7 things you need before bringing your pet bunny home

You’ve decided to bring a pet bunny into your family, but are you fully prepared?

Do you know exactly what you need to properly look after your rabbit?

Don’t worry; I’ve got your back.

Looking after your pet bunny: a couple of lessons from Experience.

Last year, we brought a pet rabbit into our home and the truth of it was, we weren’t as prepared as we thought we were.

I mean, it’s not like we were clueless or anything.

My wife and I both owned rabbits in the past, so we knew how to look after them.

We bought a lot of stuff ahead of time and thought we were prepared.

But we found out two things pretty much the day after we got the little guy.

We:

1. Didn’t buy the right kind of Rabbit food.
2. Forgot to get a Rabbit carry case.

Buying the rabbit right food.

When buying your rabbit food, it’s important to take into account the breed of your pet bunny.

Certain breeds of rabbit can require different foods, which we found out when we got our Netherlands Dwarf breed bunny (Ronnie).

Also, after handing him over, his previous owner dutifully informed us that he prefers a certain flavour of Netherlands Dwarf Rabbit Food.

We have to get him Burgess Excel’s Junior and Dwarf Rabbit Nuggets, with mint.

We buy our Rabbit food from Amazon mostly because we find the price and the delivery price competitive AND for some brands they offer a monthly subscription option (minimum 2 months) which works out a lot cheaper in the long run.

Get everything you to look after your Bunny upfront.

When we brought Ronnie the Rabbit we didn’t have absolutely everything we needed and it ended up coming back to bite us (more than once).

Of course, we got a cage, food, bedding and most other things but we forgot one vital thing: a carry cage.

This resulted in Ronnie taking his first trip to the Vets in a hay-filled cardboard box.

He seemed happy enough, but it was hardly ideal.

A carry cage seems like an obvious buy, right? Well, it totally slipped our minds.

It’s precisely this scenario that prompted me to write this post – I wish I had this list before I brought Ronnie home.

Hopefully, it will help some of you out.

7 things you need for looking after your pet bunny

1) A Rabbit Cage

Depending on where you’re planning on keeping your pet bunny, you may need up to 2 cages – one for inside and one for outside.

Ronnie is strictly an indoor rabbit, so we just have the one.

Also, you might want to consider a different style of cage depending on the size of your rabbit or the number of rabbits you have.

This is the exact cage we have (though the price is much better on Amazon).

When we bought Ronnie, we also considered buying his sister too.

We didn’t in the end because Ronnie’s sister was much closer to his brother in the litter and we didn’t want to split them up, but we briefly considered this totally awesome multi-story cage.

If you are considering keeping your rabbit outdoors, you might want to consider a cage a little like this:

2) A Carry Cage

Don’t make the mistake we did!

Get your carry cage before it’s too late.

Why?

What if your new pet bunny has an accident or looks poorly and requires emergency Vet care?

How will you transport your pet rabbit?

We use one of these carry cages:

We just put hay in there and Ronnie goes in there of his own accord most of the time.

3) Hay

Hay is an essential part of a Rabbit’s diet.

According to the House Rabbit Society and our local vet, Hay should make up 80% of your rabbits diet.

Much like his Rabbit pellets, Ronnie is also fussy with his hay.

He prefers this Burgess Dandelion and Marigold flavoured hay.

Trouble was, our local pet store didn’t carry it in stock and we had to order in advance.

That was until we found it on Amazon for much cheaper.

4) Rabbit Food

I think one of the first things we got in preparation for our new pet bunny was Rabbit food.

We were a little more fortunate with Ronnie’s taste in Rabbit pellets.

Yes, he’s a Netherland’s Dwarf and requires the Junior and Dwarf food AND he prefers the mint flavour, but at least we didn’t have to order them especially.

Later we did find his food was much cheaper on Amazon.

5) Bedding

We use Woodchips for lining Ronnie’s cage with.

It absorbs wee and makes it easier to scoop out when we clean the little guy out.

Thankfully, Ronnie isn’t as fussy about his bedding as he is with his hay and his food so we get this standard stuff from Amazon.

6) Food Bowl

This one nearly caught us out too.

We thought of this very late in the process of bringing Ronnie home.

Because we need somewhere to put his special Small Rabbit and Dwarf Mint flavoured food, right?

We ended up getting two bowls.

Why two?

Because we knew from experience that Rabbit’s love greens and we planned on giving him regular portions (as long as he was a good boy and ate all his hay).

Plus, to begin with, he couldn’t understand how to use his water bottle so we had to use one of the bowls for his water.

Something like this will do just fine (and it’s incredibly cute):

7) Water Bottle

Whilst it took Ronnie a while to learn how to drink from his water bottle, he wouldn’t be without it now.

It’s just more practical than a bowl; it holds more liquid and it’s easy for your pet bunny to use.

Sometimes you get a bottle with the cage you purchase, but if you don’t, something like this will work great:

Bonus

8) Rabbit Toys

Rabbit toys aren’t essential, but you want your pet bunny to have fun, right?

Of course you do. You’re not a monster.

A couple of toys Ronnie loves the best are his chewy wood balls and his tunnel.

We place his chewy wooden balls in his cage for him to throw around and chew all day while we’re at work.

At night time, he likes to dart around our living room, running in and out of his tunnel.

Sometimes he’ll simply sit in there, taking solace in a little alone time.

We’ve got this tunnel:

Get in touch

I hope that pretty much covers everything you need for looking after your pet bunny, but if not feel free to get in touch!

You can get the Bunny Lowdown on Twitter and  Facebook.