Inspector Gadget (Cartoon) – Pet Rabbit PSA

[LBJ10]

Okay, this has been stuck in my head for a few days now. I don’t know why I remember this, of all things. Does anyone remember the Inspector Gadget cartoon? I guess this would have been the 1990’s. I used to watch it a lot when I was a kid. They always had PSAs at the end of each episode (a lot of cartoons back then did, not sure how much good they did LOL). Well, I remember one about pet rabbits. Two rabbits were trying to order some lettuce and carrots. Then they were told they shouldn’t eat lettuce and carrots. Lettuce and carrots would make them sick. Pet rabbits should only eat pellets and water (no, no mention of hay). I understand that the message was meant to inform kids that they should feed their pets the proper diet. So why did they say that lettuce and carrots would make them sick? I guess if that was all you fed them..

[KytKattin]

Well carrots and lettuce such as head lettuce (iceburg) are either useless or potentially bad for bunnies. Carrots are sugary, and iceburg is mostly water. Plus, if you look at what pellets were originally created for, it was to raise rabbits quickly (to get good weight on them) for breeders to either make the next generation or supper. Pellets are something created for breeders probably by breeders. And when you only expect to have a rabbit for at most 2 years, a pellet only diet will get a majority of them there at good weights, and at the cheapest possible cost to you. When people first started keeping rabbits as pets, their only knowledge really came from the same breeders they were purchasing them from. It was uncommon to take a rabbit to the vet, or expect it to live more than a few years. Unfortunately, this kind of knowledge tends to stick around. Though the HRS, and now BB has done amazing things towards educating people, programs like 4H continue to view rabbits as livestock, with the main goal being to get them to “harvest weight”.

[LBJ10]

I don’t think the cartoon specified what kind of lettuce. I just remember getting the impression that feeding a rabbit lettuce and carrots is like feeding chocolate to a dog. I wish I could find it on YouTube. So you’re saying that pellets and water were what was believed to be the proper diet then? I had a rabbit when I was a kid. It was for a short period of time because my mom didn’t like the smell (unspayed female). Taking a rabbit to the vet or having it fixed was pretty much unheard of. I don’t know what happened to her since I came home from school one day and she was gone. I think my parents gave her to one of my dad’s coworkers. Anyway, that’s off topic. I was just curious because we all know that feeding only pellets and water is not the best diet for them.

[Eepster]

I had a bunny and was in 4h back in the late ’80s. The standard advice for keeping them was…

1> Feed them mostly pellets and spread alfalfa hay around the hutch. Greens and carrots were treats to be given in extremely small quantities (Like once a week or so.)
2> Bunnies needed to be outside to get fresh air. Taking them inside was bad for them, especially in winter.
3> Never take a bunny to the vet. Vets were not trained to care for rabbits and don’t know what they are doing. A vet is going to do more harm than good, treat problems at home and if you can’t euthanize the bunny.

As Kytkattin pointed out, keeping bunnies as pets instead of livestock for fur and meat is a fairly new thing, so most of the older advice is based on that.

[Stickerbunny]

Standard of care for exotics has improved as they have become more popular pets. This includes rabbits, birds, reptiles, etc. None of the things that were said when we were kids are likely to be true today. Even the care of dogs and cats has improved drastically – I remember when I was a kid we had to put our dog down because the vets said it was impossible to treat her condition and now it is treatable with antibiotics. And for our bird, seeds and fresh water were recommended. We had a rabbit when I was a kid, but I honestly can’t remember what we were told to feed her… I think she ended up eating grass from the yard and whatever food the breeder gave us. My parents didn’t let us have her for long because she smelled (hutch, no litter box, not altered either). And I am not even that old! Hopefully with education and groups like HRS and other exotics care groups the average care will improve even more.

[LBJ10]

I don’t even remember what was recommended by the pet store where my mom bought her. I don’t remember ever buying her hay. She had pellets and that was about it. They did sell these hickory branches there and told us that rabbits loved chewing on them. So we got those all the time. The strange thing is that we had a litter box for her. I don’t think she really used it though, I think she liked to sleep in it. The cage had a wire bottom, so that is most likely why. The poor thing. The cage was too small too because she was supposed to be 4 lbs (so said the pet store). She ended up weighing more than the cats. =/

[KytKattin]

Probably pellets. I think petstores make more money on pellets than hay. Petstores also like to sell all rabbits as “mini”. They just sell better, and pretty much no one knows what they are really getting. And any return policy will have long since expired before the bunny reaches his or her max size. Worse case in their mind? You have to come back and buy a bigger cage! So now they sold you two cages, a bunny, and even more food because your big bunny eats more. Terrible, but true.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I remember Inspector Gadget. I used to watch it in the morning before school. It used to drive me nuts how Inspector Gadget never recognized Brain (the dog) when he was dressed up. I don’t remember the PSA’s though. Just the GI Joe ones, because knowing is half the battle.

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