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Looking after pets show, rabbit info

Crunchie

Warren Veteran
Last Saturday I did my first ever "Looking after pets" workshop for children. I had a group of 25 kids ranging from 3-18 and was hoping for some feedback on the babble I came out with.

I was aiming to go over a few big points of rabbit keeping that the kids may not have been aware of. I asked at the start of the show if anyone had a pet rabbit and a few kids put their hand up. I started with a few exotics (giant snail, tarantula, corn snake, tree frog, hissing cockroach and then went onto the rats and rabbits. The kids get to handle most of the animals barring the tarantula and tree frog. This is how the script went, the bits in bold are me obviously...

OK guys now my next animals are very cuddly looking but people often buy them as presents at Easter and lots end up in rescue centres. What kind of animal do you think is next?

They all said rabbits

Well done everyone here's my two rabbits. The sandy coloured one is Honey Bunny and the little brown and white guy is Roly Rabbit. Do you think rabbits are easy pets to look after?

All of them said no which I found surprising but was happy to hear.


No you're right there, in fact my rabbits are more work than all of the other animals I've shown you today. They need the most room, need fed most often, need cleaned out more often and they've both cost me loads of money at the vet. Does anyone know the special name we use for a rabbit cage?

Someone put their hand up and said "hutch"

well done, most rabbits live in hutches (showing hutch picture) but you know there's something else you might keep a rabbit in that can give them loads more room. Your mum and dad might have one in the garden to keep their lawn mower in and maybe your bike too.

Someone put their hand up and said shed.


Fantastic! Yes rabbits can live in a shed as long as you kit it our propery. Here's a picture of Roly and Honey's shed (showing picture of our set up). Now... do you think a rabbit would prefer a shed or a hutch.

They all said shed

What about company though? Would a rabbit like to live on it's own or with a friend do you think?

They all said rabbits should have a friend


Rabbits do like to have a wee pal or pals but you need to make sure they can't have loads of baby bunnies. I'll talk more about that later!

Now, what you think is the most important thing a rabbit gets to eat?

A few shouted "carrots".


Heh well rabbits certainly like carrots but the most important food you need to feed your rabbit is hay. It keeps their teeth nice and short and nibbling hay stops them getting bored. Now they can get other things too including carrots, what else can we give Roly Rabbit to eat do you think?

Cabbage!
As long as it's got nice dark green leaves
Apples! yes they like apples but can't get too much as it has sugar in it. They're not allowed the pips either.
Pears! well done, Roly and Honey like pears but they can't get the pips
Lettuce! well lettuce can give them an upset tummy so they can't get that but it's a good guess!
Roly and Honey love herbs too, corriander is their favourite, they also like spring greens and curly kale.

Remember I said that my rabbits can costs lots at the vet? Well they both have to visit the vet at least three times a year to get a little injection to help them fight two very horrible diseases - myximatosis and VHD.


At this point someone asked what they did to the rabbits

Any rabbit that catches any of these two diseases isn't likely to get better sadly. It's very important you take a pet rabbit to the vet to get its injections. That means it's got a far better chance of getting better if they do catch them.

Have Roly and Honey ever had babies? (If someone hadn't brought it up I was going back to the neutering/spaying thing anyway)

Now that is a very good question, Roly is a boy rabbit and Honey is a girl so you'd think they'd have babies wouldn't you? Beacuse there are so many rabbits in rescue centres needing homes it's not a good idea to let rabbits have babies. Roly and Honey have both had a wee operation that stops them from having any babies together. It sounds strange but if they had babies Honey could have more than 50 babies a year and we'd need to buy loads more spring greens for all of them it'd be very expensive.

I wanted to get over 4 main points...

Hay was the most important food item
Sheds can be better to keep rabbits in than hutches
Rabbits need vaccinations
Rabbits like company
Rabbits are best neutered/spayed

I didn't want to scare them all senseless with tales of what myxi and VHD do to rabbits given we had a few young ones in the audience. I also didn't think to go into details about uterine cancer etc.

It also occurs to me now that I should have mentioned that rabbits can be naughty and chew things/dig holes etc. It looks like a big long dialogue but it lasted about 5-7 minutes I think. I took Roly round the kids and let them stroke him or pat his head.

Doing this work myself is great because I can do all the scipts myself and therefore say what I like. If it gets one kid, parent or teacher thinking more about keeping rabbits properly then great.

There are some photos from the event here if anyone wants to see, Roly was very well behaved as were all my other bugs and beasties. Most of the kids liked Roly and Oscar the corn snake best. :D

http://www.bugsnbeasts.com/gallery.html

Oh yes in case anyone is wondering I have had an enhanced disclosure done and also have public liability insurance.;)
 
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Sounds brilliant to me....can I come and work with you? :lol:

Just going to have a look at your pics :thumb:
 
Sounds brilliant to me....can I come and work with you? :lol:

Just going to have a look at your pics :thumb:

Maybe I'll hire some help to clean the buns out. My partner and friend seen the show as well and my friend was raving about it on the way home which was funny given he's 25.:lol:

The pics all turned out great, it was nice having kids that had hair that matched the snake.:D:lol:
 
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