Advice needed about neigbours buns please

Please could I have some advice?

My friend has gone on holiday for a week and rather than boarding, she asked her neighbour to look after them. Long story short her neighbour had to cancel, so the morning of her holiday in desperation she asked if I could look after them instead. I felt that I couldn't really say no, as goodness knows what would happen to them otherwise.

She has 2x buns which are outdoors. She has a tiny 2 story hutch, which is no more than 3ft x 2ft x 2ft on each tier. The rabbits do not get along so they have a tier each. There is no run and the garden isn't particularly rabbit proofed, so they are basically stuck in this tiny hutch for 5 days.

I went around this morning to change water/feed/top up hay etc. The bottom rabbit is not particularly friendly, so bit/scratched/lunged at me while I attempted to remove soiled bedding/tidy her hutch a little. I've never even stroked the buns before, so I'm not particularly surprised at their behaviour. My buns are indoor and get a lot of attention etc. I'm not used to aggressive buns, so I'm really not sure how I'm going to cope for the rest of the week. Both buns are unspayed females.

Sorry for the essay, but does anyone have any advice on how I cope for the rest of the week? Also how can I broach the subject of their poor housing? The hutch is cheap and flimsy and the hay rack came off this morning!

They're probably aggressive because of the size of their housing and are territorial, not being neutered either so hormone ridden in a small space is never a good mix! And I imagine uncomfortable

Do you have a puppy pen or small spare run? If so, you could always take it around put them in one after the other while cleaning their hutches out? And say something like "Hope you don't mind but I put them in a run while I cleaned each of their hutches out, they were so funny to watch doing some bunny500's and binkying!", that kind of thing maybe. Then maybe the questions are asked- What are bunny500's? Rabbits that dart all over the place at top speed, they're so fast! What are binkies? When a bunny is very happy they do head flicks or launch themselves into the air. ..

I'd get some leaflets from rwaf to give to her. It's hard not to be "you know that housing is totally unacceptable right?", so being polite and not coming across as pushy generally works.

Personally if I had someone give me leaflets and talk to me about my rabbits housing I would be embarrassed but do something about it for the sake of my rabbits quality of life. But you don't know how people will take it, so at least if you do something like that (the leaflets are very informative and can be printed off I think) then something has been done and it will be up to them to sort it out. Things like this set my anxiety off terribly, I care too much! I just tell myself now "I've done all I can, I can't do anything about it now, I need to forget it" x

It's difficult. Perhaps ask if they get handled much because you had trouble with them. If they say that they are too aggressive to handle then perhaps you could say that they are aggressive because they are not neutered and neutering them would be really good for them and for their owners. You could also mention that their housing is also a reason for them to be aggressive.
Sounds like the buns are not really loved or bothered with. Perhaps you could suggest finding a good home for them? Although that will be difficult in today's climate.

I had a similar thing very recently. I ended up bringing the bunny indoors and causing lots of referred aggression between my pair - but he survived the fortnight and made it safely home!

My holiday bunny's main issue was that he didn't eat hay, so I did mention it to his owner when she came home and that it was important and she seemed to take it on board really well and is going to try and encourage him to eat more, so it wasn't actually as scary to broach as I was anticipating.

You could say you'd looked into why they might be aggressive, and the main causes were as vegan bunny said, and maybe print them off something like http://www.therabbithouse.com/behaviour/problem-aggressive-rabbit.asp or a RWAF leaflet?

Good luck and hope he doesn't wound you too much!

titchy_fish said:

Please could I have some advice?

My friend has gone on holiday for a week and rather than boarding, she asked her neighbour to look after them. Long story short her neighbour had to cancel, so the morning of her holiday in desperation she asked if I could look after them instead. I felt that I couldn't really say no, as goodness knows what would happen to them otherwise.

She has 2x buns which are outdoors. She has a tiny 2 story hutch, which is no more than 3ft x 2ft x 2ft on each tier. The rabbits do not get along so they have a tier each. There is no run and the garden isn't particularly rabbit proofed, so they are basically stuck in this tiny hutch for 5 days.

I went around this morning to change water/feed/top up hay etc. The bottom rabbit is not particularly friendly, so bit/scratched/lunged at me while I attempted to remove soiled bedding/tidy her hutch a little. I've never even stroked the buns before, so I'm not particularly surprised at their behaviour. My buns are indoor and get a lot of attention etc. I'm not used to aggressive buns, so I'm really not sure how I'm going to cope for the rest of the week. Both buns are unspayed females.

Sorry for the essay, but does anyone have any advice on how I cope for the rest of the week? Also how can I broach the subject of their poor housing? The hutch is cheap and flimsy and the hay rack came off this morning!

Click to expand...

The unneutered females would behave like this, and as they start to become hormonally aggressive they will most likely lunge at hands with food (or even without). It's made a lot worse by them only having a small dwelling place and you have to put your hand right into their very own territory to feed or clean out.

The best thing to do is to use garden gauntlets to feed, and if possible get them out of their respective levels into a carrier (separately) in order to thoroughly clean out.

At this stage I wouldn't consider trying to rehabilitate them by cuddling - sometimes you can never bring a female back from lunging aggression. Sometimes you can, but it would take a change of their circumstances in order to do this.

Good luck for the rest of your time looking after them ....

ETA: I would suggest to whoever owns them that they would be better off elsewhere .... and see what the reaction is

Mmm, difficult with friends...! I can't add any more suggestions than are here already, but suffice to say I wish you the best of luck with them!

Thank you all very much for your replies. My internet went down just after writing this, so I apologise for not replying yesterday.

It's very difficult as she is a friend I don't want to lose, but something seriously needs to be done.

I managed to come out relatively unscathed this morning. I posted some greens through the bars of the hutch, so at least the aggressive bun was distracted for long enough for me to clean the dirty bits out!

I know how much they love the buns, but it really isn't fair for them to be locked up for such a long time. The aggressive one was chewing the cage trying to get out when I went round this morning, so clearly this is definitely not ideal for them. I will definitely be having a chat when they return at the weekend re housing. Suffice to say, I don't think I will offer to help them out again!

Thank you for that link Dumblepaws, that is certainly something I will message her with. I'm not good with confrontation, so hopefully I don't come across too blunt with her!

If you would lose your friend over the rabbits, then she's not much of a friend in the first place, to be honest.

Just tell her that her buns have been a bit of a handful and that you had to seek advice about their behaviour, and (based on the advice you have been given) you won't be able to babysit them again unless they have been neutered.

You can't compel your friend to sort out the buns, but you don't have to put up with them, either.