Anyone heard this method to relax a bunny?

[Sunny]

:wave: I just watched that video and I thought it was really odd. I cannot for one minute imagine why that would be deemed relaxation. That rabbit looked like it was in totally submission to me which I think is different to being relaxed. Unless you are a trained vet serious injury could be sustained by the rabbit with that woman doing that. I wouldn't do that and wouldn't find it necessary even with an aggressive rabbit to 'trance' them, there are lots of other techniques. I think sometimes because they are a 'prey' animal and small they are in effect abused - I would love to see someone try to trance a rotweiller who had aggressive tendancies!!

LOL about the Rotti comment :lol: ...Quite true though. Mind u if u did it to the Rottie from a puppy ...he'd learn u were the pack leader and to always submit. I'll just stick to patiance and love with my buns. I clipped the nails of my young cheeky Rex the other day with her on her tummy on my lap and just held her firm with lots of soothing talk. Even filed her nails afterwards too. By the time I finished she had given up resisting and was almost asleep on my lap .... Actually tonight my daughter was cleaning out the rabbit hutches (which I usually do every night).. I was making her do her share as she owns 3 of the rabbits. Next thing I hear her screaming at my 2 lop ears and acting VERY upset. I race out there and what had happend was, when she put her hands into the hutch the 2 buns got aggro and went for each other (usuallythey go for the hands in the hutch lol... territorial). My daughter tried to separate them by grabbing the instigator and putting her on her back (punishment). The rabbit was on it's back now in the hutch being held there by my daughter and sunk it's teeth into her knuckle (quite deep) and was clawing her at the same time. It wouldn't let go for a bit and my daughter got a big fright! Now she hates the two and says she wants nothing to do with them again. These are tame rabbits basically and afterwards I gave her a long talk (reminder) about how she should have handled them (I have taught her before). She's 15 and at the age when she knows it all. She learned a hard lesson tonight. She'll get over it ad she'll want to hold them again .. but I'm sure she will heed my advice now (which is keep ur eye on the rabbits when ur moving their straw around because they don't like it and they will growl and attack if ur not watching) .. poor dear. We are fairly new to keeping rabbits and I'm starting to wonder how they can ever be good pets for young children (unless of course strictly supervised which often doesn't happen) ... because those teeth are sharp and they do bite at times ... well ours do anyway lol

 

[VickiP]

LOL about the Rotti comment :lol: ...Quite true though. Mind u if u did it to the Rottie from a puppy ...he'd learn u were the pack leader and to always submit. I'll just stick to patiance and love with my buns. I clipped the nails of my young cheeky Rex the other day with her on her tummy on my lap and just held her firm with lots of soothing talk. Even filed her nails afterwards too. By the time I finished she had given up resisting and was almost asleep on my lap .... Actually tonight my daughter was cleaning out the rabbit hutches (which I usually do every night).. I was making her do her share as she owns 3 of the rabbits. Next thing I hear her screaming at my 2 lop ears and acting VERY upset. I race out there and what had happend was, when she put her hands into the hutch the 2 buns got aggro and went for each other (usuallythey go for the hands in the hutch lol... territorial). My daughter tried to separate them by grabbing the instigator and putting her on her back (punishment). The rabbit was on it's back now in the hutch being held there by my daughter and sunk it's teeth into her knuckle (quite deep) and was clawing her at the same time. It wouldn't let go for a bit and my daughter got a big fright! Now she hates the two and says she wants nothing to do with them again. These are tame rabbits basically and afterwards I gave her a long talk (reminder) about how she should have handled them (I have taught her before). She's 15 and at the age when she knows it all. She learned a hard lesson tonight. She'll get over it ad she'll want to hold them again .. but I'm sure she will heed my advice now (which is keep ur eye on the rabbits when ur moving their straw around because they don't like it and they will growl and attack if ur not watching) .. poor dear. We are fairly new to keeping rabbits and I'm starting to wonder how they can ever be good pets for young children (unless of course strictly supervised which often doesn't happen) ... because those teeth are sharp and they do bite at times ... well ours do anyway lol

:shock::shock: Hope her hand and the doe are alright, that must of been a really frightening experience for both of them. How many rabbits have you got, you mentioned Rex rabbits and lops, I was surprised about the lop as I thought they were quite gentle normally:?

