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Nail trimming advice please

I

Indiechic

Wise Old Thumper
I'm asking on behalf of a friend - basically one of her rabbits panics when she cuts his nails.

So how do you do it? Ie how do you keep your rabbits calm? xx
 
I can't really help you I'm afraid other than if mine ever need anything like that then I'd rather pay a professional i.e. vet to do it.
 
Mine go to the free nurse nail clipping service, or have them done free by the vet at vaccination time...definitely can't do it on my own!
 
I've found that the easiest way is to make it a two-person job - one person holds and strokes the rabbit, letting one foot dangle over their arms. The other person can then trim quickly and easily. This is dependent upon the rabbit not minding a cuddle - if it's a wriggler, I've no answer other than wrapping it in a towel, but that will probably make it panic even more.
 
I can just about do Fudge on my own now. I kneel on the floor, then pick her up with her back to me. Then I sort of trap her bum between my legs, and keep my hand around her front, so her front legs are over the tops of my fingers and her back is against my stomach. I can easily clip her front claws from this position. Back legs are a bit harder, as to do this I have to lift her higher so she's on my knee. Theoretically, she could then kick her back legs as they're not restrained, but she has recently become much calmer and seems to let me do it now.
This is the only position she will sit still in to let me do it!

Truffle is completely impossible - even with two of us the only way we can manage it is to trance her. On balance I think it's better, as it's over very quickly. Otherwise it's a long battle, resulting in frayed nerves on all sides and on occasion we've even cut her quick as she struggles so much.
 
I take Doughnut to the nurse as she's a wriggler and she gets her nails clipped when she's vaccinated and also on the recent free health check.

You could try putting something over her eyes to stop her wriggling, but I don't think it's worth the stressing about it for such a small fee at the vets. They also get the stamp of her foot and I don't:D
 
esupi said:
I can just about do Fudge on my own now. I kneel on the floor, then pick her up with her back to me. Then I sort of trap her bum between my legs, and keep my hand around her front, so her front legs are over the tops of my fingers and her back is against my stomach. I can easily clip her front claws from this position. Back legs are a bit harder, as to do this I have to lift her higher so she's on my knee. Theoretically, she could then kick her back legs as they're not restrained, but she has recently become much calmer and seems to let me do it now.
This is the only position she will sit still in to let me do it!
Click to expand...

This is the way I do it also. With two quite wriggly bunnies I was very surprised how calm they went in this position when we arrived in it by accident!! But they really do seem to prefer it this way to having their feet taken sideways from a normal sitting position. I think it's something to do with feeling supported and securely "restrained" (<- obviously if they were panicking I'd let them go and calm them down before carrying on).
 
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