bringing an outdoor bunny indoors??

Hiya!! :wave:

i'm a newbie and came on here for a bit of advice really

just last week we had two beautiful 2 year old Mini Lop bunnies called Miley and Lily, but just last Saturday Lily suddenly passed away completely flipping our whole world upside down when I say suddenly, she was happily eating her nuggets one minute, and not even 7-10 minutes later, she was laid out on the floor passed away, with Miley looking over her she showed absolutely no symptoms whatsoever!! we have asked numerous vets and all said that it was quite likely a heart condition or something she was born with, and even if we were to spend lots of money on an autopsy, it would quite likely come back unconclusive. So instead we are spending all our time and effort on Lily's beautiful sister Miley making sure she is ok.

We are sure Miley knows about her sister, and has dealt with it really well actually. she seems quite content at the moment getting all of our attention, but we are just so worried about her getting lonely further on down the line. they were both always by eachothers side, grooming eachother and loved eachother so so much

Our first thought was to get Miley a 2 year old friend.. but i've read up and this could go either way, and they could end up having to live in seperate cages, which completely defeats the object really :roll:

Our second thought was to breed Miley and keep one of the babies.. but we read that this also can go one way or the other...

Sooooo we are now thinking of bringing her indoors permanently and training her to become a house rabbit We have always either let them into our bunny proofed garden or brought them indoors to play whenever we possibly can, so she knows our living room well. We have seen this cage that would fit quite nicely..


(h-56cm w-57cm l-96cm)

what do you think? do you think it's too small? this is really the biggest cage we can get as our living room isn't the biggest. she would probably stay in this while we're both at work (7.5 hours a day) and whenever we're home we would let her roam around as she pleases really. what do you think?

Just wondered if any of you bunny lovers have any experience in moving a bunny indoors, how it can affect them, and if you would recommend it? or would you recommend something else?

P.S sorry for the super long post and all the rambling!! xx

(Oh, and how do I change my avatar and add a signauture on here?? i tried adding an avatar and just said 'photo cannot be saved' :? TIA xx)

Hello and welcome to the forum !
And Sorry for your loss

You could still get Miley a friend .. If you adopt from a rescue they should be able to bond both of the bunnies for you and this way you wont have to worry about them not bonding and living separately

Also are your buns vaccinated from VHD or Myxomatosis ??
If no, it is possible your rabbit caught one of these diseases
Myxomatosis has visible symptoms but VHD doesn't it is known as the silent killer

Also is your current bunny spayed this will eliminate the chance of her getting uterine cancer which isn't pleasant :[

You could breed if you wanted - but you'd have to know 5 generations back of your rabbits family tree because you could be breeding and making bunnies who have problems e.g hock problems, jaw problems etc.
If your vet has said she might of had something in her genes then you could be passing this on to other rabbits

Rabbits are lovely to have indoors
Many people on this forum have indoor rabbits they can be litter trained so yay for that!
And if you bunny proof your room so they can't get to wires etc - Great!

The minimum recommended size for a hutch is 6x2 - a cage would have to be that big as well so the cage you've provided a pic of isn't recommended.

:wave:

I just remembered if you can't find an ideal cage
You could try attaching a play pen onto a dog crate

Hi, and welcome to the forum. I'm so sorry for you're loss, hope you're OK. Indoor buns are great, but that cage looks a little small. Why not get a dog crate and add a shelf or some NIC cubes? I will try and find pics x

Like this :

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=294303

whitehood said:

Hello and welcome to the forum !
And Sorry for your loss

You could still get Miley a friend .. If you adopt from a rescue they should be able to bond both of the bunnies for you and this way you wont have to worry about them not bonding and living separately

Also are your buns vaccinated from VHD or Myxomatosis ??
If no, it is possible your rabbit caught one of these diseases
Myxomatosis has visible symptoms but VHD doesn't it is known as the silent killer

Also is your current bunny spayed this will eliminate the chance of her getting uterine cancer which isn't pleasant :[

You could breed if you wanted - but you'd have to know 5 generations back of your rabbits family tree because you could be breeding and making bunnies who have problems e.g hock problems, jaw problems etc.
If your vet has said she might of had something in her genes then you could be passing this on to other rabbits

Rabbits are lovely to have indoors
Many people on this forum have indoor rabbits they can be litter trained so yay for that!
And if you bunny proof your room so they can't get to wires etc - Great!

The minimum recommended size for a hutch is 6x2 - a cage would have to be that big as well so the cage you've provided a pic of isn't recommended.

:wave:

Click to expand...

:wave: Hi whitehood! thanks for the reply yes both had been jabbed for VHD and Myxomatosis, but no neither have yet beem neutered, we have always planned to do this. I imagine uterine cancer has symptoms, so it couldn't have really been this? :?

