see here.” -
Ah, that’s perfect! It’s definitely not a science, but something to be aware of! If he’s a Holland Lop, which he looks like he is, he will probably be somewhere around 3-4 lbs. If you have a scale, you can get on and weight yourself and then hold him and get on again and subtract the weights. But, don’t worry about being too precise.
Rabbits have such great personalities and Holland Lops are known for being really awesome family buns. They generally don’t have too much attitude. I have one and he’s so laid back. I can pick him up and he just becomes a sack of potatoes… Totally in contrast to my other rabbit who has SO much attitude! -
Wow, sack of potatoes, huh?
That’s adorable!Another question: How do we get him to stop leaving bunny bombs everywhere but his litterbox? He doesn’t seem to have any one specific place to poo outside his cage, he just goes wherever he happens to be. How do we teach him to go back to the cage to poop?
Oh, god, he just did another funny thing! Hubby was sitting on the floor petting the Flopsymonster, who decided that the man-mountain warranted further investigation before more pets could be administered. So he starts sniffing Hubby’s knees. Then he hops around and sniffs Hubby’s bare back (eliciting giggles because his whiskers are very tickly). Then he hops around to the front again… and starts trying to eat Hubby’s leghair. It was so funny!
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Bunny bombs are normal right now, bunnies like to mark their territory when they come to a new place. Especially if they are unneutered
Sounds like he is loving his new home and new slaves already
And I agree, he looks like a Holland Lop to me too I have a baby holland, named Squirrel Lops are too adorable! -
Since he has only been at your house for 6 days, he is probably still getting used to his surroundings.. and thus marking the house
I would watch to see where he poops a lot, and put the litter box there. Even getting a second litter box would be good If he leaves stray poos, I would pick up the poo and put it into the litter box. It shows little man ‘this is where the poops go, okie?’ Until his litter habits are intact, I would restrict his free range habits. Did the person you got him from say he is neutered? It can do wonders, even for litter box habits.
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Thank you all for the tips (and the compliments!)! I think the Flopsymonster knows exactly how stinkin’ cute he is, and is using his powers of adorableness to make us squee when he’s naughty.
I will continue to research house rabbit care and lurk on the forums, but please feel free to message me if there’s anything else I need to know about bunnies!
Have a wonderful weekend, everybunny!
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