Is my Rabbit weird?

sparkthatbled

Hi, I have a Rabbit for almost a year now. He's a Lionhead and he's really cute and fluffy (picture attached below and in the pictures of your pets thread), especially when he sees me coming with treats and jumps up trying to stick his head through the bars of his cage. I had him neutered on the advice of my Fiancee who bought him for me, which is probably not relevant to any of this but i thought i'd mention it. He has a few habits that my fiancee says seem unusual, though, and they have dated back to since i got him. She has had quite a few rabbits over the years so she must know weird habits when she sees them, however it might just be normal.

Since he first got into his cage when we brought him home, he nominated a corner to do all his urinating and a good 90% of his defacating in. When i let him out in the garden or put him in the hutch i built, he will hold it until he gets back to the cage, then he'll settle in his corner to relieve himself. Fortunately, I built a large run to go with the hutch, so i can put his whole cage in and he uses the corner when he needs to. Is this normal? I, and my fiancee, always thought rabbits just let it go wherever they happen to be when they get the call of nature.

He is a fussy eater. He won't eat the pellets in his bowl unless they are all he has, and then he will only eat the bare minimum when he is really hungry. Also, when you introduce any new food (such as when we first gave him carrots or those wooden sticks encrusted with treat-type foods and when we occasionally give him other vegetables), he will sit there staring at it, seemingly to see if it may attempt to attack him, and eventually he will try it but it will still take a while for him to finish it. Usually i have to remove the vegetables before he's done with them because they start to look like they're going off.

He fears no creature. Again, i always assumed Rabbits were cautious and would run from danger but on the rare occasion that a neighbourhood cat would come into the garden while he's out and approach the chicken wire fence he will run at them and scare them off (don't worry, i always watch him when he's out in the open and if he didn't scare the cat off, i would be out like a shot with the hose!). I recently brought him with me to my Mam's house. There are between 5 and 10 semi-wild cats that congregate in her back garden because she feeds them. We put his cage outside to see what they would do. One at a time they would approach and sniff the cage. Instead of bolting into the safety of his house, he would hop over, sniff them back, then quick as a flash he'd spin around and let an almighty kick at the bars of the cage, sending the cat scurrying into the next garden. Again, i assure you all that he was completely safe at all times!

I also fixed a mirror to his cage to keep him occupied and i'm convinced that after a while he figured it out, that it's his reflection. He often will hop over and sit there, looking for a while, then shake his head as if to rearrange his hair and look again. He will repeat this a few times, then hop away again.

Anyway, do these seem like unusual traits for a rabbit to have? He's my first so for all i know, they're all like that. But then, maybe there's something wrong with him.

katiemaloe

Hi, You are obviously a very good pet owner All this behavior sounds pretty normal to me. Ive had 2 house bunnies before. They both would only go to the tiolet in one corner of their cage. I think they are very clean animals. Mine were regularly running around the house and I never had to clean up after them.

The fussy eating... I think rabbits can easily become fussy I have seen rabbits that eat everything with gusto. Though both mine were fussy. They were picky and might eat carrots sometimes and then refuse them another time. They would also pick out the nicest bits out of the dry rabbit food mix, and ignore the rest.

As for being brave and sniffing the cats that approach the run. He is just checking them out. He obviously feels safe in his run. The thumping is his way of signalling danger.

I'm no expert but I reckon your bunny is perfectly normal!

ec18

yes it is :P

00112984

Yup, rabbits are nuts

animalcrazy

Yup he sounds normal to me
A neuteured rabbit is alot better with their litter habits, so that explains why he poops in one corner most of the time. If you want you could litter train him. I have eight bunnies and one of them is also very picky, she is just like yours that way. Also most of my rabbits run after cats and stuff like that too! All my cats are afraid of the bunnies

sparkthatbled

Thanks for all the reassurances! By the way, i was thinking of getting another rabbit to keep him company but i'm not sure if he would get along with one. I know a general rule is that a neutered male should get along ok with a female or other neutered male but thats not guaranteed. Do any pet shops let you bring your rabbit and put one you might buy in with him to see how they interact? I asked this of the shop i bought him in and they said they cant allow it. Is there otherwise any way of telling how he'd get along with another rabbit without buying one first? I don't really want to get a guinea pig. I hear they're a bit noisy and also heard a few horror stories about rabbits killing their guinea pig cage-mates.