At the moment we are really leaning towards bringing her indoors as apposed to finding her a friend or breeding, but we won't rule them out completely i just can't bear the thought of her being outsoors by herself, so we think we're going to move her indoors regardless of whether we decide to breed her or get her a friend later on down the line anyway

and my main worry is the size of the hutch we've seen, we really are stuck for space in our house so i'm not sure that we'll be able to have a 6x4 hutch, HOWEVER we do hope to let her have full roam of the house even if we aren't home once she is litter trained (or even before.. as we have laminate floors in our living room so accidents shouldn't be a problem!) we have already bunny proofed our wires so no problems there either. So do you think this hutch would be ok.. IF she gets FULL use of the living room aswell?? (which is obviously bigger than 6x2 :lol xx

Hey
Even if a your rabbit will have access to a room the cage isnt big enough
A rabbit cage should allow a rabbit to hop sideways 4 times, obviously that's not good for that.

A dog crate should be ok for your situation with a litter tray in it :wave:

Do you know how to litter train a rabbit ? I could give a link with instructions

Bunni_xx said:

Hi, and welcome to the forum. I'm so sorry for you're loss, hope you're OK. Indoor buns are great, but that cage looks a little small. Why not get a dog crate and add a shelf or some NIC cubes? I will try and find pics x

Click to expand...

Hi Bunni_xx :wave: thankyou, we are both still in shock really, we are abolutely devestated but slowly it is getting easier. Thanks for the advice, I was worried the cage might seem small, it looked so big in the pet shop! we will look into dog cages more though

:wave: So sorry to hear about your loss, what a horrid shock I think you're absolutely right to not leave her outside on her own - bunnies are social creatures so at least if indoors, she would get a chance to interact with you as you go about your day-to-day businesses and not just when you specifically go out to her.

My advice would be to get her spayed (this will prevent uterine cancer and womb infections, enable her to be bonded more easily and will also help with her litter training) and when she has recovered, find a rescue who will help you out with bonding. Whereabouts in Essex are you? We could probably point you to a rescue or two who would be able to help with bonding - so you needn't worry about it working out or not, because the bond will already be at least partially established before you bring them home again.

I would advise against breeding, for several reasons. From your point of view, the most important is that there is no guarantee that mum and son/daughter will continue to get on once the baby hits sexual maturity, but from a wider perspective, over 33,000 rabbits are taken to rescues in the UK every year. There are already far too many bunnies and not enough homes in this country, so adding more to that number is not helpful, in my opinion. Even if this were not the case, I would advise against breeding a 2 year old - this is too old for a first litter in my opinion and risks significant complications or even worse

If you do decide to bring her indoors and have her as a single housbunny, she will need a far bigger base than that cage, I'm afraid - it's less than half the recommended minimum, and it sounds as if she would be shut in it for many hours each day. It may be possible to bunnyproof your house from those naughty little teeth so that she can safely free range, or find a way of setting panels around things to give her more space.

It sounds as if you're really doing your research to work out what's best to do for your little one, so good luck with whatever you decide

whitehood said:

Hey
Even if a your rabbit will have access to a room the cage isnt big enough
A rabbit cage should allow a rabbit to hop sideways 4 times, obviously that's not good for that.

A dog crate should be ok for your situation with a litter tray in it :wave:

Do you know how to litter train a rabbit ? I could give a link with instructions

Click to expand...

thanks for the advice we will def look into dog cages! and we do know roughly how to litter train, but the link would be great!! we trained them a little in their outside hutch, but she could be better i'll say that :lol: thanks! x

Mine live in a bunny proofed room even when I'm out. I gave up on cages, they are usually too small unless you add on a pen or build one yourself and I found bunny proofing cheaper.

There are some examples in the stickied thread in the housing part of the forum. I'll find the link for you.

I would definitely ask a rescues advice though and see if they have somebun whose personality would complement Mileys. She would have to be spayed first though bonding is usually very difficult if the rabbits are not spayed or neutered.

Linky -> http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=294140

I've summarised :

Rabbits like to poop whilst they eat
So ...in a litter tray place loads of hay [rabbits need hay 24/7 this is the most important food a rabbit should eat and have access to]
Your rabbit will start to poop and wee in there
At first she might poop outside the tray but pick them up and place them in the tray
Slowly she'll get the hang of it !

Also.. The way I described wastes loads of hay so you might be better off buying a hay holder or half moon basket which you should attach to the bars of a mesh and place your litter tray under it
And place your hay in there .. :wave:

Heres a link :
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/litter.html

Santa said:

:wave: So sorry to hear about your loss, what a horrid shock I think you're absolutely right to not leave her outside on her own - bunnies are social creatures so at least if indoors, she would get a chance to interact with you as you go about your day-to-day businesses and not just when you specifically go out to her.

