A few days ago I got my first rabbit. This is Rune, he's 3/4 Flemish Giant, 1/4 Satin, 8 weeks old, and 2.7 lbs.
Honestly, it was a crazy decision to bring a rabbit into my house, I won't lie. I have 11 cats -- all indoors, spayed/neutered, see the vet regularly, etc, the youngest ones are about six years old. But after weeks of debating... I just really wanted to try. Outside of volunteering with a wildlife rescue (which is not the same thing as a house rabbit at all), I don't have personal experience with rabbits, but I want to learn, and I feel pretty confident I can provide for a rabbit both financially and space-wise, even if the worst would happen and I have to keep him 100% segregated from the cats. I was able to build a nice big rabbit cage in one of the spare bedrooms, with the hope that I can eventually free-roam him in that bedroom. Here's his cage! It's 4ft by 6ft and 4 ft tall.
Again, I am very new to rabbits but I've been doing a lot of research, so I really hope it goes well. He came home a few days ago, and I'm not going to lie, I was fully expecting a terrified ball of fluff that I would have to spent weeks socializing, similar to some of the ex-feral cats I have taken in/rehomed. The farm I got him from said they didn't handle the babies much (understood, I believe they are primarily a meat farm) and everything I read made rabbits sound like timid, fearful creatures. I was afraid to touch him at first because I thought he might have a heart attack and die or something.
But what a shock! Rune is completely fearless. He took to me immediately, and he's been friendly with every person he's met. In just the short time I have had him he already runs up to greet me, licks my hands, jumps into my lap, it's crazy. He flops, does binkies around the room -- none of this is anything I expected within the first week, but maybe this is normal for baby bunnies?
I wanted to introduce him to the cats, and originally I was planning on waiting several weeks to do to not stress him out. But things have been going so well, I started off by letting a cat in to sniff him in his cage. This is Shade:
I was hopeful my cats would take well to him. About half of my cats are afraid of human strangers, but they all were pretty quick to accept new cats into the house, and I've never seen them to be particularly aggressive to prey animals. All my cats get along very well (other than Kismet being drama cat when Peridot gets too close to her, but they don't actually fight). Anyway, upon meeting Shade, Rune couldn't care less, just sniffed noses then continued to hop around. So I tried some more; most of my cats have met him through the cage by this point, and they seem to be taking him in stride. I finally let him out to meet a few cats one-on-one, ready to intervene, and in the short period they have met so far, the cats have either a) completely ignored him, b) watched and sniffed him a little, then backed off, or c) been mildly afraid of him and ran away when he approached. Definitely early days, I am going to be careful and not let them unsupervised, but already surprised at how it's going. I also should mention, Rune should turn into a fairly large rabbit, likely as large (or bigger) than my cats. It's quite possible that he will end up the troublemaker in my cat-rabbit relationship, haha.
I'm really happy with Rune, but I do know rabbits undergo a personality change at 3-6 months. I'm not too worried about him becoming destructive (I have already accepted the worst case scenario of his behavior), but I hope he stays as sweet and fearless as he is now -- however, I understand things can change and it is what it is. I do have plans to get him neutered when it is time.
For anyone else with rabbits, I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences with that, and also how well your cats are with your rabbits and how much you think they can be trusted.
Honestly, it was a crazy decision to bring a rabbit into my house, I won't lie. I have 11 cats -- all indoors, spayed/neutered, see the vet regularly, etc, the youngest ones are about six years old. But after weeks of debating... I just really wanted to try. Outside of volunteering with a wildlife rescue (which is not the same thing as a house rabbit at all), I don't have personal experience with rabbits, but I want to learn, and I feel pretty confident I can provide for a rabbit both financially and space-wise, even if the worst would happen and I have to keep him 100% segregated from the cats. I was able to build a nice big rabbit cage in one of the spare bedrooms, with the hope that I can eventually free-roam him in that bedroom. Here's his cage! It's 4ft by 6ft and 4 ft tall.
Again, I am very new to rabbits but I've been doing a lot of research, so I really hope it goes well. He came home a few days ago, and I'm not going to lie, I was fully expecting a terrified ball of fluff that I would have to spent weeks socializing, similar to some of the ex-feral cats I have taken in/rehomed. The farm I got him from said they didn't handle the babies much (understood, I believe they are primarily a meat farm) and everything I read made rabbits sound like timid, fearful creatures. I was afraid to touch him at first because I thought he might have a heart attack and die or something.
But what a shock! Rune is completely fearless. He took to me immediately, and he's been friendly with every person he's met. In just the short time I have had him he already runs up to greet me, licks my hands, jumps into my lap, it's crazy. He flops, does binkies around the room -- none of this is anything I expected within the first week, but maybe this is normal for baby bunnies?
I wanted to introduce him to the cats, and originally I was planning on waiting several weeks to do to not stress him out. But things have been going so well, I started off by letting a cat in to sniff him in his cage. This is Shade:
I was hopeful my cats would take well to him. About half of my cats are afraid of human strangers, but they all were pretty quick to accept new cats into the house, and I've never seen them to be particularly aggressive to prey animals. All my cats get along very well (other than Kismet being drama cat when Peridot gets too close to her, but they don't actually fight). Anyway, upon meeting Shade, Rune couldn't care less, just sniffed noses then continued to hop around. So I tried some more; most of my cats have met him through the cage by this point, and they seem to be taking him in stride. I finally let him out to meet a few cats one-on-one, ready to intervene, and in the short period they have met so far, the cats have either a) completely ignored him, b) watched and sniffed him a little, then backed off, or c) been mildly afraid of him and ran away when he approached. Definitely early days, I am going to be careful and not let them unsupervised, but already surprised at how it's going. I also should mention, Rune should turn into a fairly large rabbit, likely as large (or bigger) than my cats. It's quite possible that he will end up the troublemaker in my cat-rabbit relationship, haha.
I'm really happy with Rune, but I do know rabbits undergo a personality change at 3-6 months. I'm not too worried about him becoming destructive (I have already accepted the worst case scenario of his behavior), but I hope he stays as sweet and fearless as he is now -- however, I understand things can change and it is what it is. I do have plans to get him neutered when it is time.
For anyone else with rabbits, I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences with that, and also how well your cats are with your rabbits and how much you think they can be trusted.