Horror Stories -- How Not To House A Mother Bunny

In addition to making sure that your female bunny has plenty of food and water, it's important that she be provided with a safe and comfortable living space. We have heard a variety of horror stories regarding what not to do. For example, one person reported having kept the father rabbit confined in the same small a cage with the mother and her new offspring. This same person was also very neglectful about keeping the rabbits supplied with rabbit chow. The result was that he returned one day to discover that the babies had been killed and partly cannibalized. It is important to realize that almost all animals can become dangerously aggressive when forced into such overcrowded and unhealthy circumstances. No bunny should be expected to get by on the occasional carrot or dish of bunny chow, and of course no bunny should ever be forced to live in too small a cage, babies or no babies.

We have also had the opportunity to observe what happens when a domestic rabbit has the opportunity to dig her own burrow and raise her young au natural vs. what happens when she is given a nest box in a cage. We domestically raised humans often think that our domestically raised animals will do "just fine" when placed in "more natural circumstances" (or even when turned loose in the wild). This is simply too large (and untrue) an assumption!

What we discovered was that the more devoted mother bunnies will look after their babies no matter what. In fact, they may even hover nearby (much like a watchful mother cat) even when they are not feeding. Less maternally inclined female bunnies however, will visit their youngsters quite infrequently and may even abandon them all together. If this happens when the young are raised in a burrow, the outcome can be very unfortunate for the baby bunnies. A bunny burrow is typically dug very deep and very narrow, sometimes with a big elbow-turn midway down the tunnel, making it very difficult -- if not impossible -- to get to the abandoned babies. What's worse, is that other females (and sometimes males) may enter into the abandoned burrow and kill the babies.

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Breeding Like Rabbits