Nipping Bunny

[sweetiebloo]

hi, i was doing some research as i jus rescued a bunny.. it was her third night tonight & she has been extra sweet. (closing her eyes after a good face petting, & a scratch behind the ears) she has been jumping on my bed, and tonight more than the last two. but also, she lightly nipped me & it scared me so i yelled "BUNNY!" as i always do when she does something bad aha but when you said that, he chews on your clothes? if it's while you're holding him it could also be a nervous behavior driven by fear.
jus something i read coming upon this post.

 

[Sophie's Humble Servant]

Rabbit mothers will push their babies heads down (not too hard) and hold for a few seconds if the baby is exhibiting unwanted behaviour. This advice was given to me by another RO member and I've used it on Sophie. It did seem to make a difference in the amount of times she was "biting" me. I found that a couple of the times she bit, I was too shocked to "EEK" but I pushed her head down and she appeared to realise she'd done something unfavourable. So you could also try that and see if it works for you

 

[Imbrium]

First 30 seconds or so, I'm introducing the naughties.
At 30 seconds in, I start showing ways to pick up Nala.
2:18 - I've moved on to picking up Gaz and Nala makes a break for it!
3:05 - I go back to Nala for nail trims; you'll see me picking her up without supporting her hind legs at all. Not recommended for obvious reasons with many bunnies, but a few rare exceptions (like Nala) really don't mind. I wasn't thinking and just picked her up out of habit
3:40 - flipping Nala over
4:00 - Nala's nail trim; I also discuss how to deal with fur getting in the way and what to do with dark nails that you can't see the quick through.
At some point, I switch to Gazzle's nails (I forgot to note)
11 minutes in - how to deal with overgrown nails
12:55 - rabbit "discipline" (the trick of pressing their head down... Gazzles is ridiculously uncooperative about this when she knows damn well she hasn't been naughty)
16:10 - Gazzles bites me, gets disciplined for real and is much more accepting of it

I know it's a lot to watch - it's like 3-4 "how to" videos rolled into one, plus I tend to ramble and the rabbits like to create diversions from time to time ><

Hopefully it's at least a little helpful despite the overall lack of struggling. You do see them struggle a little bit during nail trims, and the only reason they don't struggle a LOT more is because I'm firm with them and confident in what I'm doing - when they start to get feisty, I put a stop to it immediately.

Despite a reputation for being "frail," you can hold a bunny quite firmly without hurting them at all as long as you've got them properly supported - the odds of them hurting themselves from not being controlled are actually much higher than the odds of you hurting them with a firm but supportive hold. You can minimize their movements without being forceful. In the video, you'll see that I definitely don't handle my bunnies like they're fragile! I would never, ever do anything that might hurt them, but a certain amount of firmness is just plain necessary to convince them to behave - if you're terrified of hurting them, the little naughties will absolutely take advantage!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1qGcjM7syk[/ame]

On a side note, I still have a damn bruise from that Gazzle bite >.>