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Bunnylady said:
Exactly. I get so tired of people declaring how cruel keeping a single rabbit is, because rabbits are "naturally" social, then explaining the elaborate, step-by-step process that is frequently necessary to get them to accept each other (starting with getting their hormones out of the way by neutering, a very unnatural procedure!), and including the statement that if you mess this up, these rabbits may never learn to get along . . . and I'm like, "if they are simply dying for the company of their own kind, why do you have to work so hard to keep them from killing each other?" Can they not see the contradiction in their own words?
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I don't disagree with a single word you have said here and yet I am one of those who has gone through that elaborate, step-by-step process in order to pair my current two up. I had Lola, a neutered female, to begin with and she was paired with Lenny, a neutered male.....an easy pairing, they pretty much got along from the start. But when he passed away, Lola went off her food, became less active and less interactive with us and seemed generally depressed so we tried to pair her with another neutered female....a female just because a friend of a friend happened to be re-homing one at the time. It was a NIGHTMARE!!!! If we had pursued the matter, I have no doubt at all that one or both would have ended up severely injured or dead. We gave Lola some time to recover from the ordeal, found the other rabbit a new home with a neutered male....whom she accepted immediately, and then took in a neutered male from a rescue. Because we had upset Lola with the other attempts, we took the pairing really slowly, with short supervised visits, shared mealtimes, mutual grooming sessions etc and after some scuffles and initial aggression from Lola, they settled down and are now living together....grooming each other, laying together all the time, feeding together, snuggling up, playing etc. It worked. And Lola is back to eating properly and being active and interactive. In her case, despite the fact that she was clearly picky over who she wanted to spend time with, she definitely IS happier with a partner. I, personally, would ALWAYS work on the proviso that pairs or more are better but if it didn't work out, single is OK. I guess what I am saying is, I would never keep a single rabbit through MY choice, I would always attempt pairing and only accept a single rabbit situation if it was THEIR choice. As yet, in my years of keeping rabbits, I have never had one choose not to accept any pairing and all of their behaviour has indicated a preference for rabbit company. I do tend to keep lops though and they have a reputation for being more docile and amenable.
 
Since I'm a breeder, I'm dealing with intact animals, so I also deal with the hormones. That means I have seen some horrific things, and some just plain weird ones, too. Like one buck I had, perfectly friendly and outgoing with people, but nasty and bullying with any doe he bred. There was no honeymooning with him; I had to get the girls out after he fell off, or he'd be in their faces, biting and striking. Or a doe of my daughter's that was handled a lot from birth, but got territorial after she hit puberty. As long as she was living in the rabbitry, we had to watch our hands in her cage. She was eventually moved to a hutch where she couldn't see, smell, or hear any other rabbits, and she became a people-friendly rabbit once again.

I have put older animals together, and had them live together perfectly fine until one died (though I've never seen the one left behind pining away). I have no doubt that altered animals are more mellow and easier on each other. Though with pet rabbits costing just enough to make eating them uneconomic ($15 to $30, usually), and neutering running $100 or more, an awful lot of pet rabbits remain intact, and therefore much more likely to end up alone. Maybe a would-be owner should be faced with spending $400 or more just to become a bunny owner (2 altered rabbits, plus housing big enough for multiples, etc), but as easily as they die of stupid things (like a sudden fright), it's a bit hard.:confused:
 
Bunnylady said:
Since I'm a breeder, I'm dealing with intact animals, so I also deal with the hormones. That means I have seen some horrific things, and some just plain weird ones, too. Like one buck I had, perfectly friendly and outgoing with people, but nasty and bullying with any doe he bred. There was no honeymooning with him; I had to get the girls out after he fell off, or he'd be in their faces, biting and striking. Or a doe of my daughter's that was handled a lot from birth, but got territorial after she hit puberty. As long as she was living in the rabbitry, we had to watch our hands in her cage. She was eventually moved to a hutch where she couldn't see, smell, or hear any other rabbits, and she became a people-friendly rabbit once again.

