I was about five or six years old when I had my first pet rabbit. There are a lot of myths about rabbits and I thought I’d include a few below.
Myths about rabbits
- Rabbits love carrots and should eat them daily. All the rabbits I had did love carrots, but this should only be given as an occasional treat. Carrots are high in sugar.
- Rabbits should be kept outside. Excessive heat or cold could harm or kill a rabbit that is not properly housed. If you keep your rabbit as a pet, please keep them inside.
- Rabbits can be kept in basement or garage. If either is an area where you rarely frequent why in the world would you keep your rabbit there? Rabbits are social animals and should be considered part of the family. We keep our rabbits inside the house. Place them in areas where you frequent. Gracie is in my room, Oreo is in my daughter’s room. If you can’t do that, why in the world do you want a rabbit?
- Rabbits only have to be fed pellets. Wrong, the bulk of the rabbits diet should be hay, greens, and have pellets available for snacking. I’d say about 90% of the food our rabbits eat is hay. We give our bunnies a variety of greens daily.
- Rabbits can be fed Iceburg lettuce. Iceburg lettuce has zero nutritional value. Better choices would be collard greens, dandelion greens, mustard greens, kale, celery, swiss chard, radish tops, etc.,
- Rabbits have poor eyesight. Rabbits are much better at seeing things far away, not so good at seeing things directly in front of them due to their eye placement. However their ears and nose are extremely helpful in alerting them to what they’re having trouble seeing.
- Rabbits don’t make any noises. Rabbits can make a variety of noises. Our rabbits hum when they’re around us. That’s a sign of affection. Rabbits can also give a grunt/growl when they’re annoyed, and they also can scream. Gracie screamed when Oreo nicked her through the cage. In all my years of having rabbits, that was the first time I’ve ever heard a rabbit scream and I hope I never hear that sound again.
- Rabbits aren’t that affectionate. Rabbits can be extremely affectionate animals. Oreo and Gracie love to be petted and always come up to us to say hello. Sometimes they flop down beside us when they’re relaxing. Oreo, our lionhead rabbit, loves to lick. Sometimes she does this if I stop petting her it’s her way of telling me please don’t stop. Other times she licks because I think she’s ‘grooming’ me. 🙂 Gracie regularly grooms Angel, our teddy bear guinea pig. Angel grooms her too.
Resources:
- Feeding the House Rabbit
- Rabbit Diet Myths
- Feeding Your Bunny
- Your First House Rabbit
- Amazing Facts About Rabbits
- Building A Relationship With Your Rabbit
- What Do Rabbits See?
I heard – and don’t know if it’s true – that some of the BEST food for Bunnies as well as ducks – is lettuce! I grew up believing ducks ate bread and bunnies carrots – but – have since heard otherwise!
Jennifer recently posted..My First Attempt At Panelle
@Jennifer,Where did you hear that? 🙂 Lettuce is mainly water, while it’s fine to give them that (occasionally) they need food with a lot of nutrients. Too much can lead to digestive upsets. A better choice would be dark leafy greens, but that’s still not what their main food should be. I guess I’m not surprised, cartoons and even books portray rabbits feasting on lettuce and carrots. Ducks don’t have it much better, their diet shouldn’t be mainly lettuce either.
Hay should be a rabbits main source of food and should be made available to them at all times. 🙂 I purchase our rabbits hay online, 25 pounds at a time. I keep it in a storage container. It lasts a while.
It’s definitely important to become educated on any pet before making the choice to bring them into the home. Doing so, ensures that they have the best options available. If you check out the resources, at the bottom of this post, it verifies a lot of what I wrote. A few of the links you’ll see are Rabbit Diet Myths and Feeding Your Bunny. Both are informative, definitely check them out.
Aynaria recently posted..Furbaby Adventures: Lionhead rabbit; healing from laceration surgery
@Opal, DOH! So sorry! I didn’t mean ‘exclusively’ lettuce…just that lettuce was better than bread (for ducks!) and still pretty good for bunnies, too! (But of course in moderation!) After re-reading my post I realized it didn’t sound right! Sorry! LOL 🙂
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@Jennifer, Lesser of the two evils… perhaps? They’re both really not great for rabbits or ducks. I avoid it since Romaine and Boston lettuce contain lactucarium, which can cause severe diarrhea in rabbits. As a child, I would feed my bunnies lettuce and I did notice the diarrhea. I remember that I eased up on feeding them that because of the reaction. It wasn’t until years later that I found out the reasons why. Lesson learned, it’s something I avoid.
Aynaria recently posted..Furbaby Adventures:
@Jennifer,
Good to know – I will certainly keep that in mind 🙂
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