Choosing Your Rabbit

When surrounded with eight cute, fluffy rabbits it suddenly becomes much more difficult to pick which one would suit your life. Their cuteness can be overwhelming, and we know how hard it can be to choose just one to be your forever pet. So here is a guide to helping you pick who out of the litter should be yours.

Colour is generally how people choose. But if you want your rabbit’s personality to suit your home, then the first step would be to ask us. Tell us what circumstances our rabbits will be going into, and we’ll pick the best rabbits for you. Our rabbits are handfed, which means we handle them at the very minimum two times a day for every day of their life so far. During this time we learn what each rabbit likes, wha

t they dislike, who they are and who they would best be suited for. Our little rabbits grow their personalities before our eyes, and all it takes is a few questions for us to match you to a rabbit.

There are the food-oriented rabbits, great for training as they’ll do anything for a treat. There’s the cuddly buns, those that hop up into our laps at feed time but sit there even when they’ve finished eating. These guys always wait patiently for cuddles and comfort. Then there’s the independent explorers, who prefer to run off and jump up on everything trying to find their next adventure.

Some of our rabbits are better suited to homes with children, these guys generally don’t mind being picked up and held in weird ways, and don’t kick or run off when handled. Some rabbits would fit in well with other animals and come up to the dog willingly. They don’t mind her sticking her big nose in their fluffy for a whiff or licking half their body with her huge tongue (she tries to get the milk from the syringe occasionally). Some rabbits would fit better in a quiet household, or a household without kids or other pets.

Not all rabbitries operate like ours, spending so much time with their rabbits in such a hands-on way. Some rabbitries wouldn’t know their rabbits as well as us, or if they did, would push for sales by selling a rabbit ill-suited to your needs. To pick a rabbit from somewhere else, without any knowledge of it’s background or personality, there is a lot of guess work needed. But there are also some ways to help choose your perfect rabbit.

Things to look for when choosing a rabbit:

-- Friendly bunnies that approach you or come to sit in your lap.

-- Bunnies that don’t flinch or bolt off at the sound of loud noises or sudden movements.

-- Bunnies that move well, hopping around and binkying with ease and joy.

-- No obvious medical concerns (ear mites, eye infections, respiratory problems, snotty noses).

-- Rabbits that don’t kick or scratch when being picked up or turned over (though most buns don’t like being turned over, even when we do it every day of their lives).

-- When turned over, check their bottoms for signs of poo. The odd round, solid poo is fine, but diarrhoea is a big warning signal of huge health issues.

-- Healthy, happy parents. Check the parents living conditions, free run space, and their nails. Babies nails are usually too tiny to cut, but you can tell if the parents have been treated well if their toes and neatly trimmed. Keep in mind though, previous owners of the parents may have let the nails get out of hand, in fact some of our does had horrid nails before coming to us, and we are still battling to trim them shorter and shorter to a respectable length.

Don't forget to ask things that you think might matter, like what the rabbits have been fed, where they'd been housed, what sort of people have handled them (adults, children, men or women), whether they've been wormed or vaccinated, around other rabbits or animals, etc.

And good luck picking your new rabbit!!