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Mystic

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Hello!
I figured I would introduce my self seeing how I just joined this forum and have some questions. My name is Cortney, my husband and I live with my best friend while we try and build up enough credit to buy our own house. My friend and I both love animals, and have quite a few. the other day my friend asked me to stop by a pet store to help cheer her up, (looking back I should have known better lol) Well a long story short my friend and I saw some baby bunnies and fell in love. so here I am now trying to learn all I can to give these little buns the best life I can.
I was looking at rabbit breeds trying to figure out what type of buns we could have gotten, and from the looks of it I think I have a blue jersey wooly, here are some pictures of our bunnies. I cant seem to figure out what type of bun my friend has, but I know his coloring is a brindle and his fur is crimped along with his whiskers, its not extremely crimped like astrex but its still there.

My bun, I believe I am naming her Ashlyn (assuming it is a female, we cant seem to tell Y_Y )
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My friends bun his name is Vash, (the pet store said it was a male, but you know how reliable they are)
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Our buns cuddling. (Ashlyn looks so mad in these pics haha but she was just tired)
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This shows you how small they are.
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So anyways Could you guys possibly give me links to some good threads for me to read? like threads talking about the best diet for them, health concerns and what to watch out for, proper housing and care for them and what not. maybe some about behavior. thanks guys!
 
Hi & welcome, Cortney & Ashlyn!
You & your friend have a couple of cute bunnies! I can definitely see why you couldn't pass them up, they are adorable! I still consider myself new to bunnies so will leave the advice to the more experienced of our members. I have two Jersey wooly does, Faith, my black doe is my avatar. Her sister, Hope is a broken black. She is shyer with people but she must be part cat as curiosity always gets the best of her! lol She looks for trouble & always manages to find it! lol I'm not experienced with breeding but it my understanding that bunnies can breed rather young so I would check with the experienced members here about having the two together without supervision. Be sure to use paper cat litter, I use my pet store's paper litter or Yesterday's News. I'm sure others will be along soon to welcome you & to offer their help/advice. Don't be afraid to ask any questions you have, everyone here is very nice & helpful! Hope one day I can have the experience to help other new bunny people too! Congratulations to you & your friend on your two adorable bunnies!
 
Thanks Tauntz, My friend and I use Corn cob Litter in the litter box, it works wonders on urine smells for small pets, and it is biodegradable and not much trouble if ingested (a lot like the paper litters but better with urine smells, to us anyway) My friend and I breed special fancy mice, such as satin, brindle, Siamese Mice, and Siamese and blue Rats, so we know a good amount when it comes to litters and what not. We are hoping to get our little buns Spayed and neutered as soon as possible. I need to take them in to find out what they really are, but I was wondering if I should wait until they are a little older so its easier for the vet to sex them.
 
Bunnies can get pregnant as young as 3 months, so I;d keep them apart until they are neutered.

Rabbits can't really be considered bonded until after they are neutered, anyway. They may seem to get along, but puberty strikes & they fight & hump each other -even if the same gender. Unlike most other animals, female rabbits don't go into heat; they're always able to have young.

While still growing they should have unlimited alfalfa pellets, switching over to timothy pellets when they stop growing. They should always have unlimited hay to eat. Alfalfa hay is a little better while they're young, but any clean hay is ok. You can slowly & carefully introduce 1 veggie at a time at some point.
 
Hi and welcome fellow Utahn! Both of your bunnies are cuties :) I'm not very good with breeds, but with your friends having the crimped whiskers, I would think that it would at least be part rex. Yours may even have some dwarf in it, because of it's more rounded head and grumpy face, haha. A few of my rabbits are a dwarf breed, and they always look like they are grumpy about something too :)

