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Cowslips Warren posted:Also, am I the only person who never sees her buns devour hay? I have timothy hay and a variety of others, and have it around their cage, but I never see them sit down and munch away. Should I cut out their small supply of pellets (the KayTee timothy ones) until more hay goes missing? Could try a hay feeder so you can see how much/if they're actually eating... someone in here recommended one of those under the counter storage dealies, wire so they could pull the hay through. Actually mine started eating a whole lot more once I put it in their cage. Deceptor101 posted:Will bonded couples have spats every now and then? Mine do (though usually not so much as what you said), I inevitably freak out every time and start posting about it here. Windy posted:I think they're just mad that you've disrupted their habitat Anybody else have buns who just don't seem to care about this? Random but I always think it's weird how mine don't seem to care too much.
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Feb 2, 2009 00:50
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Fenarisk posted:Holy cow thank you for that info, we might look into it soon then and have her all healed up from it before may with any luck. It's going to be tough to bond a non-spayed female. They can be very, very territorial and you may find a bunny that get's along great at the shelter but then you bring them home and you're visiting the ER room. I would really have her spayed first, wait a month, then do an adoption. It will be a much smoother process 
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Feb 2, 2009 00:52
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GoodApollo posted:Anybody else have buns who just don't seem to care about this? Random but I always think it's weird how mine don't seem to care too much. Mine only get pissed if you pick them up. I can move their house around, cages, etc but only picking them up or trying to grab them gets a thump.  Bubbles (left) and Lafonduh (right, wanted to call her twoface) get along during play time.  This is buttercup, who's currently bonded with bubbles. Yet starts fights with Ladonduh.
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Feb 2, 2009 01:52
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Will a rabbit's fur color develop over time? For instance will a rabbit with some gray fur get more gray in the future? I've read that as new coats grow in during seasonal changes they can grow in different colors. Any truth to this?
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Feb 2, 2009 05:53
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My rabbits are shedding like crazy right now, I'm able to pull out clumps at a time but the ends of the hairs are all white. had one rabbits for 3+ years now and his fur colors/patterns have never changed.
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Feb 2, 2009 06:37
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Absolutely, but it can depend on the color. A black rabbit is pretty much always going to look black, regardless of how young/old/moulty it is! Some colors darken/lighten dramatically or change altogether as a rabbit ages, sometimes it's just a slight change from a baby coat to an adult coat. But if you're talking about a rabbit that is spotted gray and white, the amount of gray on the rabbit won't change, but the shade of gray might. Rabbits with Californian/Himi markings (dark legs, tail, ears and nose with a white body) actually start out kind of grayish all over, but by the time they're full grown it's like all the color has 'retreated' to their points.
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Feb 2, 2009 06:41
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I think Mocha is a little lighter in the summer, it's hard to tell though. It's really funny when he sheds, because he looks like he has a toupee on his back. My REW is always looks the same though.
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Feb 2, 2009 13:07
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Bunway Airlines posted:It's going to be tough to bond a non-spayed female. They can be very, very territorial and you may find a bunny that get's along great at the shelter but then you bring them home and you're visiting the ER room. I would really have her spayed first, wait a month, then do an adoption. It will be a much smoother process Oh yeah I forgot to mention, my friend's rabbit is a spayed female who still tries to rip my rabbit's throat out the moment they're together. There might be some problems even if the girl is spayed. Depends on how in-your-face they are. Or maybe my Billy's meek nature just angers her, who knows?
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Feb 2, 2009 17:05
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I haven't posted any good pictures of my buns here yet, so I thought I would post some for you to enjoy! This is Mervyn. My dad decided since I had two rabbits I would love a third!  Vonn, who used to wake my up my hopping on my bed and sitting on my head >:[ which is why they are now in their cage at night.  Vonn and Rousseau being sweet instead of eating my stuff. 
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Feb 2, 2009 18:00
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RabbitMage posted:Absolutely, but it can depend on the color. A black rabbit is pretty much always going to look black, regardless of how young/old/moulty it is! Some colors darken/lighten dramatically or change altogether as a rabbit ages, sometimes it's just a slight change from a baby coat to an adult coat. Yeah, Bowser's grey and white- she always had little sections of grey that were closer to a light brown. It's been evening out as she's getting older, though, (she's now about 9), and now her grey is pretty much just the same shade.