My advice would be to get her spayed (this will prevent uterine cancer and womb infections, enable her to be bonded more easily and will also help with her litter training) and when she has recovered, find a rescue who will help you out with bonding. Whereabouts in Essex are you? We could probably point you to a rescue or two who would be able to help with bonding - so you needn't worry about it working out or not, because the bond will already be at least partially established before you bring them home again.

I would advise against breeding, for several reasons. From your point of view, the most important is that there is no guarantee that mum and son/daughter will continue to get on once the baby hits sexual maturity, but from a wider perspective, over 33,000 rabbits are taken to rescues in the UK every year. There are already far too many bunnies and not enough homes in this country, so adding more to that number is not helpful, in my opinion. Even if this were not the case, I would advise against breeding a 2 year old - this is too old for a first litter in my opinion and risks significant complications or even worse

If you do decide to bring her indoors and have her as a single housbunny, she will need a far bigger base than that cage, I'm afraid - it's less than half the recommended minimum, and it sounds as if she would be shut in it for many hours each day. It may be possible to bunnyproof your house from those naughty little teeth so that she can safely free range, or find a way of setting panels around things to give her more space.

It sounds as if you're really doing your research to work out what's best to do for your little one, so good luck with whatever you decide

Click to expand...

Hiya :wave: thanks so much for all the great advice i never thought that breeding at 2 years old could be too old for a first litter! so for that reason, and all the other very valid reasons, we have ruled our breeding completely. We will never rule our the possibility of bonding her with a good match though, but I think we will bring her indoors first and just see how she gets on. If she starts to seem a bit sad or lonely, we will definately consider it Our living room is already completely bunny proofed, and we have laminate flooring so accidents aren't really an issue as they can be mopped up easily the only thing i would be slightly worried about is if she started to nibble our sofa, but we would of course have lots of chewy blocks around.. and she hasn't shown any signs of nibbling anything whenever we've had her indoors for long periods of time, so we think we're going to take your advice and start her off completely free range, but buy that hutch and keep the door open on it so she can go in and out as she pleases for some food, drink or to go to the toilet, and maybe a little rest.

Schuette - Mine live in a bunny proofed room even when I'm out. I gave up on cages, they are usually too small unless you add on a pen or build one yourself and I found bunny proofing cheaper.

There are some examples in the stickied thread in the housing part of the forum. I'll find the link for you.

I would definitely ask a rescues advice though and see if they have somebun whose personality would complement Mileys. She would have to be spayed first though bonding is usually very difficult if the rabbits are not spayed or neutered.

Schuette - Linky -> http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/sh...d.php?t=294140

Click to expand...

thanks very much for the link on housing! very useful and if miley starts to look a little sad further down the line as she misses having a furry friend, we'll definately consider bonding

whitehood - I've summarised :

Rabbits like to poop whilst they eat
So ...in a litter tray place loads of hay [rabbits need hay 24/7 this is the most important food a rabbit should eat and have access to]
Your rabbit will start to poop and wee in there
At first she might poop outside the tray but pick them up and place them in the tray
Slowly she'll get the hang of it !

Also.. The way I described wastes loads of hay so you might be better off buying a hay holder or half moon basket which you should attach to the bars of a mesh and place your litter tray under it
And place your hay in there ..

Heres a link :
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/litter.html

Click to expand...

thanks very much for that!! that website is really useful too!! thanks so much for all your advice!

i've just realised i never posted any piccys of Miley and Lily for you to see!! :shock:

this is a pic of Miley chilling out that we took just the other night..



and this is a pic of Miley and Lily when we first got them



and another that was taken a few months later

[/QUOTE]

You'r welcome, glad I helped

And Milly and Lily !!

MillyLop said:

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Awwww, such a sweet picture

Awwww gorgeous photos

Sorry to hear about Lily

I think your plan of having her free-range is a great plan! think of it just like having a cat or dog- people have a misconception that rabbits need a cage. If you do get that cage, just be aware that it is too small to shut her in, so you might want to go bigger just in case you find you have to at first. You really need 12sqft to meet rwaf minimum standards but that cage is around 5sqft. Like I said it is fine if your plan goes, well, to plan :lol:, but both myself and many other members have wasted a lot of money on changing setups because we didnt get it right first time, so I thought I'd warn you, just in case

I would see if you can get her litter trained before you bring her inside. The wee, if not mopped up in time, can leave marks. If you get her litter trained before she comes inside you can then just move her dirty tray indoors to where you want her to wee. Do not clean it before moving it, so she knows its where she still wees, and I would not clean it out for a day or two after either, just top it up.