 

[clairekaitlin]

this is a very very interesting thread!!!!
see my mum has a netherland who seems to love lying on her back and will go to sleep, however the other rabbit absolutely hates it with a passion and will effectively fight for her life if anyone attempts it......my mum has always tried to do it with my girls and Daisy will quite happily let her but snuggles will go crazy!!
I think I will show her this!!! she will never believe it!!
However when it comes to clipping the nails, it could be useful, however given the chance I would much rather hold them back onto my stomach firmly and get someone else to cut so I could talk soothingly xx
amazing what you learn!!!!!
claire x

 

[KarenM]

:shock::shock: Hope her hand and the doe are alright, that must of been a really frightening experience for both of them. How many rabbits have you got, you mentioned Rex rabbits and lops, I was surprised about the lop as I thought they were quite gentle normally:?

I don't think you can make generalisations about certain breeds of rabbit - it's very much about personalities.

Sunny, I'm not convinced that placing a rabbit on its back as punishment is the best way to handle situations like that. Bunnies have a natural hierarchy, and I don't think that would be helped by humans trying to dominate over them.

Alfie is very much the boss of my pair, and will sometimes chase Bubbles if he thinks there's a chance she'll get to the food bowl before him (but is quite happy to share once the bowl goes down). Usually a loud clap or a raised voice is enough to distract him from what he's doing.

Are you buns neutered, as that helps a lot with territorial behaviour?

 

[Santa]

Sunny, I'm not convinced that placing a rabbit on its back as punishment is the best way to handle situations like that...Are you buns neutered, as that helps a lot with territorial behaviour?

I agree with this - the rabbit won't associate being put on its back with punishment for biting, it will simply reinforce the rabbit's opinion that human hands are to be feared...and that is likely to result in even worse aggression as they will try and attack you to make you go away.

As an aside, it concerns me that the two rabbits in the hutch were going for each other? Are they a pair of unneutered bunnies? If so, I would strongly recommend that you book them in to be neutered as soon as possible - once rabbits have started to fight it can escalate and they can seriously injure each other and you are unlikely to ever be able to get them to live happily together again, which would be a shame as it's better for the bunnies overall.

It also sounds as if they may have smelt one of your other rabbit's on your daughter and started to fight through what is known as 'referred aggression'. This is basically where rabbits who are living together can smell (and/or see) another rabbit and their territorial instinct urges them to fight it away...but as they can't get to the other rabbit, they attack their hutchmate instead. Are the other three living together or single? If the others are single I would suggest cleaning these two out first, so that you aren't transferring the smell of the others into their territory.

 

[RubyTed]

If rabbits start to fight then you should remove them from each other...not punish them. They aren't doing anything wrong...so what is the punishment going to accomplish. For aggression towards each other you need to look at the underlying problem. If they aren't neutered (as has been said) then they need to be. I'm not surprised your daughter doesn't want to go near the bunny again...:shock::shock:...what you have taught her to do was, in my opinion, not what should be done, and so it was going to happen at some point. The bunnies don't seem to be well bonded with humans, but scared of them.

For mine, a punishment (not that they need it) is to put them back in their room/cage. For them, me ignoring them is more of a punishment than me manhandling them. If they have little tiffs (Ruby is a little humper, and sometimes Teddy tells her off) then I block them with my body and stroke them both. They are not scared by this, and just collapse into a sleepy heap, with the nose rubs.
I believe, with any animal, positive reinforcement is far better than negative. If you tell them off for doing something wrong, then you'll never have such a bond with them, and they'll probably "resent" you. By showing them that stroking is far better than chasing (and in Roobs case, humping!:lol::lol they learn that when I'm on the floor, if they come up to me, they'll get strokes. I'm a giver...not a punisher.


....sorry if none of that made sense...:roll:

 

[willowholly]

There is no need with the blowing,turning bun on back & just stroking gently on head has the same effect.Its not good to do this apparently but ive often done it in the past & still do occasionally with Dill.Its not good to do it to giants apparently as it pushes their lungs or something but ive never tried it with B or Will as ive never had the urge to carry them around.Only do it with dill as its often the only way he will let me touch him but hes getting too big for it to be done comfortably.I too have heard it causes stress but Dill just hopped off to eat his pear after.In our case its making the bond stronger but its not been like that with other buns I guess it depends on the bun.

