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Rabbit personalities. Advice please.

Jemadra

New Kit
Hi,

I'm new on the forum and new to being a rabbit mum. I have always had guinea pigs but 3 weeks ago I bought a lop cross (doe) from P@H. I have fallen in love with her and rabbits in general. She is called Lola (the lop eared lunar bunny, to give her her full title) Three days ago I saw another lop cross in P@H and fell in love all over again. I bought her and she is called Poppy (Miss Poppy Merryweather) I have posted a question regarding bonding them in the bonding section but the question I have here is regarding their personalities.

Lola is approx 15 weeks old and I think an English spot crossed with some sort of lop. Maybe dwarf. She is really strong and no matter how safely I pick her up she uses her extremely strong back legs to try to get away. She is more than happy hopping and binkying around my living room and will let me cuddle her for short periods. She also likes climbing on me when I lie on the floor.

Poppy is approx 12 weeks old and is possibly quite a mixture. She is grey and white like marble and has vague makings of a dutch. Her fur is longer than Lola's, it's maybe an inch or so. She's also a lop. She doesn't seem to have as high an arch as Lola. When I pick her up she barely struggles and seems content to sit on my knee and get cuddles.

I have a few questions.
First. Is the difference in their behavior due to breed or personality, or both?
Does age have anything to do with it?
Is it normal to have such a difference between 2 bunnies?
Should I stop picking Lola up as much?
Also Poppy is the same size as Lola even through she is around 3 weeks younger, although P@H were vague about dates of birth. does this mean Poppy will be much larger than Lola?

I am sorry for all of these questions. I would just love to really understand these 2 wonderful little creatures,

Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to reply to this rather long post.

Emma. :wave:
 
I think behaviour is largely down to each rabbit's personality and upbringing rather than breed. :) It's perfectly normal for them all to be very different.

I don't think age really makes a difference either - most rabbits instinctively dislike being picked up because that's what predators would do to them in the wild & hence they struggle. Some rabbits are easier to handle too - ALfie and Bubbles both tolerate me picking them up - they don't struggle as long as I'm holding them securely, but they don't really enjoy being held.

If Lola is happier interacting with you on the floor, then I would continue with that. It's still important to get her accustomed to being picked up so that you can check her daily for flystrike and and other possible problems, but work up to that gradually by picking her up for very short periods at first.
 
I think age is the biggest factor here. When my bun Milo was 8 weeks old, he let me pick him up all the time with no fuss. But as he got older, he grew to hate it, and now he's worse than Eddison!

I think it would be good to handle Miss Poppy Merryweather (love the name!) as much as possible now while she tolerates it. Then she has a better chance of getting used to all the handling. But if she starts to struggle as well, I would avoid picking her up unless necessary. When they struggle, they can kick out very powerfully and risk injury to the spine.

I find both of my rabbits much prefer keeping all fours on the ground. But that doesn't stop them from leaping on top of me when I lay down beside them, or grooming my apparently very dirty face!!

It seems like you're already off to a great start, and just keep your eyes and ears open to what your buns are telling you. And believe me, they'll let you know what they like! :)
 
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