The True Cost of Owning a Pet Rabbit: A Detailed Breakdown

Hello friends, hope you are doing very well, and today I am going to tell you how much it really costs to have a pet rabbit. Last week, I did a article all about everything that you need to have before you bring a rabbit home and all the things you’re going to need to own in order to have a rabbit. To read that article click here.

So I thought that today, as a kind of part two to last week’s article, we could really break down how much it’s actually going to cost to buy a rabbit, how much your upfront cost is going to be, and then also look into how much it really costs monthly to own a rabbit. There’s definitely a stigma about rabbits that they’re a starter pet, and they’re cheaper and easier to take care of when in reality, that’s not true.

Understanding the Financial Responsibility of Owning a Rabbit

Before you bring a rabbit home, it’s really important that you fully understand the financial burden that it is to bring a living being into your life. Now, before we get started, I do want to make a couple of disclaimers here:

1. I’m going to be talking very much from my own personal experience, so how much I spend on the products that I buy. I’m going to try to generalize a little bit, but a lot of this is going to be based on what I personally am buying. But those are also things that I am recommending to you, so it probably should match up.
2. These numbers are just for one rabbit. I own one rabbit. She is 4 lbs, and she is a Holland Lop. So if you have a larger rabbit, or if you have multiple rabbits, these numbers are going to shift a little bit, but hopefully, you can just get a general idea of what it really takes to own a rabbit and how much that’s going to cost you.

Upfront Costs of Owning a Rabbit

Let’s get started with the upfront costs of owning a rabbit. These are things that you really just need to pay for one time, and typically it’s in the first 6 months of your rabbit’s life. So this is right off the bat what you need to budget when you’re bringing a rabbit home.

Cost of the Rabbit

I got my bunny from a backyard breeder. I will talk about her story another day, not an ideal way to get a rabbit, but she was about $50. The average cost of an adopted rabbit from a shelter is anywhere from like $35 to $50, but if you’re buying from a fancy breeder, that can be upward of $100. So I’m going to speak from my own experience here and say the cost of a rabbit is $50.

Setting Up Their Space

So now that you are buying the rabbit, let’s talk about setting up their space. Hopefully, their habitat you’re not really needing to replace often, so these are typically one-time expenses or expenses you will only incur once or twice in your rabbit’s life.

Essential Items for Your Rabbit

• Litter Box: The first thing that is absolutely essential to bringing home your rabbit is a litter box for them. Our favorite litter box is about $25, and I think this is pretty standard. Now, you can go over the top and buy really fancy boxes to keep your litter box in, but just the general price of a litter box is about 25 bucks.

• Exercise Pen: When you are potty training your rabbit and teaching them how to be free roam, you’re going to want to have an exercise pen. It’s also nice to have an exercise pen if your rabbit is ever sick, if you do bring a second rabbit in, and you need to bond them. An exercise pen is just really useful to have, even if your rabbit is fully free roam, and those can be more expensive. I think the one that we bought was about $40.

• Bunny-Proofing Supplies: You also are going to be buying bunny-proofing supplies because if you have a free-roam rabbit, there is not a chance that you are going to get away without bunny-proofing. Bunny-proofing supplies can look like a lot of different things. It can be baskets to put your cords in, cord protectors that cover the cords to keep them from biting them, it can be covers for your sofa, it can be little rugs to protect areas of the floor, it can be NIC grids to block certain areas off from your rabbit. So this can really vary in price, so let’s just say an average price is about $50 at least upfront for bunny-proofing supplies. If you want to know detail how to bunny proof your home click the link.

• Grooming Supplies: You need to groom your rabbit quite frequently, so you’ll need a brush and clippers that add to be about $25.

• Hide: In a rabbit’s habitat, you need to have some type of hide for them, and this is another thing that can vary wildly in price, but if you were just to look up a very simple hide on Amazon or the internet, you’re going to find one for about 20 bucks.

• Carrier: How are you going to bring your rabbit home? You need a carrier for your rabbit, not just to bring them home but anytime you do need to travel with your rabbit and anytime you take them to the vet. You absolutely need a carrier. A standard hard-cover carrier is about $40. Once again, this is something where you can really spend a lot more on it, but to get you started, it’s probably a good idea to think about spending about 40 bucks on a carrier.

