Bring home a new rabbit, what to expect;	Bonding Scratching vs Digging Disciplining Your Rabbit
Feeding and watering your pet rabbit;	Water Bottles Automatic Waterers Automatic Feeders Free Feed vs Restricted Feed
Indoor or outdoor rabbit houses;	Indoor Outdoor Preditor Big and Small
Proper cage size for your pet rabbit;	Rule Of Thumb My Breeds to Cage Size
Healthy and not so healthy treats;	Healthy Treats UnHealthy Treats
Delivery to adulthood, what to expect;	Conception Labor Eyes Opening First Food Weaning Breeding Age

When you bring a bunny home you can expect that your bunny will be a little stressed out. Your bunny is experiencing a lot of new things all at once. The car ride, the new smells, the new places and these new people they have never met before, are all stressful to a bunny. Bunnies are farsighted; therefore they rely on their sense of smell and there ability to hear to know how you are. Baby bunnies don't completely develop their sense of smell till they get about three months old. Bunnies can be spooked easily if you enter a room quietly. Talking to them as you enter a room can help avoid this. Bunnies can show stress in a few different ways. Some bunnies will not eat for a few hours. However, they should return to a regular eating pattern within 12 hours (see feeding and watering your new bunny). Some bunnies will start to shred their fur, more than normally. They will usually have a heart rate and seem to be breathing faster then normally. Remember that their heart rate and resting respiration is a lot higher then humans. Younger bunnies will tend to spaze more so than adults. If it's an adult you might not be able to stop him from spazing. However; young bunnies tend to spaze if it's stressed or scared. I comfort the bunny all you need to do is hide it's nose. You can hide it's nose under your shirt sleeve, palm or chin. However, your chin leaves you susceptible to scratches on your chest if it tries to hide more then it's nose. If your rabbit bites you this is not a good sign. A biting bunny will always bite. Some bunnies give love bits which doesn't hurt, but is still unpleasant. If they bite you and it causes pain or bleeding, I would return it as soon as possible.

I always suggest to people that they should play with their bunny as much as possible in the first few weeks you bring it home. The more you play/pet your bunny the more it will bond with you. Bunnies trend to bond to the people it sees frequently and shy away from the people it doesn't know. A bunnies short term memory span. seems to be about two weeks long. A good place to do this is your bathroom or kitchen floor. Rabbit droppings are firm and easy to clean up, and if you return it to it's cage every thirty minutes or so the likely hood of it urinating on your floor is slim.

A bunny is only previously scratching you when you put your hand in the cage and they pick up their front feet and scratch. Bunnies seem to do this if you are scarring it by coming at it open hand straight at it's face or if doesn't like a smell on your hands. The smell you are presenting with can be as minor as the rabbits a buck and you are women menstruating. Bunnies love to dig. If it finds a smell it likes, be it on your shirt, on the carpet, or in some dirt, it will dig in it. They don't seem to do this to harm, but just in curiosity.

Disciplining Your Rabbit If your rabbit exhibits or does things that could harm him (chewing on wires), harm your furniture (chewing on baseboards/wooden furniture), or any other undesired actions all you need to do it squirt it with a water bottle and it will stop. Hitting your rabbit will not stop him from doing it's actions, but rather make it mean and aggressive. If your rabbit finds a interesting smell on your carpet it might urinate on it. To stop this all you should have to do is spray Apple Bitter in the spot or squirt the bunny with water if they try to do this. A bunny will always lift it's tail before urinating..

Outdoor

Outdoor rabbit cages work great. The smell is hardly noticeable and a little lime takes care of that. However; you need to prepare the cage for the extremes of heat and cold.

In the summer you need to place the cage in the shade, where there might be a small breeze. Providing a frozen water bottle daily to lay be will also help prevent heat exhaustion.

In the winter the cage must be placed in a draft free place. Wrapping most of the cage in clear plastic works well and holds the heat if the sun hits it. Be carful with plastic because if the rabbit can reach it he/she will eat it possibly causing illness and maybe death due to intestinal blockage. Some dry, clean hay can help keep the rabbit warm as well. Some rabbits will hide from the cold in its' hay.

Predators Big & Small

Rabbits get mosquito bites, that can become irritated and case fur loss due to the rabbit scratching at the bug bites. Flies can lay maggots in the droppings which can cause lots of problems, such as worms.

Big predators can also be a problem, because rabbit wire will not stop most animals from entering the cage. Most wild animals only try to eat the rabbit through the wire. This can cause injuries, which usually leads to death through infection or blood lose. Placing a wooden non painted board in the cage can give the rabbit a place to hide but that's only if they stay on the board and not run around scared like most do.

If your rabbit gets injured and they are bleeding, put sugar on the wound. This will help the blood clot and encourage the rabbit to wash it's wound.

The rule of thumb; to calculate the correct cage size is 3/4 of a square foot per pound of its' adult weight. If you don't know what your rabbit weighs and you don't have a baby scale, just step on a scale with the rabbit in your arms. Then subtract your weight with and your weight without the rabbit. Your rabbit has reached its' adult weight if it is a year old and not a Flemish Giant. Smaller breeds reach their adult weight faster then the larger breeds.

Breed	Senior Weight	Cage Size
Dwarf Hotot	3 lbs.	12 in. x 18 in.
Mini Lop	6 1/2 lbs.	30 in. x 24 in.
English Lops	Anything above 11 lbs.	30 in. x 36 in.
Flemish Giants	Anything above 13 lbs.	30 in. x 48 in.

