So, hubby and I are craving a furry companion and are considering adopting a house bunny. (We want to wait until we have more property to get a dog, and hubby isn’t a fan of cats). I’ve had a dog, a cat, and horses, but never a rabbit.
Please tell me about your house bunny experiences (good and bad), and any advice you may have. 
I’ve had four housebunnies - two still with me. Large bunnies, all over 8 lbs. The up sides to buns: sweet, friendly, LITTERBOX TRAINED, they eat hay and pellets and salad, they can be amazingly cute in their bunny antics.
Down sides: some shed a lot, some chew on things you’d rather they not. Mine are pretty good about the chewing, but they have nibbled on the quarter round at floor level and some on their carpet. Don’t worry, it’s seagrass and it’s like tough hay.
Mine don’t love being held, but if I held them more they would be more agreeable. Their maintenance includes trimming nails about every 4 - 6 months. As far as vaccinations, there are none - at least, that I am aware of, and mine have all been to the vet. Speaking of vets - usually only exotic vets will treat bunnies. They can be harder to find and more pricey, but the two I buns I have now haven’t needed to see a vet since they were spayed/neutered. Oh - and females should be neutered, they have a high likelihood of ovarian cancer if they aren’t either reproductively active or spayed. At least that’s what I’ve been told! Besides, there are enough bunnies looking for a home, so you’ll want to spay her.
The smaller buns are more active than the larger ones… and let’s see… what else…they are typically quite curious and some like to jump on boxes and be high. They like to have a companion bunny - my girl was very sad when her pal dies, and since I adopted a another male, she’s been happy.
I hope you get a pair - they are very dear, and they even come running when I get home (not just for their treats!!).
House bunnies are a lot of fun ! My guy does like to be held and cuddled and scritched - they are pretty easy to feed. It’s really important to give them hay in their diet, they have a natural urge to chew on everything and this really helps. Also untreated / unsprayed apple tree limbs, or pine, are a fun bunny thing to chew on. My boy loves shredding paper. A paper bag is a most excellent bunny toy - he hides in it, sleeps in it, and eventually shreds it and makes a fun bunny mess. He also like those copy paper box lids. I put his hay, bunny pellets, and cherrios / crackers / rice chex in the box, and he loves laying in the hay and eating.
They do need fresh greens daily, such as leaf lettuce. Mine loves brocolli, peppers, corn on the cob, carrots, celery … you get the idea ! Variety is good, but not too much of any one thing.
In addition to trimming their nails, you may need to have their teeth trimmed since they grow constantly, just like a horse. A good vet that regularly takes care of bunnies can check this for you.
They do need exercise, which pretty much means allowing them to have supervised play time in the house. My bun is pretty good about waiting to go back in his cage to use the litterbox. I tried teaching him to walk on a leash with a harness but he didn’t much care for that. He doesn’t chew on woodwork but I have to watch him with the electrical cords.
My bun is an English Lop, and is really big. So his ‘house’ is a 4x4 dog Xpen with a piece of plywood on the bottom, topped with a spare piece of linoleum. He pretty much goes in his liter box (I use woodypet), but I also scrub his floor down with a 10% bleach solution and a scrub brush as needed. I give him an old towel, a few stuffed toys, a dish for water since he won’t drink out of a bottle, his literbox and his paper box lid. He is quite happy with this setup.
He gets along really well with both my dogs. The puppy really has fun trying to get him to play.
My experience has been that the larger rabbits make better “house bunnies” than the little guys, regardless of the cuteness factor.
If purchased from a reputable breeder when young & handled correctly, they can be just as cuddly as a more conventional pet. “Butch”, my “Checkered Giant” cross, was litter box trained, would jump up on the bed or sofa to watch tv with us, & LOVED to race around the house at high speed holding a paper napkin in his mouth like a flag. Funny rabbit. He had a tooth deformation (maloclusion - sp?) wherein his bottom & top teeth didn’t meet correctly, thus continued to grow. Left unchecked the upper & lower teeth can actually grow up/down into the jaws - scary. But all that took was an occasional vet visit for a tooth trimming. Vet used a pair of dog-nail clippers & we were in & out of the office in 5 minutes. One could probably do it at home, but it wasn’t something I wanted to fool with, since if you cracked a tooth, things could get ugly. I will say that Butch’s tooth problem did allow him more unsupervised time loose than most house rabbits, since it prevented him from chewing on anything other than his food.
