Rabbit Care - How to Bunny Proof Your Home

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  • hannagirl2000 Flag

    Love the videos!
    Those videos realy helped me to train my rabbit how to use a litter box and i now have been able to bunny proof my home propley and my rabbit now lives in my house and chews the things shes sposed to and not the walls!!!Thank you

Aileen Kara Hudspeth
VP of Programs for Friends of Rabbits, Friends of Rabbits
www.friendsofrabbits.org  
703-400-7220

About me:

I first got introduced to rabbits as pets when a dear friend and fellow pet devotee Kris Ratliff helped me adopt my first rabbit, Mokona.  She herself was going through vet school, and was a vet assistant at a local pet hospital in MD.  Her experiences, and my own from there on out helped me perfect the basic forms of rabbit massage shown in a video here on Monkeysee. 

With a music therapy background, I knew that therapeutic goals are accomplished in many ways, some that might not always be viewed as successful as others.  I believed that rabbit massage as therapy, and a connection between a rabbit and it's owner would not only increase happiness, but work on health related goals at the same time.  This strive to achieve has been shown over the years with hands on demonstrations with my own rabbits, and with countless others.  I believe the stronger connection between the pet (be it dog, cat or rabbit), the better the quality of life, and the closer connection between pet and owner.

I started my work with Friends of Rabbits back in 2000 and have assisted in numerous spa days, educational events, fundraisers and overall activities. 

About the group:

Friends of Rabbits is an independent rabbit rescue and welfare group based in Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia. Our goal is to rescue homeless and abandoned domestic rabbits and to promote the adoption and welfare of domestic rabbits through education and example. Domestic rabbits have been created through human intervention, and are dependent on us for survival. It is therefore our responsibility to care for them.

Friends of Rabbits believes that all rabbits are valuable as individuals, regardless of physical attributes, personality or health.

Friends of Rabbits does not condone the exploitation of rabbits for profit or medical research.

Friends of Rabbits is not licensed to rehabilitate wildlife. All wildlife rescue cases will be referred to licensed rehabilitators.

Friends of Rabbits believes all domestic rabbits should live indoors with humans.

We believe all domestic rabbits should be neutered or spayed, except in case of other overriding medical concerns, and they should receive the same level of veterinary care as other companion animals.

Friends of Rabbits believes all rabbits deserve a quality life, including toys, exercise, mental stimulation and social interaction with humans and other animals. These are as essential to ensuring a healthy life as food, water and shelter.

Although our goal is to ensure all rabbits in our care are spayed or neutered, live indoors and receive appropriate medical attention, we also support sanctuaries that shelter abandoned, abused and unadoptable rabbits that may not always be able to meet these standards. Friends of Rabbits also recognizes other legitimate rabbit rescue groups, humane societies and animal shelters. Friends of Rabbits respects the privacy of its members and does not share its membership list with any other organizations.

 

Rabbit Care - How to Bunny Proof Your Home

This video will show rabbit care and how to bunny proof your home. Similar to the requirements parents might face in child proofing their home, the same can be said for bunny proofing one's home. Toys and appropriate deviations from your furniture or belongings are suggested. These tips help to protect your rabbit from other possible dangers (such as electric shock or physical injury) that might occur if your home is not properly prepared for your pet. We explore some of the options to allow you to still operate in your home while making some modifications to make the room bunny accessible.

This series: 62,019 views

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Transcripts

Aileen Kara Hudspeth: Hi, my name is Aileen Kara Hudspeth with Friends of Rabbits. I am talking about how to care for your rabbit and today, we are going to discuss bunny proofing your home. In front of me, you will see an array of things, toys that we have talked about in the previous clip. Bunny proofing involves not only giving them options of things that you approve, but it also means preventing them from finding other things in your home that may not be bunny proof. You will find quickly that your rabbit likes to chew everything, even things you did not think they would want to. For instance, corners of your walls in your house. So what you can use is plastic guard like this to protect that corner so that does not happen. Wires in your home could easily be chewed by a rabbit if they are able to gain access to that wire sitting under your table or under your bed. Obviously, it is not a good idea for rabbits to be biting on low voltage, hazardous to their health. There are options that you can look at for taking care of protecting your wires that you have in your household. For instance, even some plastic tubing that you could use to protect those wires and encase them, can still be chewed on, but what it does is it allows you to have some extra time to prevent them from actually getting to the wires and allows you to replace it later. There are some other options of tubing you can use for cables such as this. A rabbit if they work hard enough will be able to get into it, but for the meantime you can slip your wire in and protect it and keep an eye on it to see if a rabbit has started chewing or trying to chew through the plastic tubing. Some plastic tubing you have to be careful of does allow for gaps in it and that would allow more access to those same wires you are trying to protect them from finding. Carpet is another thing that they like to dig and chew on. For instance, I am holding a porcelain square which could easily be put in a corner of a room where perhaps they like digging the carpet up from the edges, pulling it up. This porcelain tablet is obviously heavy enough for them where they cannot kick it up or pull it up and that would protect your carpet.

Obviously, toys are a distraction that is what we suggest. We do not want you to have to take everything out of your house, but if you give them fun toys like this, you will end up having fun toys that get eaten to shreds, but the rabbit enjoys it and so do you because they are not getting anything you did not want them to have. Lots of the toys will get eaten in pieces and keep providing them more toys because that shows you that they are making the right choices of what they are choosing to bite instead of biting your books which may be sitting on your book shelf. In turn, toys are your options to keep them away from things you do not want them to find and bunny proofing your home is very important and these are just some steps on how to make that happen.

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