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Rayndance

Rayndance

Active Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2012
Messages
28
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1
Location
Portland, Oregon, USA
Hello, my name is Ashley and I live in Portland-Metro area in Oregon. I have always loved bunnies ever since my stepmom brought her bunny to our place when she moved in when I was little. That bunny's name was Pooka but we had to give him to a better home due to the very low space we had in our home at the time.

Today I got to bring home my cute little Takoda (Koda for short) after a long week of waiting for the agency's supplies to come in for him (He's a Hannah Society pet). He's such a snugglebunny, everyone said, while he stayed at the agency for the week before I picked him up today. I hope Takoda and I bond and become great friends!

With very close supervision, I let him run around my room and he seemed to enjoy it. He even jumped up on my bed and explored! He seems to be very adventurous and curious.

This is him, curiously looking at my camera: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/302705_10151328563851779_1355283128_n.jpg

He expressed some mixed behaviors today, but I am sure that they are normal after coming home from moving around so much. Poor guy just needs to settle down and call one place home forever! <3 Do you guys have any suggestions for warming up with him and things I can do to prevent him from being so skiddish at first?

Thanks for all of your replies!
 
I think it's best to leave a new bunny alone in his cage for the first 48 hours. A new home is very stressful for a new bunny and he needs time to get used to all the new sights, sounds and smells.

Let him get secure in his cage for a couple days before letting him out or handling him.

Also, do you know his age? That will also play a factor in dealing with a new bunny.
 
Thank you for the advice! Even though I'm only a new bunny owner, from the looks of it and what I've read online about his certain behaviors, he seems to be doing very well right now to adjusting to his new home. It's really too bad I'm moving to a brand new apartment in about a week, right after he really starts adjusting. I hope I don't stress him out too much with all of these changes. My family asked me to bring him over for Thanksgiving weekend and I said no, knowing it would stress him out way too much. My boyfriend, a veterinarian assistant, will be bunny-sitting him while I'm gone.

Here's a few things I have observed ever since I brought him home:

He heard my roommate's cat outside the door (Koda and Jude (the cat) will not be interacting at all, Koda will remain in my room until I move into my own apartment in a week.) and Takoda seemed unsettled and started about this and he ran into his kennel and started thumping his hind legs. Either that means "Danger!" to a bunny or "Don't ever do that again" when they really don't like something.

He's been randomly running up to the pin and head-butting it, and tugging on the pin with his teeth and running around. I made sure the pin was big enough (he has enough space to hop 4 times in a row in a straight line each way) but is this a sign of frustration and wanting out of the pin since I already let him explore my room? (my mistake)

Thanks everyone for helping me out. :)
 
welcome to RO! your bunny is PRECIOUS!

Rayndance wrote:
He's been randomly running up to the pin and head-butting it, and tugging on the pin with his teeth and running around. I made sure the pin was big enough (he has enough space to hop 4 times in a row in a straight line each way) but is this a sign of frustration and wanting out of the pin since I already let him explore my room? (my mistake)

Thanks everyone for helping me out. :)
Click to expand...
I have my entire living room fenced in with pens, providing my bunns with about 120 square feet of running-around room (60 square feet being the min recommended amount if they don't get a few hours outside the "cage" each day, which mine don't)... and my Nala still tugs at the bars ALL the time.

back when I had shorter (and much lighter weight) playpens for them, she actually made a game out of grabbing it with her teeth and moving the edge of the pen in or out from where I put it. I'd put it back, she'd move it again. some bunnies are just OBSESSED with where they can't go no matter how much space you give them to run around in, lol.
 
Thanks so much guys for the replies and welcomes! :) This seems like a fantastic community for rabbits and I'm really happy to be a part of it already!

Just giving an update - Koda and I are bonding nicely. I feel like he was ready to come hang out with me in the living room for a couple of hours last night. I stretched out a long blanket on the floor with a water dish, hay dish with some veggies (a carrot and a few little pieces of chopped up celery) his litterbox (which he used multiple times, good boy!!) and a few of his toys.

He did quite a few binkies in the 2 hours he was running around! He had a BALL exploring and made me laugh so much. This bunny is so delightful and I feel so lucky to have him! He would come up to me on occasion to make sure I was still there, with a cute little nudge of his head on my leg or hand.

