What to do and what not to when if your bunny escapes (outside your house)

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larryng

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Peanut DID NOT ESCAPE in any way .

With that said, does anyone have any advice to offer on

1) What to do

2) What NOT TO do

in the nightmarish situation of your rabbit escaping outside of your house.
 
I never had any experiences with escaped rabbits. The closest experience to a rabbit escaping was my encounter with what was 99% chance a "throw away" rabbit.

My mother used the flower beds in front of my condo as a vegetable garden. One day she saw a rabbit nibbling away at her vegetable. She told me about the rabbit.

I came out and approached the rabbit. The rabbit didn't make any attempt to escape as I approached, so I picked it( I never checked bunny's sex) up.

The rabbit was a very healthy weight and it seemed very very healthy and active. I brought the rabbit inside my house. This happened around 8 am.

My first thought was that this might have "escaped" from it's owner. I made "found rabbit" paper posters and posted them on around my condo complex.

Around four pm I realized that this rabbit was most likely (99%) a throw away. The time I "caught" the rabbit was in the height of the recession a few years back.

I called animal control and animal control came at seven pm to pick up the rabbit.
 
My 17 month old female holland lop rabbit has escaped 3 times. She lives outside in a hutch with a playpen attatched and we live in town.

The first time part of her playpen fell through and she escaped but we found her safely in our shed. The second time it was an extremely windy day and the top of her hutch blew open and she jumped out. I found her safely behind my neighbors house in a wooded area. The third time the wire on the bottom of her hutch fell through and I found her safely in the wooded area like the time before.

All the times my rabbit escaped I freaked out. What if an animal had hurt her? Or traffic? So many thoughts were going through my mind. I am blessed that nothing happened to my rabbit. Just so you know, rabbits don't run away. They will usually only go a few blocks from home or stay in the yard. My advice to you if you bunny ever escapes is to calm down and take a breath. Look around your home and decide where you think your rabbit might of went. For me I got my whole family together and we searched for my rabbit. If you have any family/friends to help you that would be great. They can help keep you calm and also find your bunn faster.

Also my rabbits are very tame and when im outside with them they will run around loose and they don't leave my yard. It just takes patience to teach your lil bun where he lives. I wouldn't be worried about taking your rabbit outside as long as you have control over them :) My rabbit didn't go far when she escaped and it could of been because she is very tame. So if your rabbit escapes she might wander farther because you don't take her out in the fresh air and sunshine.

I have fixed up my rabbits hutch/playpen because it was not good that she escaped so many times and I didn't feel comfortable. It happens and don't feel bad if it does. Mistakes happen. My bunn hasn't escaped in a while and I hope that she doesn't ever again :)

My advice is if you keep your bunn outside keep the hutch/cage very sturdy so the rabbit cannot escape. I don't have much advice for keeping bunns inside but im sure it's about the same as keeping them outside :)

I hope I don't get any rude comments aboout keeping my bunnies outdoors. Just so you know I am very aware and take precautions. I'm always checking on them because I would hate for either of them to run off :)
:apollo:
 
I know what you're talking about. I had my last rabbit, Peanut, for three and a half years.

I only took Peanut outside of my house for around six to seven times the whole time I had Peanut. I planned every outing meticulously as I was terrified of an escape.

Peanut never escaped.





I agree with poster that said mistakes and accidents do happen. That why I started this thread.

I do with Blue eyes wrote:
This may sound simplistic, but just don't let it happen.:big wink: I've had many rabbits over the years, but never had one "escape."
 
Does anyone else have experiences like iLuvMyLilBuns and mine (with throw away rabbit) where a tame escaped rabbit just allow you to approach it and pick it up with no resistance?

I wonder if this is the norm for escaped tame rabbits?
 
larryng wrote:
in the nightmarish situation of your rabbit escaping outside of your house.
This sounded like you keep your rabbit indoors and worried about it escaping to the outside. Is that the case or is yours already outside and you were referring to situations Kylie describes?

I do know that our local rabbit rescue is often called in to "rescue" a throw away rabbit. Sometimes it can literally take them hours and many people to round one up and catch it.

If yours is kept indoors, it should be virtually impossible to escape out the house unless one routinely leaves their door wide open and it becomes curious enough to venture out. An indoor rabbit isn't typically going to dart out into the unknown outdoors the way a dog might the moment a door is open. They prefer the safety of their familiar surroundings.
 
It simply cannot ever happen here. We are infested with hawks. They stalked my Mini Rexes thru the sliding glass doors so often we have to put up shades.

All Buns are indoors!
 
My original intention of starting this was to ask other members was my experience of just picking up the throw away rabbit with no resistance at all the "norm".

First, I would like to say EVERY rabbit is an individual and individual responses vary from rabbit to rabbit.

Every escape situation is DIFFERENT. Every rabbit will respond somewhat differently under a escape situation.

Escape prevention is the key.

Once a rabbit does escape there is NO BLANKET RULE that will apply to every situation.

I came this conclusion by reading the responses to this thread.

The end.
 
We used to let our rabbits run around the yard when we were out there watching them. One of the times we let them in the front yard to run. Tiger was a crazy 6month-1.5yr old at the time. When it was time to catch them to put them back in their cages, Tiger did not want to go. We tried to catch her with a BIG fishing net. She ran under my neighbors parcked car and would not come out. We ended up having to use a pole to push her out from under there and then net her. It took at least 1 hr to catch her. She was the best rabbit that I have ever known. I really miss her. (My dogs killed her early this year).
 
