BUNNIES
Cage
We think that at the beginning when bunny is not used yet to its new house, it's best to keep bunny in a cage; later, when the bunny is trained and behaves well, you can enlarge its hopping free territory. The cage should be big enough – the bigger the better, I read that a cage should be at least 4 times the size of your bunny - more if he is confined for a large amount of the day, but we think it's exageration.
In one corner you should put the toilet bin, hay container at the side of the cage and bowls for food. Also drinking bottle is necessary – it's said it's better to have a drinking bottle as it's easier to keep the water clean.
Takin care of a bunny
Bunny is a territorial animal – it is very concerned about his own territory, so you shouldn't invade it.
The cage would be his own kingdom and you have to respect it. When you clean the cage a bunny should first go out. Also a bunny should know that the cage is his safe and secure place, hence, he should have only good feelings about it, that's why you should never force a bunny to go back to the cage. You can lure him there by showing him a bit of a fruit and then bunny will follow your hand with fruit to the cage.
At first it took us a long time to make our bunnies go to the cage but now they recognize the sound of food being put in their food bowls and they run to the cage to eat. We always feed the bunnies in the cage, otherwise it won't be easy to put them back in the cage.
Getting trust of a bunny takes quite a while, so the most important thing is to respect them, they will choose the moment when they let you stroke them. At first a bunny wouldn't trust you when you approach it, will be running away, you should then give it some time to explore a new teritory and to get to know you. Bunnies spend most of the time on the floor, that's why you should also be there with them. After a couple of days since we had our bunnies, we were trying to pet them from time to time to see if they like it, but they were running away. Only after certain time they got used to us, now Chewey (female bunny) loves to be stroked. We let her out in the morning- (bunnies are most active in the very morning and in the evening)), she hops happily, and when she gets tired she hops next to me on the couch and wants to be stroked, sometimes even for an hour. But really when we got her, she was completely wild and untrustworthy bunny, we were afraid it will never happen to make her like us. Also i think it's easier, if you get a young bunny, which can get to know you since it's a baby bunny.
Ruby – the second male bunny only now (after 3 months) starts to trust us, I can pet him and he doesn't run away. Although, he is not so patient as Chewey and gets bored with stroking after 15 minutes and runs away.
So the punch line is – every bunny is different, so it will take different amounts of time to make them trust you.
Lifting a bunny
Bunnies don't like to be lifted, unfortunately :-( they prefer to like next to a person, when you lift them they may become aggresive and scratch - this is what happens every time we lift our bunnies.
They don't mind lying close next to us with half of their body and their paws lying on our bodies, we can hug them and keep them close, they don't run away then, but still they hate when we lift them up from the ground.
However, I think that if you make your bunny get used to being touched and lifted when it is still a baby, it might be easier in the future, maybe it will won't be so angry when being lifted.
Bunnies have very sensitive spines so if you have to lift it you should do it in a very careful way – keeping a bunny like a baby, I think, at the bottom and in the middle of their body with both hands firmly. If their paws rest on your chest they feel more comfotable and secure.
When you get a baby bunny, you should also make sure that it spent enough time with their mother in the nest – bunnies should be full 8 weeks old before they are put to the shop or to a new home.
Litter training
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/litter.html
Bunnies spend a lot of time in their toilet, so the litter is very important, we still didn't figure out which is the best for bunnies, definitely one shouldn't use clay products for cats, as they may be harmful for bunnies. For the time being we use wood chips (not pine or cedr ones= harmful) as litter but I read they are not the best. It's better to buy paper pellets (we haven't found them yet in Belgium) or wood pellets - compressed wood chips- these you can buy in Belgium. It's said it absorbes pee better.
Of course, you can also use hay or straw as litter, even newspapers (we used to put it at the beginning but the smell of urine is unbearable then).
If you start training bunny to pee and poo in the toilet at the very beginning, a bunny will grow good habits.
Usually bunnies like to pee and poo in one corner of the cage – they choose themselves 'their' corner, so if you happen to put the toilet in one corner of the cage and your bunny poos in another one, simply move the toilet bin there, where your bunny chose to. No use fighting with a bunny.
The bunny should pee and leave most of the poo in the toilet, of course, there are going to be droppings on the floor of the cage too, but it's normal as the bunnies use their poo to sign their territory. To show bunny that he should poo in the toilet, you can put the loose poo simply into the toilet. It should get the hint.
Also, if a bunny is sterlized, it's easier to teach him how to become clean.
The toilet should be cleaned every day, at least in summer, we do it every second day now. If the bunny uses the whole cage as the toilet and doesn't use the toilet one should clean the whole cage.
The next step - When you make sure that your bunny knows how to use the toilet and pee and most of the poo is there, you can slowly, step by step, increase (enlarge) the free hopping territory bit by bit. You have to be very patient, actually the patience is the key factor when you deal with the bunnies.
If the bunny can hop in the whole room, it's obvious that it will feel like leaving droppings everywhere – first to sign their new territory, but then further training is required. You should put more toilets in the corners of the room to make bunny pee there. You can put bit of hay in there to lure him to pee there. Then, I read, you can reduce the number of toiletes, the moment bunny knows how to behave on a larger territory.
Of course, the longer the free hop time is, the more difficult it is for a bunny to hold the poo, that's why it's better when the hops are shorter than longer when bunny is being trained.
At the beginning, we were doing great with keeping our bunnies clean, but then we rushed into letting them hop freely almost in whole appartment and bunnies couldn't hold that freedom any more. We weren't patient enough and we didn't put enough toilets in the corners of the appartment.
So now slowly and steadily with lots of patience we teach bunnies good habits.
Some links to websites in English about bunnies:
www.rabbit.org - lots of useful information
http://www.ontariorabbits.org/
www.rabbitrescue.ca – private shelter for bunnies
http://www.rguppy.freeserve.co.uk/ - MYXOMATOSIS HELP LINE – you can find lot of info bout hat illness
http://www.houserabbit.co.uk - The British House Rabbit Association
http://www.carrotcafe.com - guide to Feeding Your House Rabbit
http://www.muridae.com/rabbits/rabbittalk.html - "The Language of Lagomorphs. What Your Rabbit is Saying and How to Speak Back." how to interpret bunny behaviour – very interesting
http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rabrefs.html – links to articles bout bunnies' health etc.
