Please note that some posts contains affiliate links & I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links Find out More

Adopting An Easter Bunny? Make Mine Chocolate!

by | Apr 6, 2023 | Uncategorized | 17 comments

Easter bunny, anyone? Awwww…nothing sweeter than baby bunnies. Well, baby anything, right? Our “Cottontail Mountain” home already has rabbits everywhere, especially in our garden. Shadow-Pup, sadly, wants to hunt them so we must monitor him as the babies appear Easter bunnies appear.

Easter Bunnies baby rabbit

‘Tis the season of Easter bunnies…real ones need lots of love, attention and proper care, and are not stuffed toys! Image Copr. Audrey/Flickr Creative Commons

Karma-Kat loves watching “bunny TV” out the back patio windows. I think he’d love to have one come inside to *ahem* cuddle and play. NOT! Just like other animal companions, it takes more than admiration to make bunny love positive for everyone.

Easter is not the time for a spur of the moment furry gift. People purchased chicks and ducklings and baby bunnies by the score each year, some dyed in ridiculous colors, almost as gag gifts although they are living creatures with very specific care needs. A rabbit is more than an Easter bunny joke. For more about Easter safety issues for pets, read this post.

Easter Bunny, More Than A Toy

The House Rabbit Society has lots of great information about caring for a bunny. They make wonderful pets—but you have to want them for more than a couple of weeks, or until the “cute” wears off.

Did you know bunnies mark territory? Chew all kinds of stuff? (even more than dogs!). And unless you “fix” your bunny friend, aggression can become a problem. Read on!

Easter bunny

Bunnies need love and proper care–they are not an impulse! Photo from House Rabbit Society

Bunnies are intelligent, social animals who need affection and get along well with cats and well-behaved dogs. You can train them to use the litter box (emphasis on the trained)–it doesn’t happen with the wave of a wand. Rabbits eat and poop at the same time—the original multitasking pet–so standard clay cat litters won’t work and can be dangerous to bunnies. You’ll find tips on rabbit care and training at the House Rabbit Society, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping educate the public.

EASTER BUNNY MARKING

Similarly to cats and dogs, intact rabbits use bodily functions to mark territory. You’ll need to spay or neuter your bunny friend to curtail the hormones that prompt marking behavior. This also decreases destructive chewing and territorial aggression. An attack rabbit is no laughing matter! House rabbits should be “fixed” between the ages of 3-1/2 to six months, depending on sexual maturity, by an experienced rabbit veterinarian.

EASTER BUNNY: A GNAWING HABIT

Once de-sexed and litter box trained, bunnies can freely roam your home and interact with the whole family. But first, rabbit proof the house. It’s natural for rabbits to chew on just about anything: furniture, rugs, drapes, and even deadly electrical cords.

Use the same tips for preventing canine teething to safeguard rabbits and provide safe chewable alternatives and toys to keep the bunny happy and distracted. Rabbit experts recommend cut, dried branches from apple, willow or aspen, or pine firewood; cotton towels; baskets or cardboard boxes filled with hay; and compressed alfalfa cubes. Juvenile delinquent bunnies under a year of age are more mischievous, and require more safe confinement and bunny proofing than older rabbits.

PROPER EASTER BUNNY CARE

Your pet bunny requires the same good veterinary care you provide for your cats and dogs, and rabbits are prone to specific health issues you’ll need to address. For instance, bunnies are naturally clean and groom themselves constantly–but that makes them prone to fur balls like Kitty. But rabbits can’t vomit. If the excess fur can’t pass into the litter box, a blockage can kill the pet.

Therefore, you’ll need to groom your rabbit on a regular schedule, provide at least 30 hours exercise a week to keep bunny moving on both the outside and inside, and provide fresh vegetables to help keep her regular. Special bunny hairball laxatives can help during molting season.

easter bunny

If you don’t have time for a live Easter bunny, there are plenty of “stuffies” to adopt!

WHY NOT ADOPT A RESCUE EASTER BUNNY?

The days and weeks following Easter finds many adoptable bunnies in shelters. If you really want a furry friend, you could also save a life by rescuing one of these sweet babies.

This year prepare ahead of time for your new Easter bunny surprise. You know your situation best. Bunnies can be rewarding pets but they require time, training, and appropriate care. In the months following Easter, local humane societies and rabbit rescues get flooded with rabbits, former Easter gifts whose owners no longer want them. The unlucky ones get dumped outside, where they usually become victims of predators, cars, illness, and injury.

