Top 10 items to get for your bunny
Yay! Congratulation! You reserved a bunny and can't wait to meet him/her soon. Bringing a new pet bunny into your life is an exciting event! You’ll want to make sure you’re fully prepared so that you and your new bunny can get off to a great start.
In this article we are going to share iteams that we use and recommend for bunnies. However, it doesn't mean you have to order the same supplies for your pet rabbit. There are many options of bunny items on the internet that you can choose. We just hope this article will give you some ideas.
1)Rabbit Carrier
When you come to meet your pet bunny, you need to bring a carrier for transportation with you. Your bunny will be stressed out and being in a carrier helps him/her to hide and relax. We don't recommend holding your bunny in your hands or put him/her on your lap during first time meeting transportation. It can make your bunny scared and nervous. We use many pet carries and here are some of them that we like: 1) Expandable Carrier
2) Jespet Soft-Sided Dog & Cat Carrier Bag
4)SportPet Designs Large Pop Open Kennel
2)Housing
“As a pray animals by nature, all rabbits need a safe place to spend time and escape potential environmental stressors.” - Oxbow Animal Health
Housing is one of the most crucial iteams you need to get for your beloved bunny. We recommend to have a spacious playpen for your bunny. There are so many option playpens you can find on the internet. Here are the playpens we recommend : 1)36" Medium Lucidium Pen
There are a lot of options of hutches/cages on the market that look so cute. However, majority of a very poor quality. It's very hard to clean wood from bunny’s urine and a lot of bunnies can distroy the wood easily by chewing it. WE Don't recommend using any cages or hutches for your bunny because it will be very hard to bond with your bunny and transition to free roaming.
Make sure your playpen is in quite safe place because bunnies can get stressed out easily. Don't put the playpen in bedrooms because bunnies can be very active during the night. The best temperature for the bunny is 60-75F. We recommend to clean the bunny playpen and litter box daily.
Don't forget to protect your house and your bunny before bringing your bunny home because bunnies love to chew and dig. Please read this article: https://bunnylady.com/bunny-proofing/
Please use pet- friendly natural cage/floor cleaners and sanitizers that you can find online or in the pet store.
Here are some examples of free roam set-ups from our families that you can find inspiring and helpful:
3) Bedding/Floor protection
There are only a couple options of bedding we recomend to use in the cage for European Teddywidders or English Angoras which are fleece blanket or wood pellets or pee pads or water proof pad. Their coats can attract all hay straw or shavings easily and it's going to be very hard to clean and untangle.
if you need to protect your floor or furniture we recommend to use waterproof washable pee pads or plastic trays or waterproof/washable rugs.
Please don't use any sort of Cedar Shavings because this is the most toxic type of wood that can damage your bunny’s liver and make him very sick.
4) Healthy Diet
We provide a transitional bag of pellets with each our bunnies to go home and require that you feed it for the first couple of days. Then you can start mixing it with your new food.
We recommend free feeding for bunnies under 6 month old. We feed 3/4 cup - 1cup our adult Teddywidders, Holland Lops and English Angoras daily. Some bunnies are very energetic and require more pellets. If you noticed that your bunny is gaining weight and overeating make their food portions smaller.
We don't feed our bunnies with fruits or vegetables and don't recommend give it to bunnies under 6 months old. Wait until bunnies 6 months old and gradually start introducing vegetables/fruits if you like.
We give a cup of Spring mix or greens such as romaine, red leaf lettuce. Remember there are greens, vegetables, fruits that you should avoid from bunny’s diet because they can be dangerous.
We found some helpful articles that can be helpful:
https://be.chewy.com/rabbit-food-list-what-fruits-and-vegetables-are-safe-for-rabbits/
https://www.peta.org/living/animal-companions/foods-rabbits-shouldnt-eat/
Pellets is a must for bunnies! You can't feed your bunnies just with a hay or vegetables/fruits. Our brand of feed we use Modesto Milling Rabbit Food You can use any other brands but avoid mixes with nuts, corn, and fruit because it's unhealthy for rabbits and contain a lot of sugar.
Our bunnies always have access to Timothy Hay daily. Please don't feed Alfalfa hay to your rabbits. The hay is very important at all times because it is something for the bunnies to chew on continuously and keeps their GI tract moving.
We give our bunnies a mixture of BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds), old fashion oats, and Calf Manna. We usually give one table spoon of mixture to each bunny.
We give chewables papaya pills or dry papaya to our rabbits during molting to prevent woolblock.
We also give our bunnies Apple Cider Vinegar and Probiotics Bene-Bac Powder .We put Apple Cider Vinegar everyday to our bunnies water and add Probiotics 2 times per week to their water bowl of feed.
If you would like to give your bunny treats we recomend to use Oxbow Rabbit Treats or
Science Selective Naturals . Don't give your bunny too many treats because bunnies can gain weight easily and treats are not necessary in their healthy diet.
We change our bunnies water 1-2 times per day. Please notice our bunnies aren't trained to use water bottles. We only use heavy ceramic bowls for water and pellets.