My 2nd house rabbit managed to get out of her indoor hutch one day & clip every electrical cord in the room without killing herself, but leaving us in the dark. Now THAT was fun!
Ultimately, if I didn’t now have hounds that I’d never subject a rabbit too, I’d have another “house bunny” in a heartbeat. But you DO need to be uber-diligent re: rabbit-proofing any areas of the house your rabbit has access to. You really need to sit down, look around, & think “if I had unquenchable curiosity centered in my teeth, what’s here that I could destroy &/or injure myself with?” Take it from there. 
Luckily, “house rabbits” are quite popular these days, & if you do a websearch, you’ll find a number of books dedicated to them & the best way to have a healthy, happy relationship with them. Good luck, & please post back if you take the plunge.
If I didn’t have husband with more normal taste, I’d probably remodel my house to be bunny-proof—metal lawn chairs instead of couches, tile everywhere and up the walls, no electrical cords in sight. My rabbits were far, far too destructive to last as loose houserabbits, and the sheetrock/upholstery/woodwork/floor/cords/furniture chewing became too much. I had them in cages in the house for a while but they now live in a stall. I’m building them an attached paddock off the barn, and I think they’ll like the freedom and space.
Good luck!
I’ve got 2 house rabbits (7 and 8 lbs) who are great! Ours were adopted from our local house rabbit society and they were absolutely awesome. They encouraged us to come and meet as many of the bunnies as possible before we made a choice and they’ve been incredibly supportive and helpful along the way!
Before taking our pair home, they had us go to a “bunny tune-up class” which consisted of hands on work with our rabbits on rabbit behavior, nail trimming, scent gland cleaning, temperature taking, discipline, safely picking up/restraining and all sorts of useful house rabbit tips. I can’t stress how helpful the class was, it really gave us the tools we needed to understand how to more effectively interact with our bunnies!
http://www.rabbit.org/ This is the main website, with links to chapters they have around the country and some great advice/info.
We were told right from the beginning that if we objected to messes, rabbits were not the pet for us. 
I have met several “neat” rabbits (and perhaps ours are unusually messy) but our two seem to love destruction. Rabbit proofing was essential for them and even with that, they still love to chew things up, toss hay around and shred phonebooks/paper bags/cardboard boxes.
Our two have an extra large dog kennel with an attached “run” that they live in, though when we’re home they have the run of the house. They get along extremely well with our dog and cat, though it did take about a month of slow introductions before they were completely okay with the dog. I will frequently find our cat curled up with the two of them, or the three of them engaged in mutual grooming sessions. They are slow to warm up to any guests we have over, but once they know someone, they’re quite happy to mug them for treats/rubs/etc.
We do clicker training with ours and have trained them to walk on leashes, so when the weather is nice they get supervised outdoors time. They know their names and a few tricks, but mainly they’re just fun to watch -especially when they happy dance! They love playing with the plastic cat balls with bells inside and Leo will frequently start play sessions by hopping over and throwing a ball at you.
Ours cost about $100/year for pelleted feed, papaya tablets (to help prevent hair ball problems), free choice hay and daily fresh vegetables.
I would highly recommend contacting a chapter of the House Rabbit Society if you have one in your area. They were fantastic about helping us pick rabbits that were friendly and fit well into our household.
I’ve got a 14 year old Neatherland Dwarf bunny who has been a treasure from the first day we got him when he was 6 weeks old. When he was younger he was very active and liked to be out in our kitchen all night with our Boston Terrier. You would find them curled up together in bed in the morning! He was very well litter trained until about a year ago when he went blind. Now he has to be kept confined because he can’t find his way around very well. He did like to chew our telephone cords (where they attach to the wall) and we had to “bunny proof” them if we expected to have telephone service in the morning . He was always very cuddly and loved to be petted and held. We made sure he only got timothy based pellets in a limited amount every day along with a variety of greens every day. The rest of his diet is hay. He loves the Oat Hay mixture from “Bunny Luv”…Bunnies are fun, loving and very sweet…
Thank you all for your replies! I love hearing bunny stories!
The chewing thing does worry me a bit as the house we live in right now is older and MAY have lead paint on the door frames and baseboards (I have no clue when things were last painted or if they layered modern paint over older lead paint). Can rabbits get lead poisoning like people can?