As for general rabbit care info, just go to the library section on the home page, and there is a ton of info in there on how to care for your new rabbits. For food, you either should have been given a bag of transition food, or hopefully the petstore sold you the same kind of food that they had been feeding the bunnies. You never want to suddenly change a rabbits food, because with some rabbits it can cause serious digestive problems. Bunnies should get a plain alfalfa pellet(with no seeds or treats added) until they are about 7 months old, then you can transition them over to a lower protein pellet if you want. It is often recommended to feed unlimited pellets until they are 7 mo., but that seemed to cause problems with my bunnies, and gave them poopy bums, so I limited pellets to an amount where they would run out of pellets about 3 hours before the next feeding time, and I feed twice a day, morning and night. If they have any poopy bum problems, you will want to decrease the amount of pellets that you feed. Then in the time in between they can munch on hay. If you ever switch rabbit pellets, you want to slowly transition onto the new pellets and off of the old pellets, over a 2-3 week period, to minimize any chance of digestive upset. Also it is sometimes recommended to feed babies alfalfa hay, but that can also cause poopy bums with some bunnies, so I fed my bunnies unlimited timothy hay, and as long as you are feeding an alfalfa pellet, that is fine. You can feed any grass hay, but you want to avoid grain hays with seed heads, as the seed heads will be adding too many carbs to their diet. You can buy the small petstore bags if you want, but it's much cheaper to buy a bale of grass hay from a farmer or feed store, and you just want to make sure it's good horse quality hay and it mold free. I buy my timothy bales at IFA, but only a few of the stores carry them.

Your bunnies should be fine being together, but by 8 weeks you are going to want to make sure of their gender so you don't end up with an unexpected pregnancy, because at that age it could be dangerous for one of them to get pregnant. If they are opposite genders, then you will need to keep them in separate cages until they are old enough to be fixed. You can keep their cages right next to each other though, so they still have each others company. The age for spay/neuter, just depends on the vet. I had mine done at the Spay Neuter Clinic in SLC. I think they just required that a female be at least 2 lbs, and I'm not sure how early they do the males. The price was very affordable too. If they are both the same gender, and continue to get along, then you shouldn't have any problems keeping them together for a while. As they get older and the hormones show up, you may or may not start to encounter any problems. Some rabbits will start to fight when they mature, and some won't, but if they do start to show signs of aggression towards each other, then you will need to split them up. Another thing you will want to be aware of is that as they get older, they can start to form a permanent bond and when you move, it could make it very hard on them to split them up.

There are a lot of cage options. A lot of people build NIC cages as they can be fairly cheap and give the rabbit lots of room. There should be something in the library section, and also if you do a search, there will be lots of threads on it. I think the cheapest price for a pack of them, is at sears online, and you just order to pick up in the store. Xpens are also another good caging option.

A few things to keep in mind or keep an eye on. Most rabbits are chewers and will pretty much chew on anything and everything. Watch out for cords, those are a favorite, and can also be a danger to you and the rabbit. If you let your bunnies run around, make sure to rabbit proof the area. Carpet fibers can also be dangerous to rabbits if ingested. The string like strands are the most dangerous and can cause an intestinal blockage. Also make sure any toys for your rabbits are rabbit safe. Basically hard plastic, or a safe material if chewed. You may also want to read up on rabbit poop and common GI problems. GI stasis seems to be the most common reason for the death of rabbits, so it's good to understand what it is and what causes it. And understanding what normal rabbit poop is supposed to look like, and what changes in the poop mean, can help you recognize early signs of a digestive problem.

So, here are a few links of things that you might find helpful.

http://language.rabbitspeak.com/
http://rabbitcondo.com/lara-and-harrels-deluxe-wide-rabbit-condo
http://www.rabbit.org/care/veggies.html
http://www.3bunnies.org/feeding.htm#greens
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.html

Warning: This one does contain pictures of rabbit poop
http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/drop/Drp_en.htm
http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Bunny_201.pdf

Not every rabbit is going to have problems. Most of them are going to be just fine, but it's always good to know what to watch out for.

Good luck with your new bun, and I hope you enjoy being a bunny owner as much as I do :)
 
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Thanks for all the info Jbun! good to see another Utahn on here ^_^ After looking at some comparisons of sexing rabbits. I think my Ashlyn might be a boy XD I might have to come up with another name for the little bun, like Ash or something. thanks for the links, as of right now I have the buns in a large ferret cage, but I also have a old ferret play pen I think I will have them in instead. I need to check to see if the IFA next to us has some fresh Timothy hay.
 

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