Things You Should NEVER do To Your Rabbit

Hello friends, hope everyone is doing well. Today I’m going to be talking about the eight things you should never do to your rabbit. Please, as per usual, give us support by sharing it if you found it useful.

Number one: Grabbing your rabbit by the scruff

All right, number one: grabbing your rabbit by the scruff. Grabbing a rabbit by their scruff is somewhat of an outdated practice that was previously used by a lot of breeders and farmers who needed to grab a rabbit that was running away from them very quickly without taking into consideration the lack of bodily support. It’s literally just grabbing a rabbit like that, which is much easier than strategizing how you’re gonna grab your rabbit, right? So, picking them up and giving them support on their hindquarters, holding them in their midsection, pressing them up against you and stuff—that is strategic and it also takes effort. So, if you’re grabbing them by the scruff, that doesn’t require any effort at all. Therefore, it’s not the best practice, and it’s a little bit cruel because it is painful. The rabbit’s skin is very thin, and it just doesn’t support their delicate spine enough. With rabbits specifically, this is not natural for them. Rabbit mothers do not carry their baby bunnies by the scruff, so therefore we shouldn’t either. There are other mammals out there that do carry their offspring by the scruff; rabbits are not one of them.

Number two: Disturbing your rabbit while they are eating

Eating is an incredibly important act for a bunny. It’s the one thing that they’ve looked forward to all day. They’ve longed for it in their mind; they’ve possibly worked for it, right? They’ve begged, they’ve behaved well, they’ve done everything that they have to do to deserve their meal. And so, it’s just mean if you’re interrupting them during their mealtimes, making them do other things, egging them on, trying to cuddle with them, or take them somewhere. It’s like teasing them. It’s like, “Here’s a little bit of food, but we’re gonna go do this other thing right now,” and it’s gonna confuse them. It also has the potential to mess up their feeding schedule and their routine, and that’s something that you’ve probably worked hard to instill in them. So, don’t mess with them when they’re eating. They’re going to be grumpy; they’re going to be irritated; they’re not gonna appreciate it.

Bathing

Bathing is just a huge no-no. I’ve discussed this before another article, but there are still a lot of people out there who seem to think otherwise. Okay, and the reason being is because it is not necessary. You do not need to bathe your rabbit in the way that you need to bathe other pets. Remember that rabbits groom themselves, and they have a special cleaning agent in their saliva that keeps them smelling fresh at all times. Submerging them in water only puts them at risk of hypothermia and subjects them to stress. If you happen to notice that your rabbit is not able to clean themselves properly, or they’re dirtier than usual, or they’ve got gunk, you know something’s going on. It’s probably because there is an underlying health issue that needs to be addressed, and so in that case, they probably need medical attention. Now, of course, there are extreme cases in which you have to get your bunny wet because, maybe they’re paralyzed, maybe they’ve got splayed legs, they’ve got some serious condition that requires research. It requires education, and it’s not something that should be done blindly.

Trancing

Next, we have trancing. Okay, trancing is the act of laying your bunny flat on their back forcefully, and it puts your bunny into a trance, hence the name. It takes advantage of the rabbit’s tendency as a prey animal to play dead and stay immobile when placed in that vulnerable position. Okay, because being placed on your back is a very vulnerable position for a bunny. Now, some people mistake this act for cradling their bunny and their bunny enjoying it. Your bunny probably doesn’t enjoy it. Now, yes, there are bunnies who can become accustomed to being carried and cuddled and things like that, but that is not quite the same thing. Okay, and there are, again, just like with the bathing, extreme, extreme exceptions in which people will use trancing to either clip a bunny’s nails or give them a medical exam, especially if you have a very squirmish rabbit and that is the only way that they’re gonna stay still for a little bit. But, me personally, that would be a last resort and not something that I would recommend because there are so many ways in which you can clip your bunny’s nails in a calm fashion without having to do that. There’s a lot of techniques and methods to getting your bunny to stay still. So, I do not recommend putting your bunnies in a trance. Again, just kind of like grabbing by the scruff, it’s a little bit of an outdated practice.

Forcing your rabbit to cuddle

I never recommend this, and people overlook this all the time. It’s one of the easiest things to overlook because bunnies are so gosh darn cute. They look like stuffed animals, and our instinct as humans who like cute animals is we want to grab the bunny and cuddle with them because that’s what we would do with a baby, right? Or maybe even a puppy or a teddy bear. But bunnies are not any of those animals, and we have to respect the space. I say this a lot, but one thing you have to understand about bunnies is they need space just like us. Sometimes we overwhelm them by trying to force them to cuddle. It’s only going to push them away. And as dependent on us as they are, they are also very independent. And so, the best-case scenario here is you want your bunny to come to you because they want to come to you, and it is the most adorable thing when they do. When they seek you out, and they nudge you, and they put their head under your hand because they want pets, or they crawl on top of you and they lick your face. That is what you want. You don’t want to force your bunny to do anything otherwise.

Locked up

Okay, next we have keeping them locked up. And this is a broader statement that applies to keeping them locked up in any fashion, whether it is a cage, whether it’s a hutch, or, you know, an isolated small space somewhere. You don’t want to keep them locked up. You need to allot your bunny free roaming time. I don’t agree with caging or anything of that nature, but if you’re keeping them in a pen or maybe a, you know, small little nook somewhere in your house, that’s all fine and dandy as long as they are being allotted free roaming time during their active hours and given the chance to run around, explore, etc. Bunnies need exercise; they need to keep that gut mobilized; they need to burn calories just like the rest of us. They are no different in that department. But furthermore, they need that human interaction; they need to be around you; they need to learn to trust you, and the only way to do that is by not keeping them locked up.

Letting them live on wire-bottomed flooring

Okay, next, letting them live on wire-bottomed flooring. This one is tough, guys, because there’s a lot of rabbit housing out there that has wire-bottomed flooring. And as much as we’d like to think that we’ve moved past this, we really haven’t. And just by taking a trip to your local pet store, you’ll see that this practice is still very much in place. Unfortunately, rabbits do not have padding on the bottom of their paws, and that makes them very susceptible to developing sore hocks when they are on improper flooring. And sore hocks can be very, very painful. It’s basically blistering that can turn into an infection, and you don’t want to let it get that bad. So, always make sure that your bunny has proper flooring. Usually, that’s going to consist of, some kind of rug, carpeting, or a mat—something with a little bit of traction.

Silly or dangerous things

And finally, what you shouldn’t be doing with your bunnies is silly or dangerous things for content. I see too much of it—way too much of it. With reels, TikToks, YouTube, and everything else, bunnies are being used for crazy stunts and as props. While there is good bunny content out there that is cute and adorable, you have to draw a fine line between what is safe and what is not. Ask yourself: is this crossing a boundary that puts my bunny in danger, stresses them out, or could potentially hurt them?

It’s so easy to get caught up in the desire to go viral nowadays. “Oh, I can make my bunny go viral, my pet go viral, whatever pet you have.” It’s not worth it, guys. It’s not. As someone who has a bunny and makes content for a living, you just never want to subject your bunny to something that could potentially hurt them. I see too much of it—whether it’s throwing your bunny in a pool, putting a bunch of crazy costumes on them, or introducing them to predators because it might be cute in the video. It’s not worth losing your bunny’s life over it. So think long and hard before you do that.

And with that said, you guys, thank you for reading this article, and let me know in the comments below if I missed anything. What else should you not do with your bunny? Okay, there’s a very, very long list, but these are some of the main ones I could think of.