Have you ever been a terrible rabbit owner...

I thought it would be good to start a thread on the mistakes we've all made at some point to show anyone that's new to rabbits that we've all been there so I'll start. This is Penfold and Dangermouse around five years ago before I found this forum:



As you can see, nowhere near enough space, I was feeding them an apple every night and wondered why they got fat! They now have a hutch, ramp, and four runs secure enough for them to just do what they want at any time of day or night and a healthy diet of lots of hay, fresh greens and minimal pellets

Feel free to share yours :thumb:

TD86 said:

I thought it would be good to start a thread on the mistakes we've all made at some point to show anyone that's new to rabbits that we've all been there so I'll start. This is Penfold and Dangermouse around five years ago before I found this forum:



As you can see, nowhere near enough space, I was feeding them an apple every night and wondered why they got fat! They now have a hutch, ramp, and four runs secure enough for them to just do what they want at any time of day or night and a healthy diet of lots of hay, fresh greens and minimal pellets

Feel free to share yours :thumb:

Click to expand...

We have done much worse than this...and I sort of torture myself every day with it even thought there was nothing I could do, I was a child. We had a new zealand white girl, called Sherry, who stayed in a small hutch in a dark garage, ate museli, only got out every now and then and basically lived alone for the years that she lived. I ALWAYS feel guilty about it. My mum thought she was doing a good job!

I just hope that I can be forgiven and the girl isn't feeling badly towards us at the bridge, I pray that she forgives us for her treatment. I try and give Milo and Finn everything they need and care for them the best they can be cared for so that it never happens again. I do my best to educate people on rabbit care now too. There's no excuse for the way she was kept other than lack of education...

I lost the sister of my first bunny Zoe to bloat, although I took her to the vets straight away my vet at the time was not bunny savvy and we lost her. They were both in bad condition when I had them and Zoe had mites.

She did however start me on the road to bunny ownership and awakened me to the plight of rabbits in the UK.

I have seen some truly awful sights and I always think how lucky the RU bunnies are

Yes. When I was new to rabbits I read a book which stated you must always ensure there is food in your rabbit's bowl, so........ lots of selective feeding, Melissa became overweight (but her sister didn't?) I don't understand that. They lived until they were 6. They lived in part of a shed with a tunnel to the outdoors so not bad accommodation wise. I can't remember if I gave them hay.

I made so many mistakes when I got Boris...like feeding him iceberg lettuce which resulted in a very poorly tummy He was also starved before his neuter because the vet told us to and I didn't think to question it. How he pulled through I'll never know :shock:

Then there's the accommodation, he was free range in the kitchen for the first year or so but then we moved and couldn't figure out what to do with him so he was shut in a very small cage at night I did eventually replace this with a larger one that was probably minimum size, but quite decent for him as he was tiny. Then Bella came along, they bonded themselves and he moved into the bunny room with her.

My first rabbit was as a child over 30 years ago...like other's, it was my mum who said what I could & couldn't do with him. If I'd had my way, he would have lived in my bedroom with me, but I wasn't allowed that "in case he ruined the carpet" so he lived alone (after his piggy companion had died) in a small locked hutch in the garage at the bottom of the garden...probably on a muesli diet!

When I left home I built walk in runs but made the mistake of thinking a boy and a girl bun making baby buns would be lovely (and I would have kept the babies) . Unfortunately the first lot of baby buns didn't survive. I quickly decided against breeding but neutering wasn't really done back then so it meant lonley buns until vets started doing male neutering, at which point I bonded a neutered male with a pair of bonded un-neutered sisters.

Other mistakes I learnt from was that chicken wire runs were not fox-proof, single layer weld mesh runs were not fox-proof....in fact most things were not fox-proof as they could even open hutch doors.

Yes in fact until I got my current rabbits all my rabbits were kept singly, all unspayed/unneutered with the exception of a male red who was very temperamental, he was neutered on the vets advice. They had a 4ftx2ftx2ft hutch and had a metal run with a run shelter in it that was unattached, and I put them in it daily. The only good thing was I always vaccinated the rabbits I've had as an adult, they always had loads of hay and had nuggets. In my defence, all this was as a result of old fashioned ways learnt as a child, and read in books too :shock:
I'm making amends now though,thanks to RU my quad have a 6ftx4ft shed with a 17ftx10ft aviary run, and the afore mentioned small hutch is in their run as an extra bit of interest with a runaround tunnel to it.

I guess those of us who had pet rabbits 30+ years ago didn't know any better because the vets at the time didn't know any better either, and also the books that were available didn't give much good advice. I don't believe there were myxi jabs then, and definately not VHD jabs. I don't think there were any preventative treatments for flystrike and it was only because I regularly handled my buns that I noticed an attack of flystrike, thoroughly washed the bunnies bits and got it straight to the vets...I still remember the vet saying how lucky the bun was because I'd been so quick to wash them off.

So that was 30 years ago, and so much has changed since then ( we have the internet now!) . Unfortunately there will always be buns out there who are un-neutered, un-vaccinated and kept in tiny hutches alone with no interaction. Rabbit awareness is always going to be slow to catch on due to to fact that many people still see them as "short term" pets like a hamsters, gerbil or goldfish.

But with a great forum like this hopefully fewer buns will suffer from outdated practices.

yes i have, and i struggle with the guilt. my first rabbit patch was not looked after properly at all. i didn't know how and he suffered as a result. his hutch was tiny and filthy. he had a rubbish diet. i think the reason he even lived four years was because of all the natural foods when he free ranged through the day. i loved him so much but didn't know how to look after him properly and i really let him down.

Yes, I was an awful rabbit owner. My first rabbit shared with 3 piggies at one point in a tiny indoor cage, then I moved him outside to a bigger (but not adequate hutch) - the only saving grace was that he had an attached run but not much good in rain or heat I also once let one of my bunnies get a really bad sticky bottom and she had to be admitted to the vet. How she managed not to get fly strike I didn't know. In my defence, I didn't know any better but its no excuse really.

This is why I try to do my best for my bunnies now and always go for rescue buns, probably to try and salve my guilty conscience about the earlier failings. I only wish I could make it up to the buns I lost (I would say my first 2 bunnies didn't have a great life My first 3 piggies didn't have the best life either. Its something that will always bother me

We had rabbits when I was under 10 years old (I'm now mid 40s, so a fair few years ago).

We had 2, they were white. They were kept in a small, single layer hutch at the bottom of the garden, can't remember what bedding it was. Dad got some tarpaulin or something to cover the hutch in winter. Mum used to put an elastic around their necks and tie them on a line attached to the washing line so they could have exercise but not reach the plants. They were allowed to run around the garden free-range ... being chased by the dog :shock: Although on saying that, the dog was a Cairn Terrier and probably wouldn't have hurt them, to be fair, she was just playing but I agree that they didn't know that. They did get their own back on the dog on occasion though, so it wasn't completely one-sided! They were fed lettuce, carrots and carrot peelings regularly, along with apples and goodness knows what else. I think their main food was muesli. They never met the vet. Never had their nails clipped. Never had jabs (obviously as never met the vet). They lived for about 2 years. I wonder why?! When they died, and they died within about a year of each other, my sister (5 years older than me) recalls that they were both bleeding from various orifices when they died. The one died in her arms on the way to the vet. It probably wouldn't have survived had it got there. Oh, as they were both identical, dad painted ordinary green paint behind the one's ears so we could tell them apart ...

BUT oddly enough I don't feel guilty; I was too young for a start to know any better and they were our first rabbits; there wasn't an internet to learn from and getting a book from the library just didn't happen - I don't think there were any anyway!