• Spay/Neuter: And then the last thing in this category is you need to get your rabbit spayed and neutered. Now, a benefit to getting an older rabbit or a shelter rabbit is they are already spayed and neutered typically, but if you have a baby bunny who has not been, this is a very big expense upfront. Unfortunately, spays are just a lot more invasive for the female rabbits, and a neuter is a lot faster. That means the spay is usually more expensive. Some places keep your rabbit overnight, which costs money, and then also the city that you’re doing it in can affect the price too. Just be prepared for like $450 for a spay or neuter.

So right off the bat, not including any of their food, any of their monthly expenses, that is $700 right there that you are going to need to put out as soon as you get your rabbit or within the first 6 months of rabbit ownership.

Monthly Expenses of Owning a Rabbit

Now let’s discuss monthly expenses. These numbers are really based on what I spend personally on My bunny every single month, and again, these are the things I recommend to you guys, so if you follow our articles and you take a lot of our advice, this is probably what your breakdown of costs is going to be as well.

Monthly Costs Breakdown

• Pet Insurance: I now spend $30 a month for pet insurance on my bunny. If you want to know everything about pet insurance, please read this article here to know details. And it’s going to be a lot more useful for you to read that and get an understanding of the cost there, but just know that I am spending $30 a month on pet insurance now.

• Hay: Hay is something that can be really hard to price, but I have pretty consistently either fed My bunny Small Pet Select hay or Oxbow, and I think the price is pretty consistent on both of those. It’s about $40 a month.

• Pellets: Now, My bunny does not eat a lot of pellets, but she does eat pellets every day, and the bag that I buy of her pellets is very large, and it’s about a $30 bag, but that lasts me like 3 months, so we’ll say $10 a month on pellets.

• Vegetables: My bunny also has a salad every single morning, and that is just spring mix that I buy from the grocery store, so that’s about $5 a week, so $20 a month.

• Toys: I would also anticipate spending about $15 a month on toys. Rabbit’s teeth are always growing, so they absolutely need things to be chewing on all of the time. You can definitely make some toys last longer than others, but I would say, in your mind, be prepared to spend about 15 bucks a month on toys.

• Treats and Snacks: I do not give my bunny a ton of treats, but if I am giving her treats, it’s either foraged or dandelion root, and both of those bags cost about $15, but that lasts us about a month, so $15 a month on treats and snacks.

• Digestive Biscuits: I also give My bunny a digestive biscuit every single morning. The pack I buy comes with about 30 of them, so it’s like a month’s supply of vitamins essentially for her, and that is also $15.

• Litter: And then lastly, I always put paper bedding in My bunny’s litter box, and the paper bedding we buy is about $30 a month as well, but it’s a huge bag, so that $30 is just a one-time purchase each month, and we use that every single morning.

So that makes my monthly My bunny expenses $175 a month.

Miscellaneous Costs

Now lastly, I just want to have a little miscellaneous section in here to cover a few more expenses that you want to be prepared for, but they’re not really monthly, and they’re not really one-time, they’re just things that could happen.

Additional Expenses

• Wellness Checks: The first thing being wellness checks for your rabbit. A wellness check is where you take your rabbit to the vet, and they look at their ears, look at their teeth, look at their stomach, just make sure everything’s good. It’s like a physical for them. Our wellness checks cost about $70, and unfortunately, they are not covered by insurance, and I really try to do that once a year.

• Pet Sitters: So if you are traveling and you don’t have someone who will do it for free, you’re going to have to pay someone to look after your rabbit. It will around $30-$50 per day.

• Charging Cables: And I have to say this, any rabbit owner can back me up here because this is something you need to prepare for. Charging cables. If you own a rabbit, you are going to have to say goodbye to some cables in your life. No matter how much bunny-proofing you do, no matter how safe you are, you’re going to leave a cable on the ground, and your bunny is just like a moth to a flame. Charging cables can be expensive. Like an Apple phone charger is like $20. My bunny has eaten a laptop charger, and those are like $100. So I’m telling you, budget that in because it will happen to you.

And that is me exposing my spending habits on my bunny, and I hope that this was useful for you. Know that this is very personal to me, and I’m very privileged to be able to afford these things and treat my bunny in such a fabulous and spoiled way. There are ways to make this a little bit less expensive, and there are also ways to make this much more expensive, so you can kind of adjust it to your own lifestyle. But hopefully, these numbers can give you an idea of what you’re going to be spending on your rabbit when you get them and if you want to keep them alive.

I hope this article was helpful for you, and if you are embarking on rabbit ownership, I’m so excited for you.