Easter is a joyous time of rebirth and hope. Enjoy the egg hunts, the Easter candy, dinners with family and friends, safe plants (BEWARE of Easter lilies!)–and if you’re ready, welcome a living creature into your home and heart. If not ready for the breathing/chewing/pooping version, celebrate the wonderful world of bunnies with a stuffed toy, or a chocolate rabbit. They won’t mind being tossed aside.

Do you share your home with a bunny? My brother’s family has a pet rabbit that gets along well with the cats and dog–it can be done! Please share your bunny-licious experiences.

[subscribe2]

YouTube Button

I love hearing from you, so please share comments and questions. Do you have an ASK AMY question you’d like answered? Do you have a new kitten and need answers? Stay up to date on all the latest just subscribe the blog, “like” me on Facebook, and sign up for Pet Peeves newsletter. Stay up to date with the latest book giveaways and appearances related to my September Day pet-centric THRILLERS WITH BITE!

Amy Shojai, CABC is a certified cat & dog behavior consultant, a consultant to the pet industry, and the award-winning author of 35+ pet-centric books and Thrillers with Bite! Oh, and she loves bling!

 

17 Comments

  1. Frank Steele

    Great blog, and great advice! Thank yo7.

    Reply
  2. Tracy Campbell

    Hi Amy,
    I could write a book about the rabbit my kids had, but that would take too long. LOL
    I wish I would have known way back when…what I was doing, otherwise I’d probably still have the humongeous bunny. Like I said, it’s a long story.
    I also wanted to thank you again for your encouraging comments over at Family and Faith Matters.
    Great to meet you!
    Have a Happy and Blessed Easter.
    Tracy

    Reply
    • Amy Shojai

      Hi Tracy, thanks for stopping in. Now you’ve got everyone curious about the “humongeous bunny” story and you’ll have to share sometime. 🙂

      Reply
      • Tracy Campbell

        Hi Amy,
        Perhaps, I will do that one day.
        And thanks for jogging my memory.
        I’m going to jot the story idea down now, before I forget.
        Thanks again,
        Tracy

        Reply
  3. Andrea Dorn

    My sisters and I had rabbits when we were kids. I don’t remember what my white rabbit’s name was but I also had a black one named “Thumper” (original, huh?). The white ones were trained to walk on a leash but I never trained Thumper for some reason. They always lived in their cages outside when we weren’t playing with them.

    As an adult I learned the hard way what an attack rabbit was! At work one day I opened the cage of a beautiful white rabbit and he came at me!! Scared the _______ out of me! Now I know that when a rabbit thumps his foot he means business.

    I sometimes think about getting a rabbit for an indoor pet but with a house full of former ferals and one rabbit-killing dog that’s pretty much out.

    Reply
    • Amy Shojai

      Andrea, when we were kids my brother’s white bunny (male) attacked him at the door once, too! My brother had scratches up and down his arms from the rear legs kicking. There’s a reason I call the kitty-play behavior with toys “bunny-kicking into submission” it looks very similar–and effective!

      Reply
  4. Patricia

    Rabbits are so sweet. I’ve never had one but always wanted one as a child. Many years ago I had an outside cat that found a nest/den of baby rabbits and brought 3 baby ones one by one to my front door as some sort of prize I guess. They were not alive but after a couple of us looking for hours, we never found where they came from. They were so cute.

    Reply
    • Amy Shojai

      When I was a child my dad ran the mower over a nest–didn’t hurt the baby bunnies, just uncovered them. We kept Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail (real original names, right! LOL!) for about a week before turning them loose after Mom learned they were probably old enough to be on their own.

      Reply
  5. Brenda

    I grew up with rabbits as a very small child, loved them, didn’t know them that well as my father had them in cages except when supervised out. I remember what a delight it was to have one allowed to play with me in the living room — one of my early Easter memories. Later my dad tried to raise show rabbits. I had thought of adding rabbits to my life again someday but I hadn’t thought of the destructiveness angle, glad you mentioned it. Currently, our dear cat wants to be an only and the most we might add is another cat someday maybe.

    Happy Easter to all!

    Reply
    • Amy Shojai

      Well, when you add another cat perhaps you could also add a bunny at the same time? The two get along great when raised together and to respect each other. *s*

      Reply
  6. Raelyn Barclay

    We do share our home with a rabbit, rapidly becoming more mine than anyone else much to the disgust of Beastie Girl, LOL. Last year a rabbit who’d probably been dumped or forgotten followed a kiddo home. Thankfully, we had an extra cage and rabbits do well on a Guinea Pig (which we also have) diet. Kids name him Bugs and, other than needing to trim his nails, he’s now healthy.

