Have you ever had a rabbit as a pet?

little shit was always nicking my cookies

where is Ms.Laura? look up her critters thread.

Yes and the little guy chewed through the cord of my Sega controller just as I was about to win the final level on Fantasy Zone (this was many years ago). We kept rabbits after that, but not as pets.

yes. worst pet ever. I pitied him and grew pretty frustrated with our housemate who insisted on "adopting" him. he ended up having to spend most of his time locked in a cage, it was depressing.

they really are not like any other pets, despite cuddly appearance. they're burrowing animals for chrissakes!

We kept rabbits after that, but not as pets.

What does this mean? I feel like there's a joke I'm missing.

Boa snacks.

taxidermy practice

i kept a school rabbit during vacations. they're very active and need a lot of attention and/or exercise, more so than the other small pets that they're grouped with (hamsters, guinea pigs, etc). like guinea pigs, they're much more responsive to people than i would have thought.

My wife sometimes tells me she wants a "bunny", but there's really nothing I'd want less. Sure, they're cute and all, but I have some serious cable action in the house.

We kept rabbits after that, but not as pets.

What does this mean? I feel like there's a joke I'm missing.

We raised them for meat.

the rabbit we had hated being touched or held. freaked out if it was lifted off the ground. it was also a gigantic, overgrown white rabbit - like a big ball of fur maybe 1 1/2 feet in diameter. So as a pet, you couldn't touch it, it made no sounds, and you couldn't play with it. It was also scared of noises, music. when out of its cage it would mostly shuffle around, look for something to chew on, and hide. it just wanted to do two things: poop and chew. I think it had previously been in a classroom of small children and had thus been thoroughly traumatized. Eventually my housemate relented and we found a wild animal preserve-type place that would take it and let it run free. I'm sure its happier now.

We've got a house rabbit, she's adorable. We've handled her from when she was tiny so she doesn't mind being picked up. Lovely to watch running about and she's quite friendly, coming over to nibble on shoes. Not a good pet for children but cuter than a cat and less hassle than a dog for 20somethings like ourselves. Warning though, female rabbits do need to be neutered as ours became hugely bad-tempered once she'd grown out of being a baby, she's fine now although it's sad she'll never be a mummy bunny. The cable chewing can be annoying but it can be easily prevented.

http://a392.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/01071/19/32/1071402391_l.jpg

Here she is on the left next to her brother, looking grumpy when she was a baby:

http://a477.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/01087/67/40/1087360476_l.jpg

She makes crazy lip-smacking movements after she's eaten herbs like coriander so I'm working on some videos with her lip-syncing to various songs, I'll post them on here when done.

My mom's school had a rabbit named Lola (she was a showgirl...) and I used to watch her during vacations. She was very sweet and would walk on a leash, and hang out in the yard in a milk crate. The rabbit they got after Lola died was a meat rabbit with no personality and a biting problem.

At age eight, I had some crazy pedigreed giant lopear bunny that was totally cute and possibly the world's biggest asshole. It hated all human touch and even human presence. Eventually the family just let it live to run free in the backyard. This may sound idyllic, but our rather small backyard was also the territory of five ostriches, another one of my parents' stupid investments back when ostriches were briefly some weird commodity boom market. The rabbit hated the ostriches, too---it spent most of its time teasing them, then narrowly avoiding being kicked to death. It was kind of a disappointing pet.

I have had rabbits as pets. It takes a very special and rare sort of person to do right by a pet rabbit. They take an immense amount of attention, care, preparation, and upkeep, and the reward can be minimal when compared to the reward of a cat or dog, say. Most people who end up with pet rabbits have no idea what they are getting into - I sure as hell didn't. Because of this I generally discourage people from getting them as pets because you really have to put an immense amount of effort into keeping them if you want to give them a happy little rabbit life. However, some folks are totally up for the challenge and find it well worthwhile.

I would read every page on this website before making any decisions. If after reading the nuts and bolts of what it takes to give a rabbit a good life you still think they are good to have as pets, then I think you are one of the few and you should totally go for it. Because seriously? They are so fucking cute.

Jenny, I think your statement holds with all kinds of small animals. I was doing some research on sugar gliders, because I kept seeing mention of them. And they are adorable, but my god the stuff their keepers need to do to give them a happy life in confinement seems extreme.

Indeed. Having bunnies really turned me off on the whole "exotic pet" thing. Plus I have witnessed way too many horrible situations like Shakey Mo described above where somebody gets a rabbit or an iguana or some other poor little special needs critter and it lives a miserable existence until it dies of neglect or depression. It's sort of turned me into an anti-pet rabbit crusader.