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Feb 2, 2009 18:41
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DS at Night posted:Oh yeah I forgot to mention, my friend's rabbit is a spayed female who still tries to rip my rabbit's throat out the moment they're together. There might be some problems even if the girl is spayed. Depends on how in-your-face they are. Or maybe my Billy's meek nature just angers her, who knows? We've made an appointment to spay her on the 12th, and then the long week and a half of trying to keep her from jumping onto the bed or sprinting around so as not to tear anything and heal up. I'm really hoping the bonding in May goes okay, I'm pretty sure we have a submissive bunny but I'm always worried about some fighting even if they like each other when introduced at the adoption house. Right now I'm just looking forward to spaying her because having her sprint in circles around my feet pooping the entire time is getting to be annoying, and trying to nudge her butt into the cage results in her back end going up with her tail high thinking she's going to get some rather than just going in the drat cage 
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Feb 2, 2009 19:36
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Bonding is usually a tough, long process. Sometimes it's love at first sight but not usually. You're going to have to take it slow and have very supervised visits for a long time. Rabbits don't forget fights and seem to hold grudges against each other. There's two seperate issues going on when you're bonding unspayed or unneutered rabbits. It could just be the hormones or it could be that they're not a good match. Most of the time, it's going to be the hormones and it's just going to be easier to have that out of the way first and then worry about personality matches. I was told my a very experienced rabbit bonder than in 15 years of bonding she's only had 2 pairs not work out, the rest eventually bonded. She might have a unique experience but it's food for thought suggesting that bunnies may not be particular, they're just territorial assholes in the beginning. If you haven't already, read the bonding section on the house rabbit website.
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Feb 2, 2009 19:53
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Fenarisk posted:Right now I'm just looking forward to spaying her because having her sprint in circles around my feet pooping the entire time is getting to be annoying, and trying to nudge her butt into the cage results in her back end going up with her tail high thinking she's going to get some rather than just going in the drat cage At least she doesn't get a death grip on your calves and then proceed to hump the poo poo out of your ankles like MY bunny did before she was spayed. Strangely enough, she turned out to be very submissive with other bunnies, despite trying to conquer any human she can find. Actually, she still occasionally humps one of my cats, though....
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Feb 2, 2009 21:28
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Bunway Airlines posted:Bonding is usually a tough, long process. Sometimes it's love at first sight but not usually. You're going to have to take it slow and have very supervised visits for a long time. Rabbits don't forget fights and seem to hold grudges against each other. Thanks, I'll read up on that, and the way it looks she'll have two and a half months of being spayed/recovered before we even attempt getting another rabbit/have a try at bonding. The hardest part of neutering is finding a way to let her out and play with her without letting her spring around or jump up and down off the tall bed, since she doesn't really like any kind of toy we give her other than boxes.
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Feb 3, 2009 01:16
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Fat Lazy Unicorn posted:I haven't posted any good pictures of my buns here yet, so I thought I would post some for you to enjoy! How do you guys trust your bunnies around piles of what looks like clothing or other things that would look delightful to dig into? Mine would tear anything to shreds. I love the bunny pictures where they're half asleep in a pile of laundry but I'm afraid I'll end up with tatters of clothing. Or they'll pee in it. (They're litter trained mostly, but every once in a while they decided RIGHTHERE is a good place to pee.)
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Feb 3, 2009 03:15
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Oliver was on the bed, and I had my laptop handy... Click here for the full 1310x990 image. edit: Just noticed that it's mirrored  I didn't know my computer was backwards...
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Feb 3, 2009 03:34
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 Click here for the full 764x573 image. Peanut! Ex girlfriends rabbit that lived at my house for a while. He likes his beer case boxes. I made him a tunnel system with like 7 or 8 of them that he would run and do loops through. He took over a good section of my house by the time he moved back out.
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Feb 3, 2009 10:10
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angelicism posted:How do you guys trust your bunnies around piles of what looks like clothing or other things that would look delightful to dig into? Mine would tear anything to shreds. I love the bunny pictures where they're half asleep in a pile of laundry but I'm afraid I'll end up with tatters of clothing. Or they'll pee in it. (They're litter trained mostly, but every once in a while they decided RIGHTHERE is a good place to pee.) Either the other posters in this thread are fortunate to have well-behaved rabbits, or they just haven't found out the truth yet...
