2 hour long drive with Bun?

[princessbookworm]

Jake and I are going to law school and moving to a bigger place! I am excited because he will have more space to free-range and will likely get his girlfriend within the next 5 months.

However, I am SUPER nervous about the car ride. He will be riding with me and he has handled 45 minute car rides well. I carry his first kit on him and set him up a travel cage with a litter box, hay, very wet fresh veggies (trying to reduce risk of dehydration), and a water bottle.

Does anyone else have experience moving with bunnies? What are some helpful hints? I am terrified!

[vanessa]

I’v done a fair amount of traveling with my bunnies. 5 hour car rides, and 11 hour days including airplane. If Jake is doing well with a 45 minute ride, 3/4 of yoru batle is over! Since none of my bunnies drink during the day, and I don’t use water botles, I dont’ give them water along the ride. I make sure they drink before and after. To be extra sure they have have hydrated – I flavor their water with V8 Veggie juice, then I know they are good to go for the day. For a 2 hour ride, I wouldn’t worry about the water bottle. It will probably leak in the bumpy car ride anyway. Veggies are a good idea. So is hay and pellets. You might find that Jake won’t eat during the ride since 2 hours is really not that long. For 3 of my bunnies, I would give them veggies/hay for comfort, but I doubt they woudl eat it as they dont’ eat during the day – sleep time. If it were a night time drive – anything between the hours of 5pm and 8am, I’d definitely include food. Since they sleep between 8am and 5pm, I’d focus on comfort rather than food intake. If it were longer than 5 hours during those sleep times, I’d encourage veggies. But 2 hours is not bad at all. Since he is used to his travel cage, I’d make sure he has sufficient traction under his feet, and padding around him. I don’t like my bunnies to be able to fall around while I’m driving. I turn corners extra carefully, accellerate and deccellerate extra carefuly, (stick shift), and I keep a rolled up towl around the perimiter of the travel cage. I can’t say I’v set up a specific litter box in a travel cage – I just go ahead and put down a puppy pee pad, then hay for the entire cage, and a blanket aroudn he edge. For my disabled bunny, I skip the hay (he hasn’t eaten it in a year), and give him plenty of soft comfy blankets and fleece. The reason I don’t provide their regular litter box os the low rise boxes are simply too large for a travel cage, and the smaller box is quite high, so I’d worry about them losing their balance and toppling over. And – I’v noticed that for short rides like that, they tend to hold ther bladders untill they get to their usual setting.
I really believe that if Jake is fine with a 45 minute ride, he will be fine with a 2 hour ride.

[princessbookworm]

Thank you so much for your reply, Vanessa! <3 I feel much better now. I hate to move him but we are onto bigger, better things

[vanessa]

🙂

[Vienna Blue in France]

Yup – 2 hours should be fine – make sure he eats before and you have something yummy for him to munch on when you arrive and all should be OK – mine don’t eat when the car is moving, but as soon as we stop, hop!, they move towards having a munch.

I’ll be doing that myself on Sat – we’ll prob be in the car 4 hours – i’m more worried about the cats being bored in their carriers, but I’ll be willing them to sing along to Abba with me – or the Catpenters – or the bunny hop song !! LOL

[Vienna Blue in France]

PS – CONGRATS on going to LAW SCHOOL !!

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