How to settle in a suddenly adopted bunny?

[Noodles]

For around a week a stray bunny had kept returning to my great grandparents’ house (as one of them had bought pellets for it to eat and provided water to drink) and it kept coming back daily and hiding out at night. They consulted everyone nearby and nobody claimed it as their pet. It returned during a father’s day barbecue and there was a huge commotion on to if anyone was going to take it because my great grandfather didn’t want it staying around the house. 

In the end, I managed to gain its trust and was able to hold him and check him out to see what was going on. For sure he had been out for a very long time, as his hind claws were very worn down, most likely from running on cement and digging so much. He had developed white scabbing on his hocks and his pads were a little scathed. I’m pretty sure the bunny is a male, but his rear is also urine-stained and I’m sure it’s not a very good feeling. 

My aunt, who still lives with my grandparents, decided to take it in mainly because she wanted the experience with a pet and because all the younger children absolutely loved the bunny (they were very gentle and quiet after I had told them that they don’t like loud noises!) I’m worried about it because to them; me holding the bunny = I know everything about buns, which I don’t!! Nobody in the household has bothered to do research on their proper care, and the only things my grandfather knows is how to pick them up and how to determine gender. They have nothing at all for the bunny and are not experienced or prepared to care for him properly. I even had to tell one of them to buy hay for him to eat after finding out he had been eating pellets only for almost an entire week!

I’ve taken it upon myself to do heavy research on proper care for bunnies and at the end I had stayed up all night for four days writing down important info like bathing, litterboxes, cleaning, caging, feeding, grooming, toys, bedding, costs, proper brands, and all the hay information, plus additional facts and important info. The information altogether turned out to be around 12 pages long yet I’m worried I won’t be taken seriously or they won’t read it all and ignore bits and give the bunny a miserable life. Plus they want me to come over this Sunday to give him a starch bath and help with some setup + shopping.

Despite all the research I’ve done I still want to ask for tips and advice from people on the forums who are more experienced than I am in owning and caring for a bunny!

He is a house pet for sure, white base with black spotting. I’m not sure if he’s an English Spot or another breed >>

UPDATE: He’s now well housed and has most of the stuff he’ll need for a good life We’re currently working on getting more comforting and warm bedding for an outdoors hutch (there’s sadly no space inside) He’s happy and clean now, thank you all for your help ^^

[GlennTheLionhead]

Hello!
It’s lovely to hear you have taken the stray bunny in to care for it, I’m at not an expert but have done plenty of research and am a bunny mum myself.
The first thing I would go is take him to a vet to get him a health check and also try find out if he’s microchipped, even if you have fallen in love with the little bunddle of fluff there is a chance he could be a lost rabbit and the owners may be looking for him, the vet will be able to check if he is microchipped.

Bunnys are no way near as easy to care for as people tend to think, they are very fragile and complex creatures. If you have done a lot of research you’ll probably be fimilar with all the tips I’m about to give you but that just means you’ve done the research right

So I’ll start with diet, your rabbits diet should consist of mainly fresh hay or grass, he should be given an amount that looks about double the size of him daily or in other words basically unlimited hay. Rabbits eat continuously throughout the day to keep their teeth trim and their digestive system working, there teeth are ever growing so it’s important they eat lots of hay to prevent dental problems. About 1-2 egg cups of pellets a day, the pellets should be at least 17% fibre as are a supplement to their diet, pellets should not be their sole diet as this can cause obesity and means the bunny isn’t getting the right nutrition. Fresh greens can be fed daily as a treat aswell, a small handful should be plenty for the bun! As I said they are fragile and can’t eat everything, iceberg lettuce should not be fed as it causes digestive problems in the bunny. Greens like spring greens and kale are great, I feed my bun them and he loves them! A lot of pet store will sell seeds as treats but these aren’t really ideal as they cause digestive problems, treats should be good such as dandilions, a small amount of carrot, certain fruits can be a treat as well

Housing your bunny- they need plenty of hay to snuggle in to keep warm and this is essential if they are in a hutch, if it is a house bun then blankets can be used if preferred but hay should always be available, if their kept in a cage or hutch daily it should be atleast six feet long to allow them to hop and high enough for them to stand. Rabbits need a few hours of excerise a day atleast so should have an area they can fully stretch and run in to do so, you can purchase pens online or allow them to roam a room supervised and free from dangers such as cables etc. Rabbits need plenty of toys they can chew and maybe a digging box to dig in, they are very destructive and will chew pretty much anything and might rip up carpets to so make sure your aunt is prepared for this! Rabbits can be litter trained as well and you can purchase a litter box for most pets store, fill it with wood shavings or wood pellets, the litter trays MUST be cleaned out daily and their living environment must be cleaned out and disinfected at least once a weeks.