I have put older animals together, and had them live together perfectly fine until one died (though I've never seen the one left behind pining away). I have no doubt that altered animals are more mellow and easier on each other. Though with pet rabbits costing just enough to make eating them uneconomic ($15 to $30, usually), and neutering running $100 or more, an awful lot of pet rabbits remain intact, and therefore much more likely to end up alone. Maybe a would-be owner should be faced with spending $400 or more just to become a bunny owner (2 altered rabbits, plus housing big enough for multiples, etc), but as easily as they die of stupid things (like a sudden fright), it's a bit hard.:confused:
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Yes, I guess the intact thing makes the world of difference. As mine are pets, I have always neutered all of my rabbits. I've had people ask me why I bothered neutering both in a pair when getting one done would prevent litters and trying to explain the consequences of hormonal rabbits (as well as cervical cancer in non-breeding girls) is like talking to a wall. Here in the UK things are more expensive too by the sounds of it. My original pair of Frenchies were (equivalents) $125, their house was $230, their neuters were $250 and if you included what it cost to build their pen, around $1200 for their HALF!!! So yeah, to do it properly costs big bucks and that's why rabbits are the most abused animal in the UK by far!! :hmm
 
happyhens1972 said:
So yeah, to do it properly costs big bucks and that's why rabbits are the most abused animal in the UK by far!! :hmm
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I definitely would find your resource an interesting read.

I do not live in the UK but I know people who travel there and everyone talks about how destructive the overwhelming numbers of wild rabbits are there. So, I am wondering if those "most abused animal" statistics are just do to the sheer numbers of rabbits in the UK, including the wild rabbits, or if it includes the government's intentional released plagues to infect and reduce the numbers of wild rabbits in the UK that are were not only passed between the wild rabbits but also carried by fur mites, rabbit fleas, other insects, rodents, birds, shoes, and clothing to domestic rabbits and rabbitries.
 
No, I'm not referring to wild rabbits and myxamatosis and VHD, I mean pet rabbits. We have a lot of vet programs and animal rescue programs on TV and they are amongst the few programs I tend to watch and I have heard on numerous occasions that statistically, rabbits are the most abused DOMESTIC pet in the UK as so many are wrongly housed, wrongly fed, not vaccinated, not neutered and live out their lives in tiny hutches with no run, no company and little or no human interaction. My own vet said she has lost count of the amount of rabbits she has had to put to sleep because people have only noticed there's something wrong when the rabbit is found laying on its side, not responding and by then, it's too late to do anything and few people are willing to even try. If all you do is chuck a handful of muesli under their nose once a day and they are confined to a three foot hutch, you're never going to notice the subtle changes in behaviour that begin when they are unwell and before you know, it, they're in GI stasis and it's downhill from there. She also said she gets a lot of cases of flystrike where it is too late to treat....poor, maggot infested buns that have suffered terribly and then are put to sleep, again because owners are feeding them wrong, and then not even being aware of the consequences.

THEN you can add all of the myxi and VHD cases in both wild and domestic buns and the statistics hit the roof!
 
happyhens1972 said:
No, I'm not referring to wild rabbits and myxamatosis and VHD, I mean pet rabbits. We have a lot of vet programs and animal rescue programs on TV and they are amongst the few programs I tend to watch and I have heard on numerous occasions that statistically, rabbits are the most abused DOMESTIC pet in the UK as so many are wrongly housed, wrongly fed, not vaccinated, not neutered and live out their lives in tiny hutches with no run, no company and little or no human interaction. My own vet said she has lost count of the amount of rabbits she has had to put to sleep because people have only noticed there's something wrong when the rabbit is found laying on its side, not responding and by then, it's too late to do anything and few people are willing to even try. If all you do is chuck a handful of muesli under their nose once a day and they are confined to a three foot hutch, you're never going to notice the subtle changes in behaviour that begin when they are unwell and before you know, it, they're in GI stasis and it's downhill from there. She also said she gets a lot of cases of flystrike where it is too late to treat....poor, maggot infested buns that have suffered terribly and then are put to sleep, again because owners are feeding them wrong, and then not even being aware of the consequences.

THEN you can add all of the myxi and VHD cases in both wild and domestic buns and the statistics hit the roof!
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Interesting. Is there any reference you can provide so that I can more on this subject? I just had not heard of it before.
 
Just put a search into google....there's plenty there to read...sadly :hit

And yes, we have a problem here in the UK with the wild rabbits and crop destruction. We are getting ever milder Winters so the rabbits' breeding period is extending and the farmers are losing millions. I have two warrens warrens on my property now and it is of concern to me because although my rabbits are vaccinated, that is by no means a guarantee that they won't catch something and last year, I culled four myxi rabbits I found on my land. The farmer who owns the land next door has a chap who comes up with a gun and a dog but they barely put a dent in the local population!
 

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