Bunnies not an Easter treat, but a real commitment
Easter functions as the best advertisement for bunnies — or depending on your perspective, the worst.
Depicted as soft, fluffy and low-maintenance, rabbits can seem like the ideal starter pet. Behind dogs and cats, they’re the third-most adopted animal.
But people’s fuzzy expectations collide with reality, leaving many unprepared.
“The downfalls with people buying a rabbit is that they don’t know that they grow up, and they can be problematic if you don’t know how to treat them and everything that goes along with them,” said Sheila McConn, a member of the Washington County Rabbit Breeders Association.
Suaz Forsythe has seen the trends first-hand. A partner in the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Rabbit Wranglers, which rescues and assists abandoned and injured rabbits, she’s seen the patterns devolve.
Twenty years ago, she said, you’d see a spate of abandonments around October.
The pattern: Family gets a bunny for Easter, keeps it inside. Summer comes, the kids wouldn’t want to change the pens, so the rabbit gets put in a hutch outside. As kids went back to school, they didn’t have time for the rabbits anymore.
Often, they’d get released into the wild.
“I like to think that people just don’t realize that they’re different, and they can’t survive out there like the wild rabbits,” Forsythe said. “But there are people who just set them free because they think they can.”
Dumping an animal carries a fine of up to $750 and up to 90 days in jail. But that hasn’t stopped the trend from accelerating, Forsythe said. Now, animal abandonments happen all the time, increasing directly before and directly after Easter.
“We get calls about babies out and about the day after Easter, or Easter Sunday,” she said. “People, it’s almost like as if they buy them for a decoration, and then let them go because they’re an animal.”
McConn recommends people not adopt rabbits without the proper equipment. For those who proceed, she and other rabbit-rearers have advice.
Rabbits aren’t interchangeable. The male bucks tend to be more docile, with the female does being more aggressive, McConn said. The breeds can have distinct personalities. And as with dogs, people shouldn’t assume the smaller breeds will be gentler.
“They are good playmates,” she said. “They are good pets. However, they do require attention and care. They can be loving, and they can be spiteful. They’re like any other animal.”
McConn recommends checking the American Rabbit Breeders of America website (arba.net) to find a breed that suits them. (Breeds like the English Lop and Fuzzy Giant are singled out for their easygoing nature.)
Rabbits live about 10 years, making them a long-term commitment. Ashley Illar, a Washington County Rabbit Breeders Association member in Marianna, said her daughter’s first Polish rabbit lived to be 11.
Depending on the breed, they can also get larger than people bargain for — anywhere from 3.5 to 25 pounds, McConn said. New Zealand Whites, which she breeds, are from 9 to 12 pounds as an adult; some already hit that 9-pound mark by the time they’re 6 months old.
A Polish, which has an adult weight of 3.5 to 5 pounds, is a more docile breed, popular with children, McConn said.
But even with those, she said, many people adopt them and give them back to a shelter — or worse, leave the ill-equipped domestic animals in the woods — after the novelty wears off.
Acting on tips, Rabbit Wranglers will rescue abandoned rabbits from throughout southwestern Pennsylvania, including Greene, Fayette and Washington counties.
“Some of the time, you see breeder marks in their ears,” Forsythe said.
In some cases, the group will find local shelters. For rabbits in need of rehabilitation first, they will be given to one of about 60 foster carers throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.
For people interested in rabbits, Forsythe said, fostering can be a good way to gauge their interest in having a rabbit before jumping in with a pet.
Starry-eyed owners already come in knowing about a rabbit’s prominent front teeth. What they don’t know: they keep growing. That can only be counteracted by chewing to wear them down.
For indoor bunnies, Illar suggested setting up an area akin to baby playpens. Even outdoors, her rabbits have slabs of wood mounted in their pens; she pointed out the gnaw marks.
“Bunnies are destructive, so they’re going to chew, they’re going to scratch,” she said. “It’s just part of their nature. Bunnies can be a wonderful addition to the home as long as you’re prepared for it.”
Part of that preparation means being familiar with rabbit diseases and knowing what to look for, Illar said. Since veterinarians with rabbit experience are rare in the area, she said, it’s important to find one before getting one as a pet.
Rabbits can either be kept outside in a pen, or brought inside where, like a cat, they can be trained to use a litterbox, McConn said. In either case, owners need to take safety precautions.
If left outside alone, predators from coyotes to hawks could nab them, McConn said.
The pens should be hygienic, McConn said: positioned to allow droppings to fall outside the wire, and with water regularly changed out to prevent mold and slime from forming. That should be positioned so the droppings fall through the wire and outside.
They are also prone to moving things around. To guard against that, they should have a weighted bowl, McConn said. For water, they could also use a bottle on the exterior of the pen. High-protein foods like alfalfa or Timothy hay, as well as pelleted foods, are recommended. For their rabbits, McConn and Illar like to use Purina Blue Bag, a show feed.
While not all conventional wisdom about bunnies is true, one part is: Bunnies beget more bunnies.
From a gestational period of around 36 days, one litter can have up to 12 babies.
If rabbits of opposite sexes are kept together in the house, McConn said, spaying and neutering would be an option. She hasn’t — but she always keeps them separated.
“We don’t let our buck stay with our does and vice versa, because a doe is very, very territorial, and she likes her own space, so we don’t put them together,” she said.
Rescue organizations, humane societies and animal rights groups have put pressure on pet sellers to halt rabbit sales, with some success. Petco announced last fall it would no longer be selling pet rabbits at its stores.
Forsythe recommends going through a shelter or a rescue organization to get a pet. That way, if the owner decides they can’t do it anymore, their fallback plan can be returning the bunny to the place they got it.
“They can talk you through to make sure you’re ready for this,” she said.
Rabbit Wranglers are also looking for foster families in southwestern Pennsylvania to take care of rabbits, Forsythe said. Interested people can contact the group at
(412) 953-1770.