I kept every 2 eyes on him every second he was out there. He wasn't interested in chewing any power cords around (if there were any we couldn't put away) but still good to watch him because he'll eventually get comfortable enough with the environment to be naughty do so... haha!'

Sometimes he will become submissive to me when I stroke him on the head. His entire body will become flatter and he will stay completely still, even a while after I'm done petting him.

These are just some things I've noticed in the 2 days I've had him. This morning he came over to greet me by sniffing me and nudging my hand back when I reached out to him. SO CUTE!
 
He sounds like a very happy boy! What a lucky bun to have landed with you, someone who is clearly interested in giving him the best life possible! :D

Even after a bun is all settled in, something will still startle them (a noise or sound) and they'll thump their back feet. Quite loud I'm sure you heard! He'll get used to the familiar noises that won't hurt him and won't give them any attention.

He is SUPER cute by the way!!!! :hearts
 
Awesome advice guys! I went to the store the other day, not knowing I shouldn't feed him Iceberg lettuce. My mistake, good thing I didn't feed it to him. I guess it's back to the store tomorrow to get him some good stuff! :) Can anyone tell me how much should I portion the veggies every day?

Also, thank you for the nice compliments! He is a very pretty boy. More pictures (and some videos, hopefully) to come!
 
if he's new to veggies or you're not sure if he's had them before, I recommend introducing them one at a time with a few days between each new veggie so you can make sure none of them disagree with him.

I forgot the leafy green feeding amounts are on a different page than the non-leafy greens/fruit amounts. here's the main diet page - http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/diet.html#babies

the recommendation is a minimum of 2 cups chopped/packed veggies per 6 lbs body weight daily, though you'll want to work up to that amount gradually.
 
Thank you SO much, Jennifer!!! :) I appreciate you responding so accurately and quickly. This information helps! I've also seen he's pooping a lot, and I don't know the difference yet between the "healthy to eat" poop and the "fecal matter". There's a certain corner that is piled with poop already. Should I clean it or leave it? I'm such a newbie to this but I don't want to mess up and end up making him unhappy!
 
fecals are the hard, dry, odorless round balls.

cecotropes are soft/moister and look like tiny clusters of grapes. they also SMELL if they get squished. third pic down on this page has a picture - http://www.bunnymomma.com/health.htm

cecals are normally ingested directly from the anus, so you never actually see them. if you find them laying around, there are a few common causes:
~ the bunny is very young (they often get distracted and forget to eat them). I got my bunnies when Nala was 7 weeks/Gaz was 8 weeks and Gazzles used to leave a few cecals around on a regular basis. by the time she was 4-5 mos old it was down to maybe one a week. now she's nearly 6 mos old and I haven't seen one in weeks.
~ the bunny has too rich of a diet and is over-producing them (usually because of too many pellets... this is probably also a contributing factor with young bunnies, as they're supposed to be fed more pellets than adults)
~ the bunny is overweight/obese and can't reach down to ingest them

now that you've got a bunny, you'll get used to poop being a routine topic of conversation, lol - poop can tell you a lot about a rabbit and their health and any changes in size, consistency or volume are a symptom that something's a bit off. it's funny, with two rabbits, it's often possible to tell by looking at poops which came from which rabbit - they're that consistent.
 
You're probably tired of me saying "thank you" so much but I honestly really appreciate all of the time and effort you are giving to help me learn about my bunny! Now that I know I NEED to clean up that big pile of poop in the corner, cuz he's not going to eat it! ^__^ I was wondering why I never saw them, he's just being sneaky and eating them immediately... What a good boy Koda is! I'm a proud bunny mama already. :)

P.S I think it's hilarious that you can tell which poop belongs to which bunny. I laughed so hard when I read that!!!
 
I always laugh whenever someone says "yay, poop!"... but man, if those poops stop coming or slow down for some reason, nothing brings more relief than finding a big ol' pile of 'em in the litter box!

I'm happy to help - you're asking lots of great questions! there's SO much to learn about bunnies and we all had to start from scratch once upon a time (which for me was four months ago) - sharing info with each other and anyone new who wanders in makes us all better bunny-mommas and daddies.
 
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