A few behaviour questions

[Tahlrana]

First question! What is the small soft noises rabbits make? I figured it was a noise for attention because when my rabbit runs around the house she often comes up to people and makes this soft "Mhm!" noise. I asked tutors at the animal college and they have no idea.

Second question! My rabbit has started to wag her tail and run away from me. What does this mean and why would she run away? I'm stuck between it's her playing or she's mad with me. She was fine the other day but she has been really off lately.

This one makes me think she is mad with me because today I lowered my hand to her and she leapt for it and bit my finger. She usually bows her head to be stroked as she enjoys being stroked on the head, but like I said before, she's been very odd lately.

I do have to mention it was suspected she just went through a fake pregnancy but she seems to be alot better the past few days but she's still mad with me.

 

[ZRabbits]

Tahlrana wrote:

First question! What is the small soft noises rabbits make? I figured it was a noise for attention because when my rabbit runs around the house she often comes up to people and makes this soft "Mhm!" noise. I asked tutors at the animal college and they have no idea.

Second question! My rabbit has started to wag her tail and run away from me. What does this mean and why would she run away? I'm stuck between it's her playing or she's mad with me. She was fine the other day but she has been really off lately.

This one makes me think she is mad with me because today I lowered my hand to her and she leapt for it and bit my finger. She usually bows her head to be stroked as she enjoys being stroked on the head, but like I said before, she's been very odd lately.

I do have to mention it was suspected she just went through a fake pregnancy but she seems to be alot better the past few days but she's still mad with me.

The Mhm sound is like a humming. Happy bunnies make that. Especially when they are in the mood for love.

Wagging tail is a sign a doe is ready to breed. And the leap and the bite was basically a hormonal urge.

Also false pregnancies happen too

All this is created by hormones from an intact female.

And all could be alleviated by spaying your female. Don't worry about losing the Mhm sound, once hormones are gone, purring for pleasure of being in your company can occur.

Hope this helps a bit.

K

 

[ZRabbits]

Sorry double post for some reason.

K

 

[Tahlrana]

Ah, that clears a lot of stuff up. I was worried I'd done something to seriously upset her.

 

[MiniLopHop]

I have had two spayed females do the tail waggle. One would waggle her tail when I was "chasing" her. She would stop, look over her shoulder and waggle her tail, then hop away once she knew I was following.

The other waggles her tail right before she charges, normally grunting the whole time. This usually happens when the cats are getting too close and she's irritated.

Both of these girls were spayed late in life, so I'm guessing what started off as hormonal ended up as a learned behavior. I would highly recommend getting her spayed if possible, mostly to reduce her cancer risk, but also will help prevent false pregnancy and aggression.

 

[Tahlrana]

We were definitely thinking about it but it's just the cost stopping us atm, but it seems like the best thing as we don't want her to learn any bad habits. She does it when she's being followed. We can usually herd her into her cage no problem but she's being a right devil lately.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Neutering cures the hormonal driven adverse behaviors. Check with the shelters and rescue groups. I have heard of it being done for as low as $50 and also more than $400.

 

[Tahlrana]

I live in the UK and our vet told us to think about it. He's charging us £60 to do it