[QUOTE=Dramapony_misty;6130465]
Thank you all for your replies! I love hearing bunny stories!
The chewing thing does worry me a bit as the house we live in right now is older and MAY have lead paint on the door frames and baseboards (I have no clue when things were last painted or if they layered modern paint over older lead paint). Can rabbits get lead poisoning like people can?[/QUOTE]
Don’t be TOO worried about the chewing…my bun only ever chewed one thing he wasn’t supposed to: a big fat textbook got nibbled on. I provided him with all the phone books he could ever want, after that, and it was never an issue.
The trick to not chewing is to give them plenty of things they CAN chew on. Toys, sticks, phone books, paper bags, etc. If they have plenty of toys to play with, they’ll have no motivation to chew on the walls. Your house will permanently look like an oddly-tasted toddler lives there, but whatever. :lol: My bunny would get ANGRY if I picked up all his toys and put them in the toy basket…would spend hours pulling them out and rearranging them around the room where he wanted them.
My bun was amazing; I’m in the process of adopting another. My guy had free reign of an office once he was litter box trained, and would scratch at the door when I came home to be let out, and then run in circles around me. Super cute! :lol:
Mine passed too soon, but he was the best ever. :sadsmile:
Mine chewed all the baseboards at the corners, but wow was he a sweet cuddly boy! Clean and great with my dogs. He got out one day and from that point on was the cul-de-sac bunny. All the neighbors fed and watched out for him.
I haven’t tried old phone books with Bob, I will have to try that ! He loves shredding paper!
As a youngster still living at home I had two (separate) buns – one male, one female.
Both were great about using their litter box…they would go from the downstairs and hop upstairs to do their business.
But the chewing was VAST – baseboard, electric wires, etc.
Of course, I didn’t offer too many alternatives, so that was my fault (I was young).
The female “Racquel” was a lovely, affectionate pet. The male, not so much.
If you can deal with the chewing, I think they would be great pets.
I had dwarf rabbits as house rabbits. One Netherland and one Hotot.
Neither chewed, but the Netherland, especially, had major dental issues so I’m sure that played a role. The Hotot was a hoot and a half. Very smart and sassy rabbit!
I loved them and would love to have another…
They were far less destructive than my ferrets. Holy batman, those were some sneaky critters that shredded my couch in minutes. 
My friend has an angora house bun, he has his own little room, is litter trained and doesn’t eat the house. I have had house buns for years but sadly it won’t work in our current house.
Bunnies are like horses and need forage, giving one free choice hay will drastically cut down the amount of destructive chewing bunny engages in. Although some will still develop a taste for things like electric cords. Unless you have a tiny house it is easiest to have a bunny room or couple bunny rooms that are safe and secure for the rabbit, in any case you will want to start bunny off in a small room for socializing and litter training purposes, the House Rabbit Society has lots of good info.
As for breed, I am partial to lops and angoras, Angoras require more work since they are fur animal, and will need at minimum weekly brushing and a haircut 3-4 times a year, but they have wonderful personalities and are lots of fun.
heh guess which breed I have.
We have a dining room right off of the kitchen that we sort of use as a “spare junk” room that I think would be great to use. It has only 2 doorways (but no doors) so putting up gates shouldn’t be an issue, and there aren’t any wires to chew on (YAY!)
Hay shouldn’t be an issue since my family grows our own for our horses so I can provide as much as Mr/Mrs Bunbun would need.
My cousin has a Flemish Giant who lives in a small cage in their little barn since their big dog tried to kill it in the house, and she (cousin) is now away at college. :no: (My poor aunt should have forseen both things before buying the bunn, but what cousin wants, cousin gets.) So, I’m half tempted to see if they want to part with him and make him a house bunny like he deserves. My biggest reservation about that is that I believe he is 3 1/2 ish and unaltered. Is there a bigger increase in the risk altering him now that he’s older?
If they want to keep him, then we will go to a shelter to adopt one.
We had one that chewed a bunny sized hole in the drywall behind the toilet. Quick too. Made a great conversation item - Giant Rats!
Srsly, it depends on the bun how much they chew but they will do it and they will chew EVERYTHING. I have a whole bunch of old hardback books without spines that one bun nibbled on, a little every day, LOL. Keep alert and keep them occupied, but they can be very fun.
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