Healthy Treats	Amounts
Cherros	One Tablespoon
Papia Enzyme Pills	4 to 6 Pills
Carrots	1 Baby Carrot or 1/4 of a Big Carrot
Alfalfa	1 Cube Or A Hand Full A Day
Old Fashion Oat Meal	One Tablespoon for large breeds (A teaspoon a day is must for Dwarf Hotot.)
Apples	1/8 of a medium apple
Wood; Maple, Birch, Oak, Papal	12 in. piece with a couple leaves is ok
Dry Bread	1/4 to 1/2 of a slice
Shelled Sunflower Seeds	One Tablespoon
Raisins	six to eight raisins
Peeled Banana	1/2 of a banana
Dog Milk Bone	One small milk bone
Dandelion Greens	1/2 inch diameter bunch of small leaves(make sure it does NOT contain pesticides)
Salt Block	A small salt block(however; this will cause excessive thirst and possible strong urine

UnHealthy Treats	Why
Iceburge Lettuce	Empty calories/diarrhea
Rhubarb	Poisonous
Green Grass	Diarrhea
Painted or Stained Wood	Poisonous or can cause intestinal blockage

Everyone has heard of the term "multiply like rabbits," but this is only partially true. Even though a doe can have twelve to fifteen kits(#1), they usually average eight kits. Some only have one or two kits. Be careful with the does that only have one or two kits, because with smaller number of kits, there is a greater chance for the kits to die of hypothermia. A doe is usually fertile throughout most of the month. However, getting a doe pregnant can be a lot harder than it seems. A doe can get pregnant within a few seconds of an encounter with a buck. Some breeders use this to their advantage. They use one buck to breed seven different does every two minutes or so. I choose to use one buck for every two does and breed them one day after the other. I try to give the buck about twelve hours between breeding to rest, since I only leave them together for about two hours. Some breeders check to see if the doe has become pregnant by a method called palpitation. When doing palpitations use your thumb and pointer finger to feel the belly for pea like objects, which are the kits. This is tricky, because feces can easily be mistaken for kits. However, this method is not recommended for amateurs. Some breeders try to rebreed their does in fourteen days. If the doe is pregnant, she will fight/reject the buck, however, some does will fight/reject the buck even if they are not pregnant. I choose to let nature run its course.

After conception, the kits will be delivered between twenty-eight and thirty-one days. Three days before delivery, a nest box should be placed in the doe's cage (#2). A doe will usually make a nest for her kits a few days before they arrive. However, some mothers will wait until the last minute. The nests are usually made in a circular fashion. The nest is done by the mother putting as much hay in her mouth as possible, and then placing it in the nest. The doe will also pull hair from her front legs and abdomen. This hair will help the newborns stay warm, since the kits are born with little to no hair. Labor will normally take about fifteen minutes. However, it can take up to an hour if she has several kits (#3). The mother will usually wash the kits off as soon as they are delivered. In all my years, I have only twice had to help a mother with delivery. One mother had not finished washing the blood off her kits. I washed them in warm water with a cotton ball. If this is necessary, be sure to dry them completely before returning them to the nest. Your water temperature sure be about 110^oF to 115^oF (#4).

After the kits have arrived, feel free to check on them every few hours. Make sure they are all in the nest and do a head count as soon as possible. Some kits will not make it through the first twenty-four hours. Make sure to remove these promptly. Most newborns that die, die from hypothermia because they fall out of the nest box(#5). If the mother rabbit is used to being handled she usually will not have a problem with this. Make sure your hands are clean; sometimes petting her first also helps. Some mothers can be over protective. This will usually go away soon after delivery, or after her next pregnancy.

When the kits are ten days old, their eyes will open. By this time, they will have a good layer of "peach fuzz" on them. If their eyes are not open yet, check the eyes for a white dot in the corner. You might only need to wash their eyes with warm water to get their eyes to open. A white dot might mean infection, if you suspect infection, wash the eye with warm tea or warm milk. Remember, some breeds' eyes open before others. For example, my Tans' eyes open at fourteen days.

The kits will start to come out of the nest box within a few days. Larger breeds usually come out of the box faster than the smaller breeds. I have had New Zealands with eyes open at eight days, and out of the box at twelve days old.

Between three and four weeks of age, the kits will start to eat solid foods. A few days later, they will start to drink water. However, they are still drinking mother's milk. Kits can stay with their mother until about eight weeks of age. At this time, you can remove the litter slowly. It is best to remove them slowly if it's a large litter. Kits stomach's are still very delicate until about twelve weeks, so be careful with treats (other than hay). Remember to handle the kits often so that they will be very friendly.

Most breeds of rabbits can be bred at the age of six months. However, Flemish Giants need to be nine months old to breed.

When breeding two rabbits of different breeds always remember to use a larger doe than buck. If you use a larger buck than doe, you could lose the doe and kits in delivery, or need to have your doe induced.

*Remember I am not a veterinarian and I am not responsible for the use of any of this material. If you have a question, always consult a veterinarian or a local breeder that can see your rabbit.

#1 A crock is a metal bowl that can be hooked onto the side of a cage, however the term is also sometimes used to refer to a heavy plastic bowl.
#1 Baby rabbits are called kits.
#2 The nest box can be a disposable cardboard box or reusable wooden box, filled with hay (fine hay preferably). The box shouldn't be too big, just big enough for the mother to get in to feed the kits. If the nest box is too big the mother will sit in it all the time. Usually, if they do this they will also use it as a litter box, which isn't good. (A few droppings are ok in the nest box.)
#3 If labor takes more than two hours, consult your local veterinarian.
#4 A rabbit's body temperature runs higher than human's body temperature. Their body temperature is 104^oF.
#5 If you find a kit that seems dead, hold it in your hands and rub the kit gently to stimulate it. If it hasn't moved/squeaked in two minutes, it's too late. However, most kits that seem dead will be full of life in about five minutes. Bring the kit's body temperature up to a human's. You can give it a drop or two of warm water if you want, then place it back into the nest box with the others.