LurcherGirl said:
Sounds good, in fact adult giants are quite sedate, so don't do much racing about.
I don't entirely agree. And even if that is true, they still need the run space to exercise at the backyard. So it's a moot argument.
I have different Flemish Giants for 8 yr. now. One of the things I have to do as an owner is to give them the running space and time. With my last rabbit, I let him do the running in the backyard, and once he hopped to the backyard, he would do his running and hopping around on his own. When done, he would hop near the backdoor trying to get back in.
With my current rabbit Goofball, she's different, she would only hop when I'm with her in the backyard, so I can't do my any kitchen work (which is where the backdoor is connected to) and watch her thru the windows.
So what needed to do daily, is that I induce her running by chasing her, in short, we run together. And she would do some running for about 2 min., then the rest of the time would be her own hopping.
In the recent days, I moved up to 2 set of run time everyday, so once around 2 pm and 2nd time around 6 pm. But lately, there are so many mosquitos in the evening that we can't hop outside after that.
Squishy, I never heard of a backyard that tiny. My backyard is 70 ft. long x 28 ft. wide. You should do to your backyard as to what I did w/ my rooms in the house--remove the junk and dump it to the basement. Make more space.
If your backyard is only the size of a room, they'll run, but they won't do their mid air jump, in which that is a sign of happiness and the fact that they enjoy the running, they need the space to jump.
As to these giant have more health issue than a smaller size rabbit--well, their average life span is 6 yr., w/ a max. of 8 yr. although for those who lives in the 7th and 8th year, would have a lot of health issues.
You can pick the ones that are not big, meaning you pick the smaller size Giants. For e.g., Goofball has just turn 1 yr. old, and she's only 5 Kg exact. Whereas my last rabbit is 15 - 16 lb. The lighter giant, say a female, has no dewlap is a lighter wt. rabbit.
The first 6 - 9 mth. of a giant, needs a lot of exercise, they do a lot of running, even inside my house, and if the space is limited, they'll run back and forth between 2 rooms on their own, far more than once a day, more like many times. But needless to say, the solution is to give them a long running space so they don't have to run btwn. 2 rm.
by the way, what kind of council is it that can tell you how many pets you can have?
