Rabbits as Pets: What Pet Shops Don't Tell You
Rabbits are sold as easy children's pets and they are close to the opposite. They are prey animals with complex needs, they live eight to twelve years, and they need a vet with specific exotics experience — which is not every practice.
Hay is the diet
Around eighty percent of a rabbit's diet should be good quality grass hay, available at all times. Teak or eragrostis hay works and is widely available in South Africa. The rest is a handful of leafy greens daily and only a small measured portion of pellets — a tablespoon or two, not a full bowl.
This matters because rabbit teeth grow continuously and only prolonged chewing of hay wears them correctly. Pellet-heavy diets cause dental disease, which is the single most common serious rabbit problem and needs repeated anaesthetics to manage. Hay also keeps the gut moving.
Gut stasis is an emergency
A rabbit that stops eating or stops producing droppings is in a genuine emergency, measured in hours, not days. Gut stasis kills. Any rabbit that has not eaten in twelve hours needs a vet the same day. Learn this before you need it.
Space and company
The small hutches sold in South African pet shops are far too small. A rabbit should be able to take several hops in a line, stand fully upright on its back legs without touching the roof, and stretch out flat. Most owners are far better off converting a garden shed, a secure run, or giving free run of a rabbit-proofed room.
Rabbits are highly social and should be kept in bonded pairs — usually a sterilised male and female. A single rabbit is a lonely rabbit. Bonding takes patience and should be done with both already sterilised.
Sterilisation matters
Unspayed females have a very high rate of uterine cancer by middle age. Spaying prevents it and also reduces aggression and territorial behaviour. Neutering males reduces spraying and fighting.
South African specifics
Heat is the danger, not cold. Rabbits handle cold far better than heat, and temperatures over about 28°C are dangerous. Provide deep shade, frozen water bottles wrapped in a towel, ceramic tiles to lie on, and good ventilation. Flystrike, where flies lay eggs on a soiled rear end, is a horrifying and common summer killer — check your rabbit's rear end daily in summer.
Protect against predators. Dogs, cats, mongooses, birds of prey and snakes all take rabbits, and a rabbit can die of shock from a fright alone.
Keep their memory close
A paw print keychain, pressed by hand with your pet’s name and made to hold a lock of their fur behind the paw. Made to order in South Africa, posted with tracking. R299.
See the keychain →