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Feb 3, 2009 10:25
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Usually my room isn't that messy. Things have been hectic here and all of those things came out of my closet in search of the one book I needed. They usually don't touch my clothes though, the only thing they eat are my electronics and my leather purses.
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Feb 3, 2009 13:39
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I think one of my rabbits may have GI Stasis. The only symptom is small poops. She is still producing them and is eating like there is nothing wrong. I gave her a bunch of fresh greens this morning and she gobbled them down no problem. Her personality is the same as it has always been. Are small poops something I should be concerned about?
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Feb 3, 2009 16:56
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Generally if your rabbit is acting abnormal it's best to call the vet, or just take it in, especially with concerns of GI stasis. I'm sure alucinor can chime in with some more in-depth information. If your rabbit is eating pellets and hay, I would start monitoring the amount of food intake as well as water. If this amount decreases at all, get to the vet. According to my vet, the most common sign of stasis onset is a lack of appetite and energy. This is usually followed by smaller/no poop, loud tummy grumbles and labored breathing. After that it's a short time frame between losing and saving your rabbit 
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Feb 3, 2009 18:02
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I leave piles of dirty clothes all over the floor for the same reason I leave our bed comforter all crumpled up on the bed: she lovesto make tunnels and burrow but never destroys it. She'll do this weird mouthing thing to move them and pull them around where she wants but we keep her nails short most of the time. Wires, on the other hand, are gone in the blink of an eye around her. Even sitting playing the 360 i feel a tug on my mic wire and then dead silence, because one bite sheers through anything less than an inch thick.
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Feb 3, 2009 18:31
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Fenarisk posted:Thanks, I'll read up on that, and the way it looks she'll have two and a half months of being spayed/recovered before we even attempt getting another rabbit/have a try at bonding. The hardest part of neutering is finding a way to let her out and play with her without letting her spring around or jump up and down off the tall bed, since she doesn't really like any kind of toy we give her other than boxes. Yeah, you're going to have to keep her still....it can be tough with the young rowdy ones
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Feb 3, 2009 18:31
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Bunway Airlines posted:Yeah, you're going to have to keep her still....it can be tough with the young rowdy ones I'm assuming cage confining is not the way to go either? That seems very mean and unhealthy for 7 or so days in my mind and I'd really rather not even attempt it. She's in the cage a good half the day as it is and only gets 4-5 hours of good solid exercise jumping on beds or sprinting around the living room a day.
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Feb 3, 2009 18:45
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I built my bunny a condo. I was originally just going to make a fence, but at Target I changed my mind and bought a second box of grids and started formulating a plan. $60 and two trips to Home Depot later, I built this: It's got a second level of sorts with a carpeted ramp. I moved the cardboard box to the lower level because he loves to go inside and start freaking out. I didn't want him to do that on the top level and accidentally fall off. I need to get some kitchen organizing baskets for the hay, but Home Depot had almost every organizer except one that would work. Plenty of wire spice racks and wire pockets with only one side, meant to be screwed onto something flat, but nothing with two sides that would hold hay. I put a colander near the ground and filled it up with hay and now he's making GBS threads and pissing in it so I need to come up with another solution asap. I need to find those kitchen organizers fast. I'm a little worried that he can fit his head through the squares. I've seen him do it once to try and eat something that was just outside the cage. Are rabbits like mice in that they can fit through anything their head can get through? He'd probably have a hard time getting his whole body through one square, but it's a little troubling that he can get his head through. scholzie fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Feb 5, 2009 |
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Feb 5, 2009 23:23
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I like what you've built there. Just make sure the little guy can't/won't start gnawing on that linoleum. As for sticking his head through the grids, you can try to attach a border of cardboard around the bottom of the cage until he grows a bit. If you can't find the spice rack things, you could take a grid square and bend that in half - if you have one left over that is.
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Feb 6, 2009 00:49
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The holes are too big for that. It would fall right through, all over the floor.
scholzie fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Feb 6, 2009 |
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Feb 6, 2009 01:28
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scholzie posted:I'm a little worried that he can fit his head through the squares. I've seen him do it once to try and eat something that was just outside the cage. Are rabbits like mice in that they can fit through anything their head can get through? He'd probably have a hard time getting his whole body through one square, but it's a little troubling that he can get his head through. I spent the better part of 8 hours making a huge cube cage with two levels for my mini rex and after tossing her in she wiggled and squirmed and got right through the cage...which was in the computer room a few feet from all my wires. I nearly had a heart attack thinking that she'd strangle herself for being curious. She just went back to the older smaller one level cage and gets free roam of the bedroom instead for most of the day.