Well, I've had some escapes, and only 1 was my fault. LOL The first one was Spaz, but that was because the bottom on the cheap hutch I had bought from TSC fell through. I couldn't find him, after searching for a few hours. Finally I gave up...and then my Texas Heeler started barking. I went back to the top of the barn and there was the rabbit, sitting there looking at the dog. LOL

The second time was a 8 week old baby buck. This one was my fault, because I have some of my cages open from the top...and I forgot to snap the lid when I left for the night. He was just hopping around the barn, having a heck of a good time. Thankfully he came hopping right over to me and I stuck him back in.

I do have a Houdini rabbit, though. Agent Gibbs was out of his cage one morning. The cage door was still shut, and he was hopping around. He, too, came right over to me and I stuck him back in. The very next morning, no Agent Gibbs. Again his door was still latched, but this time he was nowhere in sight. I searched for about an hour, went and got the kids and we searched most of the 10 acres around the barn...no sign of him. Kitty went up to the house and let the dogs out. The Texas Heeler, once again, started barking and there was Agent Gibbs. He was apparently hiding in the loose hay shaft by a stall.

Luckily my rabbits know me, so catching them is never the issue. Finding them is where I'd be lost without the help of the dog!
 
This illustrates that sometimes a tame rabbit can snap into "prey" mode when they are being persued even by their loving owners.

The original reason for the rabbit running away in the first place was " I still want to stay and play" run.

Once the loving owner starts a full pursuit the rabbit can snap into prey mode and run as if it's life is at stake.




ldoerr wrote:
We used to let our rabbits run around the yard when we were out there watching them. One of the times we let them in the front yard to run. Tiger was a crazy 6month-1.5yr old at the time. When it was time to catch them to put them back in their cages, Tiger did not want to go. We tried to catch her with a BIG fishing net. She ran under my neighbors parcked car and would not come out. We ended up having to use a pole to push her out from under there and then net her. It took at least 1 hr to catch her. She was the best rabbit that I have ever known. I really miss her. (My dogs killed her early this year).
 
My girl Cleo got out once. We just moved into a new house and the back yard LOOKED very secure. She must have squeezed under the gate :confused2: We live in a complex of 8 other houses all with a bit of grass out the front. To my relief she was happily on a patch of grass near the back but I was terrified she would run.

I followed her around a little and she would just hop away from me. I decided to get down very low and crawl towards her (how embarassing). I managed to grab her quite easily in the end (almost cried with relief and vowed to never let her out back again)

I have heard that if you lie down on the ground completely still your bun will get very curious and come over to see what you are doing. It seems to work when we need to get Cleo out from under the bed.
 
I've only ever had one rabbit actually escape from my barn and get outside when he wasn't supposed too. The latch on his cage hadn't gotten closed/shut right, and since it was summer, the barn door was open. I think my sister went out to feed or check on the rabbits and when she came back in she said my rabbit, Magic, was not in his cage. I of course started freaking out and we started looking for him.

He didn't go far - he stayed in our yard and was just grazing and digging. Made me really glad that I always took my rabbits outside in my yard and let them just run around by themselves. They seemed to get a sense of a boundary, and they knew that the barn was where they got fed, so why go far from it?

All the other times I've had rabbits escape, the door has been shut so I just get a surprise when I open the barn door and see a huge mess and a rabbit scurrying for cover. lol.

Emily
 
I used to have a rabbit named Big Boy. One day I was feeding the rabbits and when I got to his cage I noticed that he was gone. The cage door was locked. There was no way for him to open it. I started to freak out. Then out of know were here he comes hopping down the hill twards the barn wanting food. I finally figured out that the wire was not tight to the cage. (It was the first cage we had built. Made out of chicken wire stapled to thin wood.) A few of the staples had come out and there was a fairly big opening if you pulled at the wire a little bit. He must have slipped through that.

That same rabbit eventually got moved into a traditional all wire rabbit cage with the standard wire latch. It was not long after that that he learned how to OPEN the cage door. He did that for fun. He was a nut. I had to keep a carabeiner on that cage to keep him in. I almost had to go the padlock route. I loved that rabbit and hatted him at the same time (he was not the sweetest thing ever). He was my first rabbit to win a leg at a show. If I had continued to show him and he had a pedigree he would for sure have been a regestered grand champion. I only took him to a couple of shows. When he showed he won.
 
I came home form the vet with a new bunny and there was another bunny on our front lawn--the sprinklers were on next door. I got out of the car and said, "come here Bunny" and she came right to me and let me pick her up. Our neighbor on the next block told me that a friend adopted her when I asked where their rabbit was. I never told them I had her as I knew they had thrown her away. She was a very sweet little dutch girl.
 
Does anyone else have experiences like iLuvMyLilBuns and mine (with throw away rabbit) where a tame escaped rabbit just allow you to approach it and pick it up with no resistance?

I wonder if this is the norm for escaped tame rabbits?

Depends how 'tame' is tame I think!
When my rabbit escaped she didn't allow us to catch her until we shined a light in her eyes and she froze completely.
 
It does largely depend on the individual rabbit and the situation. However I think a general rule, is simply not to chase them. Because obviously they are prey/flight animals, so chasing down a rabbit is only going to end up in a rabbit running from you. Best to approach slowly in most cases.
 

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