So Easter is nearly here, you’re out at the shops with your kids and you walk past the pet shop. And look! They have baby bunnies! They’re so cute and fluffy and adorable and your kids start pestering you “pleeeeease can we have rabbits??” And you think “yeah, why not. It’ll teach them about pet ownership and they’re a cheap starter pet for kids”.

WRONG. As someone who has had bunnies for the past 5 years, let me tell you why…

5. They are not a good “starter” pet for children

Guess what! Bunnies are prey animals! This means that in the wild, they’re constantly aware that they might be swooped down on and carried off by predators! And guess what your kids will want to do with the bunnies? Pick them up and cuddle them. Bunnies hate being picked up and held because their instincts still tell them ohshitpredator. One of mine really doesn’t like it (so we’ve trained her to run to the cage when we need to shut the lid for whatever reason… like needing to open the front door or vacuuming) and the other one is used to it but still doesn’t like it and gets huffy when he’s put down again.

Baby rabbits might be amenable to being held and cuddled when they’re still little but as they get older and develop their own unique personalities, they’re going to start to want to escape that hold any way they can. So they’ll kick, bite and scratch (and unless you’re letting them run around on flooring that’ll wear those nails down or have gotten your vet to clip them… baby bunnies have nails like needles). They’ll also freak out if your kids try to chase them and can actually die of a heart attack if they get too stressed out. Which brings me to point number 4…

4. They are not cheap

Bunnies cost a small fortune in vet bills, even for non emergency treatment. For starters, they MUST be desexed. Neutering boys is cheaper than speying girls but… guess what! Girls get mean, angry and territorial if not desexed (boys spray their pee everywhere and want to hump everything)! They’re also practically guaranteed to get uterine cancer because their bodies are designed for them to have litters over and over and over again. So you can fork out the couple hundred dollars to get little Fluffy speyed or you can deal with your kids being terrified of going near the rabbit cage because Fluffy growls, charges at them and bites every time they try to play with her.

They need regular vet checks, nail trims and yearly vaccinations for Calicivirus (we can’t get vaccinated for myxomatosis here in Australia). You need to keep an expensive bag of something called Critical Care in your freezer in case they decide to stop eating (I’ve put a link about gut stasis in the next paragraph).

And THEN there’s the emergency costs! We had a beautiful silvery grey rabbit called Wiggles who went through a lot of health issues during her life. Her coat was so plush that she was prone to getting gut stasis no matter how often we brushed her. When she was 2 she needed to have life saving surgery to push a blockage through her intestines, and that surgery made her even MORE prone to stasis because of the scar tissue creating less room inside her abdominal cavity. That surgery was $1200.

In December 2013 she needed to be hospitalized at an emergency centre for 24 hours after getting another blockage… that was another $1200 or so gone. She didn’t need surgery but costs add up dramatically at animal hospitals and it would have been another couple grand if she had stayed over 24 hours. They needed a deposit of $400 before they even admitted her to the hospital because so many people have dumped their animals there and abandoned them after hearing what the final bill is. And last Christmas Eve, we lost her to a seizure after she was in the animal hospital for 12 hours (again, for tummy problems and refusal to eat). Looking at the bill, the majority of the cost came from the last few minutes when they desperately tried to save her with CPR etc. Adding in cremation costs (because we hated the thought of them just throwing her away) made it around $2000 in total. Over the course of her life – 4 years – (and adding in the other non emergency vet visits) Wiggles cost us close to $5000.

And if you get a bunny with constant health problems, like Wiggles’ tendency to get stasis, or teeth that need to be constantly trimmed at the vet or a number of other issues, it’s like flushing money down the toilet. But you do it because you love your bunny and don’t want to see it suffer.

“Well” you say, “I’m not stupid like you. I’ll just get pet insurance!”. I hate to break it to you but…

3. You cannot get pet insurance for rabbits (in Australia)

Rabbits are considered pests here. You can’t even legally own them in Queensland (unless you’re a registered magician) and as I said above, can’t get them vaccinated for myxomatosis. No pet insurance company here will ever, ever consider offering pet insurance for rabbits. Every single one I’ve looked at has only offered it for cats and dogs.