    Unfortunately, Beastie Girl frightens him. Probably due to his being out roaming the neighborhood for over a week before we took him in than the dog herself. We’ve cordoned off the kids’ game room so Bugs has a dog free area. He also gets time out in the back yard each week for exercise.

    Personality-wise, he’s more like a cat than I’d have expected. He’ll love you up one side and down the other on HIS terms. Yet he likes chasing the boys and having the boys chase him, more dog-like. The Guinea Pigs, he ignores, LOL. They want to cuddle up next to him but he doesn’t want anything to do with THAT. Rubbing him between the eyes will put him to sleep and he seems to like me holding him to do just that.

    However, That Man reacts to Bugs about the same as Karyl’s uncle 🙂

    Reply
    • Amy Shojai

      Raelyn, Bugs sounds delightful! I’m very tempted–but must be strong. I’m not sure Seren(kitty) would stand having yet another interloper at her advanced age. Magic would likely love it, though–although all the wild rabbits around drive his nose wild. Our house sits on a hill that used to be called Cottontail Mountain.

      Reply
  7. emma

    Mom had wabbits as a kid, but that was it. We know some people that have a house wabbit but I am not allowed to visit. Mom said the wabbits were great but they did a lot of damage to things in the house with their chewing.

    Reply
    • Amy Shojai

      Yes, the wabbits must chew or their teeth grow too long. “Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom…” there goes the dining room table!

      So it’s all about pet-proofing for wascally wabbits!

      Reply
  8. Karyl Cunningham

    “An attack rabbit is no laughing matter!”

    It is when your 6-foot-tall uncle climbs up onto the kitchen table on terror because he thinks the rabbit it out. 😛 (Rabbit was VERY much mom’s kiddo – jealous brat and she would chase after anyone else – no bite, just growl and nip at their ankles.)

    We used to think that rabbit and our cat hated each other… until after the rabbit died. Cat was HEARTBROKEN. That rabbit used to get in ALL the cat’s favorite spots – back of the couch, under the Christmas tree… drove the cat up the wall. Dog used to chase her back and forth around the house too (the beagle-mutt I have mentioned so many times).

    Mom refuses to get another bunny since then, for fear she’ll expect them all to have the personality Stinker did (yes, that ended up being her name LOL).

    Reply
    • Amy Shojai

      Bunnies do have personalities. I don’t know enough about them to do more than speculate on behavior, although I suspect there are some breed differences and socialization influences how well they get along with everyone.

      Reply
      • Karyl Cunningham

        Yeah, none will ever be quite like little miss Stinker B. though (The B stands for Bunny of course)

        Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Easter Candy & Pets Safety: Keep Pets Safe from ChocolateAMY SHOJAI'S Bling, Bitches & Blood - […] ← Previous Next → […]
  2. Pet Easter Dangers: Lilies, Chocolate, and Bunnies, Oh My!AMY SHOJAI'S Bling, Bitches & Blood - […] DANGER TO BUNNIESKNOW THE RABBIT FACTS […]
  3. Easter Candy & Pets Safety - […] ← Monday Mentions: Pink Flamingo Dreams & Brass Rings Easter Bunny-licious? Make Mine Chocolate! → […]

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Categories:

Recent Posts

Update on Cyprus Cats: New FIP Strain Identified

This past summer I reported on the apparent FIP outbreak among cats on the island of Cyprus. As thousands of cats quickly sickened and died from signs of feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), experts puzzled over why. While the feline-specific illness tragically kills most infected cats (if not given expensive hard-to-access treatment), pockets of “outbreaks” had previously been limited to handfuls of cats in cattery or shelter population.

But in Cyprus, things changed. Here’s the update…stranger than fiction, but true.

How To Give Pets As Gifts

Giving pets as gifts prompts discussions every time the subject comes up. Most recently, we got our “gift puppy” and “gift kitten” when they adopted us, and we’re so glad Karma-Kat and Shadow-Pup are part of our holidays. But for many folks, this year means a new puppy or new kitten for Christmas. Learn how to gift pets–and please share your experiences in the comments!

The professionals used to say that the holidays were a TERRIBLE time to get a new pet–that impulse adoptions could leave the cat or dog without a home after the cute-holiday-thrills wore off. More recently, though, the ASPCA conducted some surveys and discovered that when done properly, these adoptions can be lasting, loving adoptions. So I had to re-think my advice.