Guinea pigs are totally easy tiny pets, FWIW. They never try to outsmart you, and they're sweet, cute little lap pets whose daily dose of exercise is pretty easy to administer.

the apparently chew through everything

Note: I fell somewhat reluctantly into rabbit ownership, but went full on into the fray, providing proper medical care and turning a whole closet into a bunny bedroom, litter training them and building entire cities out of cardboard boxes, feeding them hay and fresh vegetables, wrapping all my cords and blocking access to baseboards and other delicious chewables, and letting them run around the house to destroy everything I loved and held dear. Lucy died of natural causes two years after she came to live with me, and I gave Tim to a friend when I moved to Atlanta because I was afraid the long distance move would kill him. Now I have cats, who are equally adorable, much more resilient, interactive, and affectionate, and slightly less destructive.

Rabbits make fascinating companions, but they're not easy pets and I don't recommend them for everyone. There's currently five here - three that we've adopted and two that I'm fostering. They're all healthy (at the moment), active, and destructive. They've varying levels of affection (one is a lap bunny, two could care less about humans unless we're offering food, one is occasionally affectionate but only on her own terms and timeline, and one hates me but loves g and d).

Pros:
- Intelligent and complex
- Adorable
- Fascinating
- Occasionally cuddly and affectionate
- Hours of laughter and joy
- Can be housebroken with some success
- Will "teach" you how to bunny-proof your home and will help you get rid of lots of stuff
- If healthy and kept inside, can live for 14 years

Cons:
- Major vet bills (spay/neuter, GI stasis, cancers) - and also sometimes difficult to find an experienced rabbit vet
- Need lots of room (either free-range or LARGE pen enclosures, inside the house as they're can't handle the heat)
- Incredibly destructive (guitars, amps, computers, cords, cables, futon, La-z-boy, blankets/sheets, carpeting, walls, baseboards, books, CD cases, etc.)
- Don't always get along with each other (and can actually kill one another - short of that, major stitches/injuries) and don't always get along with other household animals

Basic care routine here:
Morning
Empty and scrub four large litter/hay boxes
Reline and refill hay boxes
Sweep-up spilt hay
Sweep-up "presents" left scattered around (they have a few specific areas in the apartment where they go, and we've litter boxes in those areas, but buns aren't known for always going in the boxes)
Spot-cleaning the carpet if anyone's had a "wetting" accident (not very frequently, since the buns are now all older)
Prepare five "salads" (each = four leaves of lettuce, some parsley, some cilantro, some dandelion greens, assorted other greens)
Refill pellet bowls (each bun gets a small amount, which has to be measured)
Dump, scrub-out, rinse, refill four water bottles and three water bowls
Give each bunny pets, rub ears, scritch nose, etc.

Evening
Repeat of morning, except just add hay to litter/hay boxes and no fresh pellets
Also more interactive time, massages, chasing around on the floor, etc.

I agree with Jenny - read the Rabbits.org website and think long and hard about the committment. If you're still thinking that you'd like a rabbit (or a pair - they do best with a friend), contact a local rabbit rescue group and see about volunteer opportunities, like working at a shelter - you can also ask about fostering for the rescue group (so you're not making a "forever" committment, but learning how to live with a rabbit and if that's right for you).

Please do NOT purchase a rabbit, whatever you do. There's so many that end-up dumped at shelters (where most are euthanized) or set free (where they become prey or, in the situation where I'm currently spending a LOT of time, if the rabbit is dumped in a "safe" location, they go and, well, produce more bunnies. Lots more bunnies. See The Bunny Bunch under the 500 Rabbit Rescue.)

I now cannot imagine a life without a couple of rabbit companions - they're marvelous animals. But the commitment is major and things don't always go easy.

I looked after a friend's rabbit for a month or so last year. They're cute, but they're not very responsive or affectionate.

Important point for the cat vs rabbit case: cat litter tray=STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN. rabbit droppings=odourless little pebbles that rabbit occasionally helpfully munches for you.

Also, rabbits less likely to moult all over your clothes and furniture than dogs and cats (sorry for the selfish-humanness of these points).

Rabbit pee sure does stink unless, as the super awesome Ms. Laura described, you wash the litter boxes every day. Learned that one the hard way.

(Also we clean the cat box every day so that doesn't stink either, but we're fastidious like that.)

We've never had a problem with stinky rabbit wee, might be down to the litter stuff we use and that she has two litter trays (one in the room where she sleeps, one in the room she comes out to play in). Also our bunny is one of those dainty dwarfy ones so she maybe produces less smelliness than say this feller. But cat shit is an instant hot blast of choking horror, I never want to have pet cats again.

I had a rabbit as a kid, but it was not kept indoors. We had two cages: one for on the lawn, so she could eat the grass, etc, and on in a little shed for when it was cold. I'd never have a rabbit in the house.