So that means keeping a savings account just in case they suddenly get sick and need the vet. And you’d better hope and pray that you live near a bunny savvy vet if something more serious arises because…

2. Most vets are not rabbit savvy

We’re very lucky to live in Melbourne because we know of at least five places we can take our buns if they get sick (one of them is an emergency hospital so we literally have access to 24 hour bunny care if we need it). These vets have dedicated themselves to treating only rabbits and guinea pigs – I know of at least one who goes overseas to get the very latest information in bunny health care. But the vast majority of vets mostly treat cats and dogs, not “exotics” – according to a vet friend of mine, only 4 hours of their entire time at Uni is dedicated to rabbit health. FOUR HOURS. She went on to tell me that if they want to get more experienced, they need to find a vet that deals with lots of bunnies and then go volunteer their time there.

Before we knew of the bun savvy emergency vet, we were stuck taking them to Lort Smith if they got sick after hours. I’m sure the vets there are fantastic with cats and dogs but… we had one vet confidently tell us to leave Bunford overnight and check on him in the morning, when he was suffering from stasis and refusing to eat. Bunnies with stasis must be syringe fed with Critical Care (liquid diet) every 2 hours until they start eating on their own again, so she was completely wrong and if we hadn’t known any better we would have followed her advice and woken up to a terrible discovery. Another vet (at the time Wiggles needed hospitalization in 2013) told us that Wiggles had audible gut movement sounds and then gave her medicine to make her tummy move. She did not have gut sounds and got steadily more and more bloated from gas until she was making little fart noises (bunnies can’t fart, period. If you hear your bunny being gassy get them to a bunny vet NOW) and we probably would have lost her if someone hadn’t directed us to the bunny savvy emergency vet.

“Okay” you say, “well I’ll pick a bunny that doesn’t get sick all the time!”

1. Bunnies have notoriously fragile health and hide illness well

Bunnies are prey animals, remember? They hide when they’re feeling sick because predators know to pick off the sickly weak ones. If you keep them outdoors you’re far less likely to know when something is wrong because you don’t see them all the time.

Not only that but anything can cause stasis. We’ve had cases of stasis that started because they got upset about the weather/seasons changing and stopped eating long enough for stasis to develop. We’ve had them get it because they hated being brushed when they were moulting (we were trying to AVOID them getting stasis from eating too much loose hair while grooming)! Bunford once got stasis because my partner was extremely upset about something and he was so sensitive to her emotions that he got upset too.

Furthermore, how do you know that that tiny baby bunny you’re considering impulse buying at the pet shop will be happy and healthy as it grows up? Many pet shop bunnies are inbred by backyard breeders looking to make as much profit as possible, and most are taken away from their mum well before the recommended time because the smaller and cuter they are, the more likely they’ll be impulse bought. They’re far more likely to be sensitive to illness as they get older because they haven’t gotten all the nutrients they need from their mother’s milk. How do you know that bunny won’t get tooth spurs or something? You don’t.

Final thoughts

Bunnies are amazing pets. I didn’t write this because I don’t want anyone to ever own a rabbit, ever… I wrote it because I love them and want to see them go to homes where people know what their needs are, understand their little idiosyncrasies and want to give them the best life possible. (Being stuck in a tiny cage in the backyard is a life of torture for a rabbit).

If you really, truly want to have rabbits, the best thing to do is to adopt a pair from a shelter. They’re social animals and do much better living with a friend than by themselves. Shelter rabbits also come desexed, vaccinated and fully vet checked – the place we adopted Lady Beatrix from even includes a free home visit from their vet in the adoption fee!

It’s incredibly depressing to walk through shelters and know that most of the bunnies there came from people who impulse bought them as Christmas or Easter gifts and then surrendered them after a few months because the kids lost interest or the hormones kicked in and the bunny suddenly got mean and angry. They don’t deserve to suffer because of ignorance. It was horrible looking at all the bunnies up for adoption when we needed to find Bunford a new companion (they can grieve themselves to death when their partner dies) and feeling guilty because we couldn’t give them all a loving new home.

If you’re truly willing to learn everything you can about their needs, to set up a safe living environment for them (a hutch is not enough space for them to run around and play in), to be willing to take them to the vet when they get sick and cover all the vet bills and to give them love and attention… having bunnies is the most amazing, rewarding experience ever. They DO cuddle you and get very very affectionate once they get to know you, but it’s all on their terms. (Wiggles used to lay on my pillow and snuggle up against my head and purr with her teeth when I patted her). They get so excited to see you once they’ve bonded to you and they only get more and more cuddly and affectionate the more time you put in with them. I can honestly say we’re going to have bunnies for the rest of our lives now because they’ve given us so much joy.