Today is A Very Special Edition of Monday Bunny Blogging. Sunday is Easter, and Easter is a disaster for rabbits. People buy cute baby bunnies as Easter presents, thinking rabbits are easy to take care of.
RABBITS ARE NOT LOW MAINTENANCE PETS!
They are mischievous and you never know what they’ll get into next.
Rabbits require constant access to hay for optimal health. Once you bring hay inside, your home (and you) will never be clean again. Trust me on this. If you don’t mind looking down and seeing hay on your ankle when you’re at a job interview, you might be a good candidate for a rabbit.
People also object to the fact that rabbits are required to eat one type of poop they produce. They catch it right from the anus! Aren’t you glad I didn’t provide a picture of this?
So, for these and other reasons (unaltered young rabbits are holy terrors), a few weeks or months after Easter, countless rabbits get abandoned. A “lucky” few get taken to an animal shelter, where they will ultimately be euthanized due to lack of room. Many people dump their rabbit outside, claiming they’re doing the rabbit a favor by setting it “free”.
What happens to abandoned rabbits? The get killed by birds, cats, dogs, teenagers, cars, or starvation. Domestic rabbits do not do well running loose outside. Setting a domestic rabbit free means finally giving her access to the living room, not pretending you have a wild rabbit on your hands.
Enough preaching and scolding. Rabbits can obviously make wonderful pets (hence, Monday Bunny Blogging). The single hardest thing for me is that most rabbits HATE being picked up. One of the cuddliest-looking and cuddliest-acting animals can’t be picked up and hugged? You can get around this by lying on the floor next to them and hugging them there. You might even be rewarded with a loud, contented tooth-purr. So please, if you’ve carefully thought about it, by all means adopt a needy rabbit (or two!). But please don’t buy the kids a rabbit for Easter the same way you’d buy their Easter basket.
For Easter, please consider buying plush rabbits, and of course, chocolate rabbits!