Holidays tend to be hectic times when normal routines go out the window. Whether a baby, adult, or senior rescue cat or dog, new animals need the stability of knowing what to expect. In fact, some holiday schedules may allow you to be home more during this time to help the new kitty or pooch adjust.

Holiday pets take more work, true. But just think: you’re not only giving the pet to a person—you’re giving a special human to a waiting cat or dog, a fur-kid hungry for a loving, permanent home. Happy holidays, indeed!

Mystery Canine Respiratory Disease? What We Know

Each fall and winter heralds a rise in respiratory illnesses in people–and also in dogs. Like humans, dogs can contract a number of hacking, wheezing, coughing, yucky illnesses that make them feel bad. Canine respiratory diseases get lumped together as canine infectious respiratory disease complex (CIRDC). These are a constellation of different illnesses resulting from viral, fungal, or bacterial infections.

One of the most common, kennel cough, spreads easily from dog to dog. It gets its name because dogs housed closely together in kennels, boarding facilities, shelters, and similar places provide the perfect transmission opportunity. But recently, an apparent increase in dog respiratory disease has owners, and many vets concerned.

13 Pet Holiday Dangers to Avoid: How to Keep Cats & Dogs Safe

I write about pet holiday dangers every year. This listicle (and a fun infographic at the bottom) offers more than a dozen problems. I’ve included links to more detailed information for those wanting a deeper dive on all the must-knows for pet holiday safety!

Merry Cat-Mas & Doggy Ho-Ho-Ho! Here’s How to Create a Tree for the Pets

Have you decked the halls yet with your howl-iday decor? What do the pets think? Have they joined in the spirit of ho-ho-ho and wreaked havoc? Or do they ignore the festivities?

The Christmas tree might as well be an early holiday gift to your cats and dogs. Pets can’t resist the urge to sniff, claw, water—and scale the branches to reach the highest possible perch. Don’t blame your cat or dog. It’s normal for cats to compete for the top spot (literally and figuratively) to secure their place in kitty society, and dogs may want to “mark” the convenient indoor doggy signpost.

Protect your precious memories by pet-proofing to prevent breakage (yes, this happened to me!) And give your pets something “legal” to enjoy. Here’s how to create pet safe holiday fun for cats and dogs.

Playing Around…in SISTER ACT Musical!

From time to time, I’m blessed to participate in the local community theater productions. Sometimes, that means playing cello or keyboard in the loft, and other times, onstage. This month, I’m “playing around” as Sister Mary Martin-of-Tours, a nun in SISTER ACT musical. We open Friday December 1 and run three weekends (Thursday-Sunday matinee) through December 17th.

Cat Books Sale: “When you get a cat, there should be 4 requirements by law:

I was born to love pets & spread JOY! My books bring smiles, save lives, and reduce vet bills. So I put ALL MY CAT BOOKS ON SALE…cuz maybe you’ll want to “adopt” more of my 35+ award-winning pet books or share the purr-fect love with other pet lovers.

You can get ’em for full price on Amazon, BUT…

Dog Books Sale: “One of the best I have read…”

I was born to love pets & spread JOY! My books bring smiles, save lives, and reduce vet bills. So I put ALL MY DOG BOOKS ON SALE…cuz maybe you’ll want to “adopt” more of my 35+ award-winning pet books or share the purr-fect love with other pet lovers.

You can get ’em for full price on Amazon, BUT…

Counting Thanksgiving Blessings, the Pet Writer Way in 2023

Time for my annual Count My Blessings post. The past year has meant change, change, and more change, and that’s good and also challenging. But some things never change…I’m thankful to you—yes, those who read this blog, the cat book lovers, and the dog book lovers, and folks who have “adopted” my thriller series. And those who offered awesome applause and support any of the other venues mentioned…

7 Tips How to Prepare Cats, Dogs, and People for Holiday Visits

How to Prepare Cats, Dogs, and People for Holiday Visits

Holiday celebrations include visiting family and friends. It also means keeping pets safe during the holidays. Since we consider cats and dogs part of the family, pet holiday visits require special preparations. Changes to routine can increase fear, anxiety, and stress in everyone, and especially our pets. Hitting the road also raises stress levels, so unless your pets adore car travel, prepare with advice in this article. Here are some tips for reducing the angst once you arrive, so that everyone enjoys family pet holiday visits.

Visit Amy's Website

Amy Shojai CACB is an award winning author.  You can find all her publications and book her to speak via her website. 

On Demand Writer Coaching

AmyShojai.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com http://amazon.com/.

Awards

Memberships