5) Litter Box
Please read our Litter Box Training Tips Here.
There are a lot of options of litter boxes on the internet that you can choose for your bunny. Make sure you get the right size depending of your rabbit breed.The English Angoras require big litter boxes due to their woolly coats.
We would like to share some examples of litter boxes we recommend:
1)Petco Brand - So Phresh Teal Scatter Shield High-Back Litter Box for Cat
2)Petphabet Jumbo Hooded Cat Litter Box, Extra Large
3)Large - Rabbit Bunny Hay Feeder and Litter Pan Combo, Sifting Pan
4)Frisco Small Pet High Sided Litter Box
t's imperative to litter box training that your bunny be spayed/neutered. Unaltered rabbits with raging hormones will mark their territory with urine, and therefore are not easily litter box trained.
6) Exercise Outside Playpens
You would want to bring your bunny outside to play or you are going for a trip and bring your bunny with you, portable playpen would be ideal for traveling.We would like to share some exercise pans that we recommend:
7) Hay Holder
We recommend to have a hay holder next to litter box because It's more convinient - bunnies love to eat hay in the litter box and pee/poo the same time so hay holder helps to keep more hay fresh. Another reason why we suggest to get a hay holder is European Teddywidders and English Angoras are huge collectors of hay on their coats that's why hay holders help to avoid it and prevent bunny tangled hairs.
Some options of hay holders:
1)Geegoods Rabbit Hay Feeder Bag
2)Niteangel Pet Wooden Hay Manger with Seat
3)Small Hay Manger For Habitats
8) Chewy toys/ tunnels/ green pad
Bunnies love to play with toys or running in tunnels, digging green grass pads. Sometimes bunnies can be bored and toys help them to stay healthy and happy. Make sure you buy safe toys/products for your beloved bunny.
We made a list of toys we use for our bunnies:
1)Oxbow Play Table Small Animal Toy
4)Bunny Tunnels & Tubes Collapsible 3 Way
5)TokiHut Wooden Rabbit Castle and Bridge Set™
6)Tokihut Veggie Foraging Mat™
9) Grooming
Grooming is the best way to bond with your bunny. That's way we highly recommend to do bunny grooming by yourself and not to use pet grooming salons. Make a ritual of regular grooming and give your bunny a treat after brushing.
Your bunny needs to be groomed regularly. The frequency of grooming a bunny depends on their coat. You may need to brush your rabbit more frequently if they are shedding. Regular brushing keeps your bunny’s coat in great condition, preventing the formation of matts which can irritate the skin and lead to infection, mites or woodblocks.
We blow the hair of Our English Angoras and European Teddywidders 1-3 times a week it help to clean their skin clean off dander and prevent matting. If we see small matts or tangled hair we use scissors to cut it and/or slicker comb to brush it.
If you just brush your woolly rabbit you can break their hair and damage the coat so your bunny’s hair are going to tangle more.
Be very careful with scissors if you would like to trim rabbit’s hair because bunnies like to move and you can cut them easily.
Holland lops should be brushed mostly during molting, their coats are not difficult to groom.
Please check and clip your bunny nails every months. The bundle of blood vessels and nerves within the nail can often be seen in pale nails- make sure to cut beyond the end of this. if you cut a bunny nail and it's bleeding use flour or styptic powder to stop the bleeding.
Always use soft brushes for your bunny, their skin is very fragile. Make sure your bunny sit 4 legs on the table or your lap in a quiet and safe environment. We like to talk with bunnies during grooming and give them pets to make them relaxed.
Here are some grooming items we recomend to have:
1) Small Pet Select - Hair Buster Comb
2) PETNURSE Pet Deshedding Brush
3)Hartz Groomer's Best Slicker Brush
4) Pet Nail Clippers for Small Animals
5) Pet drier we only use for fuzzy/wooly breeds
6) Patina Pet Grooming Brush we use this brush only for European Teddywidders and English Angoras.
10) First Emergency Kit
1) Styptic powder is most often used to clot up a bleeding toenail.
2) It’s useful to have some extra syringes and an eyedropper in your first aid kit. The eyedropper is used is the occasion that your rabbit has an eye irritation.
3)Critical Care is a formula used to force-feed rabbits in emergency situations. It gives them the nutrients they need to remain healthy and keeps their digestion going.
4)Gas Drops. Rabbits have a sensitive digestive system and can suffer from a gas build-up. To help ease your rabbit’s discomfort and prevent GI statis you can give your rabbit a few drops of simethicone, also known as infant gas drops.
5)Ice Pad is good to use during hot weather.
Since they are a prey animal, they easily hide any sickness or injury and an annual visit is a good way to catch health problems you may not notice. Having a relationship with a vet is also good because if you have an emergency situation you already know who to call or go see to take care of your bunny. If you cannot afford to take your rabbit to the vet regularly, you should not have a pet rabbit. This is an essential part of rabbit care and ownership.