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Feb 6, 2009 04:53
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scholzie posted:I put a colander near the ground and filled it up with hay and now he's making GBS threads and pissing in it so I need to come up with another solution asap. I need to find those kitchen organizers fast. he's gonna crap and piss where the food is at, might as well put all his food in that blue dish with all the rabbit poop in it. I found a small cat litter box bottoms work too, they come in all sizes.
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Feb 6, 2009 05:58
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DS at Night posted:Billy doesn't pee anywhere he's not supposed to, but I never leave clothes lying around anyway because he just loves digging and biting in fabric. My curtains are a lost cause already. I never leave wires/cables exposed either because it takes him less than a second to locate those and bite right through them. Sometimes I give him an old pillow to destroy, but I have to remove it when he gets to the stuffing because he'll eat it like it's candy. Rabbits might be cute but they're huge morons. Mine in particular. Posts like this make me happy to realize I'm not the only one.
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Feb 6, 2009 09:48
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scholzie posted:I built my bunny a condo. I was originally just going to make a fence, but at Target I changed my mind and bought a second box of grids and started formulating a plan. $60 and two trips to Home Depot later, I built this: Awesome cage, dude. It's like Bunny's Dream House there. What are the dimensions?
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Feb 6, 2009 18:17
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hey guys, I'm getting my rabbits back today after not having them for 5 months. I'm so loving excited. I'm in the process of rabbit proofing my room and soon I'm going to go out and buy a nice large carpet for them and some other stuff that they might like too from IKEA. I have all kinds of things for them to play in and with. in other news, Oxbow is on order from the vet so they won't have hay for a little while (two or three days.. boo) and they're going to the vet really soon. Yay! so I'm off to spend a lot of money on them even though the first thing that they will likely do is destroy things that cost a lot of money. But how can you deny those little faces?!@
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Feb 6, 2009 18:39
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Well Sprout humped the poo poo out of my arm for the first time this morning, I feel so violated from the same bunny that would curl up into a ball and sleep next to me on the couch while I played Xbox. That and the pooping all over the place when she gets excited makes me glad she's getting spayed next week. Every time I play with her or get cuddly and pet her it just leads to her getting "excited". I'm thinking of changing her cage before she gets spayed too, though. Right now it's a wire bottom with two small grass mats covering about 25% of the cage, her food bowl and water bowl covering about 10%, and her big sleeping bed in one corner and a corner litter box in the other. There's some toys here and there but still maybe a little under half the cage is wire. Would a larger grass mat or a piece of carpet work okay in there? I'm worried about her pooping all over it, and if all that poop will be a nuisance to her since she's used to it falling into the pan below. Also we tried a towel before and she just bunched it up and threw it into the corner with her water and food bowls. Fenarisk fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Feb 6, 2009 |
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Feb 6, 2009 19:05
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Fenarisk posted:I'm thinking of changing her cage before she gets spayed too, though. Right now it's a wire bottom Even bare cardboard would be better than any exposed wire floor. You can get coardboard boxes for free from any store, break them down and fold them so they're 2 layers thick, and use that. Easy to replace once it gets peed on or chewed up (and the chewing is fun, too). Once she's spayed she'll be better about the litterbox. Carpet would be fine too - go to any place that sells carpet and ask if you can have some of the little 18"x24" sample size pieces, or remnants, for free. Pretty much regardless of what you use she'll pee on it and destroy it and you'll have to replace it, but that's what rabbits do. The reason I'm so vehemently against wire floors is because of Max. See how her front feet are twisted inward and her toes are splayed out? She was housed in a mostly-wire cage - with plenty of solid surfaces to get off of the wire - for six years before she was surrendered to me. Her feet were permanently damaged by the wire despite the fact that she didn't spend all her time on it. Her back feet are even worse - the toes were twisted over one another. The uneven support of the wire, combined with probably catching her toes in it occasionally, caused permanent damage and chronic pain. I have a close-up picture of her toes at home, I'll post it when I can find it.
