Hey all –
I’ve been browsing here for about a year now and I am looking for some advice. (Below is the longer story of how we have 2 rabbits)
I’ve got a bonded pair who are about 8 years old. We are at least their 3rd humans (that we know of). They live in an upstairs room in our house and seem pretty content with their new surroundings – they’ve been there a little over a year.
The “problem” is that when we’re home we’re mostly downstairs, and I feel like we don’t spend enough time with them. I’d love to take them downstairs with us to hang out, but whenever we try to take them out of their cage, they immediately turn around and hop back in.
At first we were nervous about the idea of them being out of their cage because we have 3 cats, but the bunnies and cats all seem to get along great. We occasionally take at least one of them and carry them to our bed to hang out and cuddle a little, but even then we get the impression they want back into their own territory.
I now wonder if perhaps it’s a matter of not being able to teach an old bunny new tricks, if at their age they’re just happy to be indoors, fed regularly, have clean litter boxes and be petted a few times a day and don’t really want or need much else.
How do I know if they want or need more, or if I’m just harassing them trying to get them to come out and hang out?
Especially given their age?
Thanks for any advice!
So the bunnies: They used to belong to neighbors who lived next door and kept them in way too small of a cage outside, in the back yard. One of the classic “Get the rabbits for the 11 year old daughter so she can show she can be responsible before we get her a dog” stories The owners before that had surrendered them to the SPCA because one of their kids was playing too rough with them. So they haven’t exactly had an easy and good life.
My husband and I bought them a larger pen, installed animal-safe heating pads in the winter and a heated water bottle, and basically fed and watered and kept their area “clean-ish” for about a year. They were otherwise neglected. When the neighbors moved, they told us that they “noticed” that we liked the rabbits and offered them to us. With 3 cats already in the house we were reluctant, but we took them in. (Rabbits and cats seem to get along just fine! Yay!)
We built them a 2-story, about 5-foot long pen from storage cubes, put in a litter box and some cardboard boxes as “bunny caves”, some things to toss around or chew on, and try to take care of them the best we can. But you can see by my question – we’d like to do more We just don’t know what that more is, or if what we’re doing is already enough. I feel like I need a “rabbit mentor”.
This was when they first moved in – Vega on the bottom, Thabbit up top. This is about half the length of the cage. The ramp has been improved, as has the towel set-up. One of our cats is in the lower right of the picture.