 

[Cozmo]

I can't imagine that "technique" from that youtube video is very safe to be honest....All I kept thinking while watching is was "What if he decides he doesn't want to lay there like that and kicks his back legs out and breaks his back!!":roll:

 

[RubyTed]

I can't imagine that "technique" from that youtube video is very safe to be honest....All I kept thinking while watching is was "What if he decides he doesn't want to lay there like that and kicks his back legs out and breaks his back!!":roll:

I agree!! She's bending his back....backwards....it'd be so easy to hurt him. He didn't look at all comfortable. Not once did his eyes droop in sleepy bliss!!:?

 

[VickiP]

[QUOTE=KarenM;3529628]I don't think you can make generalisations about certain breeds of rabbit - it's very much about personalities.

Sunny, I'm not convinced that placing a rabbit on its back as punishment is the best way to handle situations like that. Bunnies have a natural hierarchy, and I don't think that would be helped by humans trying to dominate over them.

Alfie is very much the boss of my pair, and will sometimes chase Bubbles if he thinks there's a chance she'll get to the food bowl before him (but is quite happy to share once the bowl goes down). Usually a loud clap or a raised voice is enough to distract him from what he's doing.

Are you buns neutered, as that helps a lot with territorial behaviour?[/QUOTE]

:wave: I agree, sorry didn't mean to do that, was just surprised as all my experience is with lop or lop crossed and I haven't experienced them biting me at all let alone on this level however, I have never turned them on their back and held them there. I am not going to comment on this thread after this as I am feeling quite upset already. I was thinking about this last night and the weird video, that sort of scared me a bit because it was a bit 'sinister' and I was half expecting something horrific to happen I had my finger on the 'stop' button in case it did. I feel quite strongly that aggression in any animal shouldn't be 'treated' with aggression as it perpetuates a cycle which is then very upsetting for the owner and the animal and can take a lot of time to establish trust and mutual respect again.

 

[KarenM]

:wave: I agree, sorry didn't mean to do that, was just surprised as all my experience is with lop or lop crossed and I haven't experienced them biting me at all let alone on this level however, I have never turned them on their back and held them there.

No need to apologise, it's natural to draw on your own experiences with certain breeds. The only real 'biting' bunny I've experienced myself was as a child and I firmly believe that was down to the fact that she was a very territorial unspayed female.

I agree with what you, and others, have said though - there are lots of strategies for dealing with aggressive bunnies that don't involve an act of aggression on our part.

I'm still struggling to understand what kind of reasoning would be behind it tbh, as it's not even a behaviour that I've seen/heard of bunnies doing to each other. :?

@ Sunny, I'm positive that if you started a new thread, asking for tips to help deal with this type of behaviour, people would be only too happy to let you know other things to try.

 

[VickiP]

No need to apologise, it's natural to draw on your own experiences with certain breeds. The only real 'biting' bunny I've experienced myself was as a child and I firmly believe that was down to the fact that she was a very territorial unspayed female.

I agree with what you, and others, have said though - there are lots of strategies for dealing with aggressive bunnies that don't involve an act of aggression on our part.

I'm still struggling to understand what kind of reasoning would be behind it tbh, as it's not even a behaviour that I've seen/heard of bunnies doing to each other. :?

@ Sunny, I'm positive that if you started a new thread, asking for tips to help deal with this type of behaviour, people would be only too happy to let you know other things to try.

:thumb:

 

[Coineanach]

Sunny, I'm not convinced that placing a rabbit on its back as punishment is the best way to handle situations like that. Bunnies have a natural hierarchy, and I don't think that would be helped by humans trying to dominate over them.

I agree - My Vin is the only bunny in the house but likes to think she's the boss. :roll: If I ever tried to turn her over like that, I'm willing to bet I'd have a fight on my hands and probably injuries.

Put her in a tortilla and cover her in hot sauce?

:lol: Sorry, I should have explained. The idea is to wrap bunny in a towel in a way so that only the relevant body bit is exposed. So, a back foot for nail clipping, the head for syringing etc. You wrap the towel nice and snug and the bunny knows they can't get away. Takes a bit of practise but is a good solution for struggling buns (like mine :roll.

