New to the Forum and to Bunnies!!

[Wanderlust]

So I'm in Kentucky right now visiting a friend (go back to NY tomorrow) and she breeds and shows dutch rabbits and holland lops. She's gotten me totally into bunnies and I have decided to give owning one a try! One of my favorite of her bunnies (a broken chocolate torte holland lop named Legacy) had 2 kits (her first litter) this past friday. So my friend is driving up to NY in June to visit and she will be bringing me one of the babies (who will be full grown and ready for the journey by then). This will give me plenty of time to get a cage and supplied and do my research so I'll be all ready when my baby arrives.

The one I'm getting my friend thinks is a boy, but its too soon too tell for sure! If he is a boy his name will be Parker, if he ends up being a she her name will be Avacyn. The baby is a broken torte just like his mommy, I am sooo excited!

Any and all advice about rabbits is welcome and wanted!! I want to make sure I do this right! I've had a lot of different animals in my 26 years (dogs, cats, rats, ferrets, geckos, guinea pigs) but never a bunny!

I would love cage recommendations, food brand recommendations, etc! S/he will be about 3-4 months old when I get him/her.

Also I know different areas have different costs, but what is the average cost of fixing a rabbit, I think I want to get my baby fixed.

anyway here s/he is at 5 days old!

 

[Nancy McClelland]

So tiny and cute. Good luck.

 

[Ilovemyrabbit]

Welcome to the forum! s/he is soooo cute!

For cages you can get NIC cubes and zip tie them together. Here is an example of zip tied NIC cubes:

You can just type in NIC cubes cage and you will get more pictures. And here is a really good article on building NIC cages:
http://www.therabbithouse.com/indoor/rabbit-cages-cubes.asp

For pellets I recommend Sherwood Forest pellets: http://www.naturalrabbitfood.com/sherwood-forest-natural-rabbit-food/ they are much better for rabbits than the store bought kind.

For hay I would feed your bunny Timothy hay. I get my Timothy hay at Walmart and the brand is Kaytee. The hay I buy is really green and looks nutritious. Here is a picture of my rabbit Ash eating Kaytee hay:

I advise you get the book Rabbits for dummies. You can get it here for $3.49 plus shipping: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=9664535878 its a really good book. It has all the information you need to know to own a rabbit.

 

[DUSTBUNNY-CLYDE]

hi and welcome!! i"m pretty new,but learned a lot quickly !! I bought a x-large dog crate for my boys!! I also went to a glass shop and they cut 8" plexiglass and zip tied it to the bottom sides, so litter and pee wont spray out!! I also got a large litter box and use pine pellets and then put newspaper on top and some alfalfa!! that way u can just lift out the newspaper a few times a day and throw out! I tried pine shavings and carefresh, but it was too messy. bunnies like to nibble and potty at the same time. dont put any type of litter in the bottom of the cage. he'll think that his whole cage is a litter box. I use oxbow young bunny essentials for food. you can get it from doctor fosters and smith. oxbow also carries nutritious treats too. feed him unlimited alfalfa hay till at least 6 mos. dont start any fresh fruit and veggies till he is older. My boys are 5 mos. now and i'm just starting to introduce them soon. For clean up, take 1/2 strength vinegar to clean cage litter boxes, floors, etc. I put mine in a spray bottle and use lots of paper towels too. hopefully that helps a little!!

 

[Blaze_Amita]

I shall be sending Baby Parker/Avacyn with several days/weeks worth of food to make the transition easy for her, if I can't get a full bag of feed to send her with. Baby will be on PenPals but she'd take FOREVER to go through a 50# bag so I might transition her over to something that comes in smaller bags before she goes. Once she decides where she'll be getting her hay I'll transition her to that as well (assuming I can get it in KY as well!)
I made a future bunny owner out of a buddy!!!

 

[Lorelei]

I use a 42" high ex-pen for mine, but a Holland Lop probably wouldn't need taller than 36" at most. They're very economical--you get more floor space than a cage for less money--and are easily moved and adjusted for cleaning.

Sugar eats Oxbow pellets and Kaytee hay...I've been looking around for a place where I can get hay at a discount, but it's been tough.

The cost of fixing a rabbit varies depending on where you live...when I researched neutering Sugar, I kept getting online quotes of $50-100 "at most." I ended up paying over $300. >.< In the long run it was worth it (he's mellowed IMMENSELY since I got him fixed), but it did take more time than I expected to save up for the surgery. And while fixing is recommended for both sexes, for a female it's an absolute necessity due to the risk of uterine cancer.

And yeah, absolutely second Rabbits for Dummies. I gave a copy to a friend who just got her first rabbit this weekend (cutest mini rex EVER), and she loves it.

 

[HEM]

Welcome to RO
And congrats!!

 

[rabbit hutches 2u]

Wow they are so so cute, good luck

 

[Imbrium]

great rabbit sites:
http://www.rabbit.org/index.html
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/diet.html#babies
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/spay-neuter.html
http://www.3bunnies.org/feeding.htm
http://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/Default.aspx
http://language.rabbitspeak.com/
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=75235&forum_id=48 - first aid kit info
http://www.rabbitsonline.net/f21/ - rabbit savvy vet listings
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=53690&forum_id=93 - great litter box system; I highly recommend the grid even if you don't want to build the whole thing (check 1/3 of the way down the first page)

C&C/NIC cage info:
http://breyfamily.net/bunnycage.html
http://www.guineapigcages.com/cubes.htm (shows how to do coroplast floors if you'd rather use that than plywood)
best deal on grids for the cages: http://www.sears.com/stor-floor-sta...p-00913332000P?prdNo=1&blockNo=1&blockType=G1

here's my condo:

as for hay, rabbits under 7 mos can have alfalfa and/or grass hay; after 7 mos they should only have grass hay. ANY horse-quality grass hay is perfectly acceptable for bunnies (though with cereal type hays like oat and wheat, you need to pick out the seed heads).

buying hay at the pet store is the biggest rip-off EVER. for one medium-sized bunny, a year's supply of hay from the pet store is around $300. a year's supply of hay for the same bunny if the hay is purchased by the bale from a feed store is around $12. yeah. over a 10-year lifetime (which is about average for a bunny), you'll save damn near $3000 by buying hay by the bale.

a bale can be stored for a year or more as long as it's kept clean, dry and insect free. I bought two half-bale bags from http://www.tackwholesale.com/bale-bags-c-11.html (I went with that instead of a full-bale bag because the half-bale bags are easier to move around and can be stacked to take up less space). alternatively, you can use a rubbermaid type storage bin or even unscented large plastic trash bags. if you bring bags/containers to the feed store, they'll typically split up the bale and package it for you free of charge.

while you're at the feed store, I recommend grabbing a bag or two of wood pellets (they're usually kiln-dried pine) - they come in 40 lb bags and typically cost around $5-8. if you live in an area that actually has winters, an alternative is to buy wood stove pellets from a hardware store (same size bag/same price range) as long as they don't say that they have an accelerant added to them. wood pellets are the cheapest option as far as buying litter box litter and tend to do a great job at odor control.