Socialising – rabbits are very social and need a lot of attention daily especially if it is a lone bunny, you absolutely can not leave a bunny in a hutch all day on its own most days and just feed it, this used to be something that was done often but we’ve learnt a lot more about bunnies over the years and if you own a rabbit that isn’t ever let out of the cage or hutch and not seen daily, living on its own, then in the most polite way possible a rabbit is not the pet for you (I’m sure you wouldn’t do this, but I’m just speaking in general terms ! ).

I’m not sure what you mean by a starch bath but a bunny should never be bathed and submerged in water, this causes an extreme change in tempuature for the bunny and can be fatal! To bath a bunny if you really need to wipe the fur with a damp cloth, rabbits are self grooming and shouldn’t really ever need to be bathed

Signs of illness – if you rabbit hasn’t eaten or pooped for 12-24 hours treat it as an emergency and take him to the vet immediately. Excessive lethargy, teeth grinding, unkept fur, flaky skin, any bad ordours coming from the rabbit, sudden changes in appitite or eating ‘soft’ food only, runny poo should also be treated as an emergency. Rabbits are prey animals so very good at hiding illness so any sudden changes in behaviour should be addressed. I’d highly reccomend pet insurance as illness in rabbits can be extremely expensive and it’s not that uncommon either, thy can be prone to life long dental problems :/

Rabbit personalitys- once you have gained a rabbits trust they have lovely personalities and will run around in a crazy happy manner, do what is called a ‘binky’ which is like a hop and twist in the air, flop to the floor and lay down are all signs of happiness. They might bump their nose on you which is a bit like a hello! When a rabbit is really content it will ‘purr’ very quietly, the purr is them lightly chattering their teeth and it’s really sweet they love to be stroked, loved and cuddled and are very affectionate.
If a rabbit is scared it might thump its foot or hunch its body up widening its eyes or exposing its inner eyelids in the corner of the eyes, bunny screaming is a sign of intense pain or fear of death.

So that basically all the main points about rabbits that any owner should know, I hope this helped and has made you feel a bit more confident in your research! The best of luck with the little rabbit! I hope it lives a long happy life!

[Noodles]

Thank you so much for the tips and advice !! and to answer your question on a starch bath; I’ve been hearing everywhere about using baby cornstarch or argo cornstarch to break down mess and help with urine stinging instead of using water (which I am aware of is bad for buns!) They use the term ‘Dry Bath’ for it :”)

[vanessa]

I use dry baths (starch) for Lancelot wet butt when I don’t have time for a real bath. Sometimes it is needed. The advice against it refers to.not bathing a bunny like we bathe our dogs. Only bathe a bunny if it really needs it. Cold bath will definitely do harm, but body temp water is good. Don’t submerge = true. I bathe Lancelot every weekend. He needs it for his incontinence. If a bunny has a urine stained/wet/poopy butt, they do need a bath to get the poop/per off their skin. Both will cause scalding. I fill up the bathroom sink with 2 inches warm soapy water, a cloth in the sink for grip, one over the edge, and sit his butt/hind quaters in, and front feet over the edge. So only what needs to be washed- gets wet. If hedoesnt need a full-on rear soak, I cradle him and hold his rear under running water, then apply liquid soap, wash with my fingertips, rinse under running water, dry. Pat dry, paper towel booty dry, then hair dryer. I also trim his sanitary area fur at every bath.

If you can find good pellets with fiber in the 20%- range, that is better. I personally like 24%. I wouldn’t buy pellets with less than 20%. That’s just me.

[GlennTheLionhead]

No problem! Ahh okay I’ll keep the dry bath in mind if I ever need to use it! I will actually say I do agree with the atleast 20% fibre, when I done my research I found 17% to be the absolute minimum requirement but the more is better, perhaps i should have said that in my first post! Mine gets a food called ‘selective’ it’s about 25% fibre I believe and I researched it to be a very good food, you can get it online or in most pet stores. I can’t speak for every supermarket however in my experience supermarkets in the UK tend to sell brands that are low in price but also low the good nutrients.

[vanessa]

Hopefully u will never need to use a dry or wet bath 😉

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