Rabbits and cats

[Catmad]

We would like to purchase a rabbit to be kept mainly in an outdoor cage and run. However, we have a dominent male cat with sharp claws. We are worried the cat will try to attack the rabbit in its hutch. Has anyone ever heard of such problems?Also, in an ideal world we would like to let the rabbit run in the garden and parts of the house (under supervision). Is this likely to cause problems with transfer of scents?

 

[bunnydude]

I know that there are many members here that have succesfully bonded cats and rabbits. However, I believe that most members bonded indoor cats with indoor rabbits. Is your male cat an outdoor cat who acts predatory (does he ever bring home little "presents")? If so, teaching him not to attact a rabbit could be difficult. Since I have no experience in this subject, hopefully someone can chime in with some more useful information.

 

[heavenlyshelties]

I am far from an expert on this topic since this is my first rabbit. We did bond our male cat (with claws) with our bunny. But he is an indoor only cat as I don't believe in putting my animals out doors. When we started putting the two of them togather it wasn't pretty at all. He did bat her a few times and it was scary. I was always right there next to her when we did because well she was really small. She is now pretty big and he eventually got intimidated by her. Then after a while they started liking each other. If I had any other male cat I'd have never done it. The ony reason I did it with my male cat is because when I bred and had puppies he used to play with the puppies very niceley almost like he knew how vonerable they were. He's just one of those cats that WOULD kill a mouse and does but would lie down and let a two year old and puppies and a bunny crawl all over him and he wouldn't budge. Like I said if I'd had any other male cat I probably wouldn't have even considered it.

Hopefullly someone else with more experience doing it can give you some better advice. Good Luck.

 

[maherwoman]

As with the others, I, too, have bonded my cats with my bunnies (not like they bathe each other and lay together, but they don't attack each other), but all of my animals are strictly indoors. Not to mention, the key thing with bonding them was giving my kitties Soft Paws (http://www.softpaws.com )so they couldn't scratch the buns when they were playing together. Since you can't do that (and I wouldn't recommend it with an outdoor kitty), I'm not sure what advice to give you, other than to put a metal mesh on the outside portion of the buns' cage/hutch that has openings small enough that the kitty cannot get his paws in the cage.

Here's what we put on our bunnies' cages...the technical name for it is hardware cloth.

It's not too expensive, and you can just attach it to the cage with zip ties (cable ties). You have to fold over and sinch the edges, as when you cut it they are rather sharp, but it's WONDERFUL!! It's just the right size so the kitties cannot stick their paws in the bunnies' cages, so there's no risk of either injury to the bunny, or injury to the kitty from bunny teeth.

Here's the thread I posted about it, if you want to read more (though I think it might say the same stuff I said here...lol):
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=13483&forum_id=1

Anyway, let us know how things go!

 

[Nes]

I would suggest you keep the two seperated. My cats are country cats - born & bred to be EXCELLENT mousers (which is half the reason I wanted them ). They only get along with the rabbits because I got the rabbits first & they were bigger. A few good nips really taught them who was boss.

Nes.