Rabbits Make Really Great Pets

Rabbits chew. Most of them anyway. My 13 year old rabbit chews up everything. Once he chewed up my concert shoes on the night of a concert! It was so bad. But ultimately, it was my fault. There are no pet store cages that are actually big enough to keep a rabbit in, but I have found a good solution. I kept my 13 year old rabbit in one of those metal puppy exercise pens over linoleum for a long time. I made it very large and he had the equivalent of half a room. It was great because I could make sure he only chewed what we gave him. Then when we were home, he could roam free inside the house and we'd just keep an eye on him. Now that he's older, he has a cubes and coroplast cage that I custom made for him (you can find directions at www.guineapigcages.com to get you started). With too much space he wasn't making it back to the litterbox in time. Now with about 10 square feet, he easily finds the litterbox generally and when he doesn't, that cage is easily cleaned. My younger rabbit is a digger and digs through carpeting or anything else, but she hardly ever chews anything (except my expensive jewelry cabinet... once I trusted she doesn't chew). I just keep her on linoleum so that she can't dig the carpet. Neither of my rabbits like to be held, if I had a rabbit like yours it would definitely be indoors no matter what just because I would love a big snuggly lap dog type bunny.

The vet said that rabbits like to have their feet on a hard surface since they are prey for other animals. Making for a quick get away, so it doesn't surprise me that your rabbits do not like to be held. Poncho is our bunny and he was always on my lap, especially if I had any type of crunchy food (he loves popcorn) needless to say my little New Zealand red wasn't suppose to be very big but he's a big fatty (about 17 pounds and sorry I am not sure about metric and I would hate to tell you wrong). Thanks for the link, his current hutch is very large but in the winter we bring him in the house due to Ohio's extreme wind chill during that season, usually about -15 to -20.

Rabbits definitely like their feet on a hard surface, but I always heard it was to prevent sore hocks. If you've ever seen a rabbit kept on wire floor they often have little bleeding spots on their feet. The prey animal part definitely explains them not liking to be picked up and held though. That is one large rabbit though, wow, 17 pounds! My 13 year old rabbit is only 5 pounds and my 2-3 year old rabbit is about 7 pounds.

I'd be careful at that age. Rabbits are more fragile than most people realize. However, a good rule for people who want rabbits and have children is to get a larger rabbit (preferably one the child won't try to pick up on his own). And of course, with any pets parents need to realize that ultimately, they are responsible for the pets. The rescue I volunteered for had no problem adopting out rabbits to families with children though, as long as the parents realized that they were ultimately their pets even if the kids thought they were the pet owners... so it can definitely work, it just depends on the individual situation.

well i'm not just going to give the rabbit to my son and say here you go, lol, no he should know by then what nice is and isn't my nephew is 4 and he already knows that he has to be nice to animals as much as he has to with humans, and I'd be there supervising anyway, but I would make sure he helps me take care of the animal so he can learn how to do it himself so when he gets older he can be able to be independant in that way but at 4 or so it is wise to supervise with ANY animal