 

[Sunny]

It also sounds as if they may have smelt one of your other rabbit's on your daughter and started to fight through what is known as 'referred aggression'. This is basically where rabbits who are living together can smell (and/or see) another rabbit and their territorial instinct urges them to fight it away...but as they can't get to the other rabbit, they attack their hutchmate instead. Are the other three living together or single? If the others are single I would suggest cleaning these two out first, so that you aren't transferring the smell of the others into their territory.

I think this might have been the trigger factor. I must just point out cos I think I'm causing confusion ...I have never taught my daughter to place rabbits on their backs for discipline. In fact my hubby and I threatened to rehome the rabbits if we saw my daughter do this again. She will say yes, but she does now have a very tame rabbit from doing it, but I still don't like it as I fear damage to their spines and the rule here is she is not allowed to do it. When she got biitten, the rabbit flipped over onto it's back of it's own accord to hold onto her arm to bite her. My advice to her was, she should have just closed the lid when the fight started and left them and called me to monitor the situation. These are 2 female buns aged 9months old, one min lop and one min lionhead lop. I had them both spayed 3 months ago and they live together as a bonded pair. Whilst it's cold, they come into the house at night for a run .. in summer they run in the garden in their large wire run .. or lose in the garden under supervision. They are very tame and very lovable. They used to fight due to one humping the other, hence the reason they got spayed and also to prevent uterine cancer. I think someone asked how many rabbits we have. We also have two min Rex's.. also 9 months old and have just boughta cross Rex from a pet shop (I know .. should rather have gone to a rabbit rescue but he needed a home and my daughter has wanted him for a while now.. he just wasn't selling .. he has such a wonderful temperamentand will be neutered shortly). Anyway all I can say is .. my daughter is a bit wiser now about rabbits The 2 are as sweet as always but she won't go near them now .. maybe iin time she will try again

 

[Candiflare]

I'm confused by this too, and I think the confusion comes when you have buns that really like to be handled. Ralph will lie on his back with his feet up in the air by himself (without any intervention from me) and I can clip his nails then. Also, if he is lying out, I can pull his back legs out until they are completely stretched out, and he just leaves them like that and continues to sleep...

I think if you have a bunny who doesn't like being handled, then it may be a different matter. However, I don't ever deliberately trance my buns... I approach them lying down on their backs and I stroke them/clip their nails/check their bottoms.

 

[clairekaitlin]

:lol: Sorry, I should have explained. The idea is to wrap bunny in a towel in a way so that only the relevant body bit is exposed. So, a back foot for nail clipping, the head for syringing etc. You wrap the towel nice and snug and the bunny knows they can't get away. Takes a bit of practise but is a good solution for struggling buns (like mine :roll.[/QUOTE]

This sounds a brilliant idea I think I would much rather be wrapped in a warm towel then flipped on my back lol x

 

[Bunnytod]

Honey flips her self on her back when she's in my arms, she loves her belly being stroked, Harley hates it, i never normally flip them myself just hold honey when she turns on her back, she even lies in her cage on her back sometimes

 

[clairekaitlin]

Honey flips her self on her back when she's in my arms, she loves her belly being stroked, Harley hates it, i never normally flip them myself just hold honey when she turns on her back, she even lies in her cage on her back sometimes

Yeah mine roll over onto there backs both in the cage and in the middle of the rug x

 

[AriaSwan]

I tried trancing today on Bentley. He didn't struggle at all, even when he woke up, he just starting licking my hands, which he has never done :shock: He's also much more lovign now.

 

[sillyrabbit]

:wave: I just watched that video and I thought it was really odd. I cannot for one minute imagine why that would be deemed relaxation. That rabbit looked like it was in totally submission to me which I think is different to being relaxed. Unless you are a trained vet serious injury could be sustained by the rabbit with that woman doing that. I wouldn't do that and wouldn't find it necessary even with an aggressive rabbit to 'trance' them, there are lots of other techniques. I think sometimes because they are a 'prey' animal and small they are in effect abused - I would love to see someone try to trance a rotweiller who had aggressive tendancies!!

I agree, that video made me feel really uncomfortable. I have a book, massage for your bunny, and so mine get regular massages that relaxes them without me having to pull their legs out or be turning them round and lifting them up. They just come and lay down on the floor next to me for one. I wouldn't even attempt anything like that with them on my lap while I am on a chair. Also the way she was lifting up the back of the bunny just looked dangerous

I wouldn't trance my buns