A few Questions

Got a 6 month old rabbit.
He loves to get out of the hutch and run round the garden but is it ok for him to eat what he wants. Obviously impossible to stop him without an enclosed run. Whats the norm to do?
Also for a few days he could not move his back legs and kept falling over so i thought he had broke his back but now he seems fine and runs round the garden like normal although hes not as hard to catch.
Any thoughts please....

Spooksta said:

Got a 6 month old rabbit.
He loves to get out of the hutch and run round the garden but is it ok for him to eat what he wants. Obviously impossible to stop him without an enclosed run. Whats the norm to do?
Also for a few days he could not move his back legs and kept falling over so i thought he had broke his back but now he seems fine and runs round the garden like normal although hes not as hard to catch.
Any thoughts please....

Click to expand...

No, it is not safe for a rabbit to eat what it likes. Wild rabbits can differentiate between safe and non-safe plants, most domestic buns can NOT, this instinct has largely disappeared through breeding, and the addition of imported plants to British gardens over the centuries has made this even harder. For these reasons any free garden time out of a run should be supervised (because of predators and other dangers...cats, foxes, birds of prey, holes in fences etc.) and any poisonous plants should be identified and removed or fenced off out of bunny's reach.
The ideal would be to provide your bunny with a safe and secure run with a lid and either a wire skirt or wire base, or sunken foundations to prevent daytime predators digging in. Welded mesh should be used and you should provide a box/tunnel, little house etc inside the run for bunny to hide in should he feel threatened, plus food and water and plenty of hay. The run needs to be as big as possible...6ftx4ft is the minimum recommended size by the RWAF and RSPCA.

His leg paralysis you describe sounds suspiciously like EC and I would suggest you have a vet check him over now, and discuss this with them, he may need a course of Panacur, even if he has recovered. I would seek a vet consult asap to check he really is ok now. :wave:

I would also avoid chasing and catching him at bedtime, this could make him feel very under threat and scared. Ideally it is best to provide a hutch with an attached run, or allow bunny to take himself to bed under your supervision at the same time each evening - using food and signal words can be very helpful to train him to come back to his hutch.