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Feb 6, 2009 19:40
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There is nothing wrong with a clean, properly maintained wire floor. Aforementioned clean, properly maintained wire floor will not hurt or mutilate a bunny. Fenarisk, with your bun just coming out of surgery I wouldn't put down cardboard, which gets soiled easily and holds on to moisture. The idea of a rabbit with a fresh incision laying on that just doesn't sit right with me. If you want to transition her to something else, I'd wait until after she's started healing.
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Feb 6, 2009 20:23
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I'll wait until the 12 days after the surgery then. We have a ton of rolled up carpet left over from when your apartment was redone, it's what I had used for the bix cube cage before finding out she was too small for it. I'll toss some of that in to fill in most of the cage then. I'm really not worried about sweeping the poop into the pan, I just know she sometimes misses her corner litter container. I'll probably try that for awhile and see how she likes it. I'll also see what the bunny that we might adopt is used to at the shelter in May, going with something of that variety over the wire cage. Ideally if we can train the new rabbit the same as sprout they can have the free run of the entire bedroom all day long since all the wires are bunnyproofed and they only use the cage itself as the litter and go-to place, with tons of toys, boxes, and grass balls strewn all over the place.
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Feb 6, 2009 20:47
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RabbitMage posted:There is nothing wrong with a clean, properly maintained wire floor. Aforementioned clean, properly maintained wire floor will not hurt or mutilate a bunny. Max's toes would disagree with you. This was a spacious cage - over 4'x4' - and cleaned daily, with no rust or dirt build up. The holes were under 1/2" by 1". It was in such great condition that we kept it and are now using it as a rat cage. She had multiple litterboxes and cardboard squares to sit on. The fact remains that it damaged her feet. I'm not saying it's a 100% certainty that a rabbit will be damaged by wire, I'm arguing that it's not a 0% probability either, I have evidence that it can happen. So with so many other options, why risk it?
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Feb 6, 2009 21:23
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Did you own her during those six years? Are you positive she was not born with unusual feet, and was always fed properly? In a large cage where it sounds like most of the wire was covered, wire doesn't seem to be the obvious culprit. And if we're going off of anecdotal evidence, I have plenty of bunny toes who would disagree with you. I have never owned a rabbit who's feet looked like that.
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Feb 6, 2009 21:26
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RabbitMage posted:Did you own her during those six years? Are you positive she was not born with unusual feet, and was always fed properly? In a large cage where it sounds like most of the wire was covered, wire doesn't seem to be the obvious culprit. No, of course I can't know that her reported history was accurate. She was surrendered to my rescue, but had only one previous owner, and her feet looked totally normal in the baby pictures they gave me. They claimed she had no previous health issues, and when I asked about her feet they admitted that she "may have" caught her toes on the wire a few times, but since they wouldn't say definitively one way or the other we can only speculate. I've never had rabbits come in as bad as her, but have had several others come in with sore hocks. All of them were housed on wire, most of them dirty wire as you note. But I've never seen sore hocks on a rabbit in a filthy solid floor cage, nor in rabbits from normal clean solid floor cages, for that matter. What would be the advantage of wire floors other than to make cleaning easier for the owner? There seems to be no benefit to the rabbit, with potential added risk. And since you have to scrub the poo poo out of them for safety anyhow, litterboxes and a solid floor don't seem like any more work - much less, in fact.
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Feb 6, 2009 21:38
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On the contrary, I've known many rabbits who've never seen a wire cage in their life, and yet they have the big callouses that indicate they had begun to develop sore hocks or had open wounds in the past. In my experience, the primary cause of sore hocks is genetic. Rabbits born with poor or thin fur covering on their feet are more likely to get it, and this has little to do with what kind of surface they're kept on. This is why you see a lot of Rex/Mini Rex rabbits with those calluses-because of their fur structure, they tend to have less foot protection. Most of the Mini Rex breeders I know look at this specifically when making breeding decisions. If a rabbit it prone to sore hocks, then being on ANY surface that is even mildly abrasive-which does include wire but also includes a lot of grass/sisal mats and household carpet-is going to aggravate that. Wire cages make for a more sanitary environment, IMO. Yes they make cleaning easier on us, but they also keep the rabbit away from it's own waste. There's no wet, dirty bedding for them to sit in. If someone chooses to keep their rabbit in a solid floored/carpeted cage, that's fine with me. There's more than one way to house/feed/care for a bun. But I hate this rumor going around about how evil wire cages are when a properly maintained wire cage is no more dangerous than any other option. There is a little risk in everything, isn't there?
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Feb 6, 2009 21:55
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