dee o gee

My old rabbit used to do all his business in one corner of the cage also, and when he was inside the house he ALWAYS done it in the same corner of the sitting room, now that I think back he could have been litter trained so easily, but I didnt know that back then.:D
As regards taking on the cats, my cousins lionhead will sit in his run and tease their greyhounds, poor greyhounds go mad at him and he just sits there.:D

Just a word of advise, my run was made out of the same chicken wire as yours, and some sort of animal, I think it was a mink or ferret or something similar bit through it and killed him. I was devastated because he used to be kept in the shed but I moved him to the garden for the summer.:(

allandanyways

Sounds pretty much like our bunny. She's a 1 year old Dutch dwarf rabbit, and she does pretty much all the same things your lionhead does.

Since day 1, she's always pooped in the same corner of her hutch and in the same corner of the pen that she lives in. (Poo apparently makes great fertilizer cos loads of grass grew there)

Buttons doesn't eat the pellets in her food mix either, her favourite ones are the lettuce bits and the carrot thingys, she leaves the oats and the pellets until very last. She won't take any tidbits off anyone except her "mammy", my little sister, because she's the only one that Buttons trusts (and doesn't nip either)

She has this mad thing for trying to escape aswell, but this has calmed down a bit since we bought her some chew toys and moved stuff around in her pen. She used to climb the chicken wire and try to get out but we think she was basically roidin the squirrell that somehow kept getting into her pen and thought she was a squirell aswell. We haven't seen the squirell for ages, since my sister aimed the hose at it, and the climbing stopped too.

Bunnies are weird, unless anything they're doing has potential to damage themselves or something/someone else, I wouldn't be too concerned about weird little habits. Every species has them

Sigma Force

He sounds pretty normal and a bit of a character, also he sounds very chilled out which is so refreshing to see. Some rabbits are fussy about food, some buns like certain veg to others or some over do it on the dry food it all depends on their individual taste.
As long as he eats plenty of fiber esp. hay and some veggies daily and some dry mix he'll have a balanaced diet.

Have you tried him with herbs, oregano, apple mint, rosemary, thyme are some that bunnies love and are safe to feed. One of my previous rabbits loved applemint whereas the other one wouldn't touch it.

We fed Burgess at the time which is pelleted so there was no picking out their favourite bits they seemed to like it a lot they'd eat about a small handful each a day.

Some buns will protect their patch against dogs or cats although obviously there needs to be a secure barrier between them, he's a little dote.

Toilet wise rabbits prefer to go in one spot which is great for house training, although they can't always help pooping whereever they go it's cut down a lot after neutering/spaying but they will still poop away but that's good for the garden.

Have you thought about introducing him to a friendly spayed female for extra company, it sounds like he gets lots of attention anyway which is great but sometimes buns like to snuggle up with each other at night.

Good on you for neutering him as well.

sparkthatbled

dee o gee wrote: »

Just a word of advise, my run was made out of the same chicken wire as yours, and some sort of animal, I think it was a mink or ferret or something similar bit through it and killed him. I was devastated because he used to be kept in the shed but I moved him to the garden for the summer.:(

Well, i was told that, given enough time, a rabbit will make a hole in chicken wire too so i inspect it once in a while, paying attention to the corners and generally along his level of reach. He's certainly not a dumb bunny, though. When i'm leaving him in his run for the day, I put the top off a plastic garden table over one end of it in case it rains, but also because he doesn't really like when the sun is hot, i guess because he's mostly black. If it rains he will run straight under it. For some reason he doesnt seem too keen on the hutch part, though. It's basically a wooden box with a hole for him to run in and out of and i can't imagine he would have a problem with it being a bit dark in there but maybe its too stuffy or something. I guess i could drill a few holes into it and see how he likes that. If i can find a picture of the whole thing i'll post it and see if there are any suggestions.


As for food, i got the 15kg bag of Russell Rabbit from zooplus.ie back in february and its not much more than half gone. i picked that brand because its what they were feeding him in the pet shop and its what they gave me a small bag of when i got him.

Jinxi

Hi OP

All the behaviour you describe is normal(my buck is just as curious about other animals). I am in the same situation re moving my rabbit outside and looking for a companion. I need to train him to go in his new hutch too(just recovering forman ear infection at the mo)
Let me know how you get on!