Keeping your Pet Rabbit Healthy & Happy

Want a rabbit as a pet, and want to know how to keep it happy and healthy? One of the best way to get a rabbit for a pet is on finding a conscientious breeder. Some signs of a conscientious breeder are an orderly clean environment, membership in breeder and show associations, feeding quality name-brand diets, and pride in the operation. Warning signs to look for include too many animals in small environments, soiled bunnies, bargain basement prices, mixed barn yard animals, poor general sanitation, and no older stock on premises.

The best way to locate an ethical breeder is by word-of-mouth. This animals flock should be free of fleas, ear mites, parasites, pasteurellosis and treponema. The breeder should have a cordial relationship with a local veterinarian who recommends him/her unequivocally. If you are successful in locating such a breeder, you are well on your way to obtaining a healthy pet.

1) Source: The next most important consideration is proper diet for your pet. Rabbits are, in essence, an immense, walking brewery – a fermentation chamber that relies on proper intestinal bacteria to produce the nutrients the bunny requires. The majority of problems that bring rabbits to my door involve inappropriate diet. Rabbits thrive on a coarse diet high in indigestible cellulose.

2) Diet:  Lack of proper diets is the major cause of lack of gastric and intestinal motility (stasis and ileus), overgrowth of dangerous intestinal bacteria (enterotoxaemia) soft stools, obesity liver, and urinary tract disease. Needless to say, a rabbit with any degree of these problems will be an unhappy pet. I very rarely see a bunny that has been given too course a diet. Most of my patients get into trouble from eating rabbit pellets that are too rich in carbohydrates and protein. These diets were originally developed for rapid growth in the meat and fur industry. Here, rabbits were frequently bred and length of life was unimportant. Fifty percent of the rabbit's diet needs to be coarse grass hay (timothy, oat grass, meadow grass, or mulch grass). Rabbits are hindgut fermenters. An appendage on the intestine called the cecum is very large in rabbits, guinea pigs and other grass-eating rodents and lagomorphs (rabbits). The cecum’s vol