Small animal, big demands: everything pet rabbits need

Two shiny eyes, silky black fur and a constantly twitching snub nose: I was powerless against the cuteness that I saw in the pet section of a department store. Just as my parents were powerless against me. I was 11 years old, and the baby animal moved in with us not long afterwards. Like so many parents, mine thought rabbits were the perfect pet for a child: small, cheap, undemanding and cuddly. Rabbits actually need a lot of exercise, proper nutrition costs money and, above all, they’re absolutely not animals to stroke. But we didn’t know any of that back then.

That’s why, after we made the purchase, we did everything wrong that we could do wrong: we just adopted a rabbit, bought a cage and fed it grain food, carrots and apples. Fortunately, even as a child, I sensed how little an animal that can sprint up to 60 km/h in the wild would like to live behind bars. So, during the day Trixie ran freely around the apartment or outside in the garden, where she happily dug up the flower bed. The twitching-nosed cutie only had to go into her cage at night, and I had insisted on it being a very generous size.

Prime time: rabbits are particularly lively in the evening and early morning

Rule number 1: rabbits are twilight animals. They’re at their most active in the early morning and early evening and want to hop, sit up, jump around (rabbits can easily jump up to a metre high) or dig (as far as possible, wild rabbits create burrows up to 50 metres long). One reason why rabbits have no place in a child’s room. At our house, chair legs, cushions and wallpaper soon fell victim to Trixie’s gnawing instinct. Rabbits aren’t rodents; zoologically, they’re classified as lagomorphs. Nevertheless, most of them still nibble on things.

After a few weeks, the surprise came: Trixie was in fact a boy. But the name stuck, and unfortunately so did him marking his territory by spraying urine. Castration would have stopped this, but we didn’t do that either out of ignorance. He ran away from being stroked, but was happy to give out bites. And because we couldn’t find the right care for him during the summer holidays, Trixie simply travelled with us to Denmark. Our holiday home was paradise for him: in the morning, he went outside through the open veranda door and into the Danish dunes, and in the evening, he obediently hopped back into the house. It must have been beginner’s luck that Trixie never ran away.

Social animals: keep rabbits at least in pairs

I’ve now got rabbits again. This time, though – thanks to the internet – I was well informed beforehand. In my opinion, the best online source of information for lagomorph fans is «Kaninchenwiese» (website in German). Compiled over years by aspiring vet Viola Schillinger, she has also condensed her knowledge into a book.

Unlike brown hares, which are solitary creatures, rabbits live in large groups. Anyone who has ever seen how devotedly rabbits lick each other and constantly look to be close to each other to cuddle would never dream of keeping such a social animal alone. So, rule number 2 is that rabbits need at least one companion.

When kept as they ought to be, I personally find rabbits more exciting than TikTok. Our two lionhead rabbits run around in the garden during the day and offer constant opportunities to observe them from our home office. Even my pre-teen son exclaims: «Mum, soooo cute!» when Hermine humorously bends one ear down with her paws to clean it, or when Löwi flops onto her side to sleep. To the uninitiated, she looks like a lifeless stuffed animal – which can regularly cause even rabbit experts a near-heart attack.

Because rabbits are so perfect to just watch, they’re not very suitable for (small) children. Rule number 3 is that rabbits hate being picked up and carried. They hop away, scratch or nip – out of pure instinct. After all, prey animals see everything that comes from above as a deadly threat. They prefer to cuddle up to their companion. They only enjoy being stroked by humans if they’re allowed to crouch on the ground. If your rabbit voluntarily jumps onto your lap, be happy about it. But don’t force anything. And, in this respect, rabbits are similar to cats: they only stay to be stroked as long as they like it.

Misconception: rabbits don’t need grain food or bread

Like cats, rabbits can also be bribed with treats. Or you can get them to do tricks or even jump over small hurdles (video in German). At the same time, they’re incredibly conservative when it comes to their internal clock: at exactly 7 p.m. my two leave their free roaming to impatiently wait in their enclosure for fresh food. The fact is that they could fill their bellies with food all day long because there are 200 square metres of greenery at their feet – it’s freely available. Other rabbit owners also report that they prefer to eat what’s freshly picked. «As if you were asking the waiter to cut your schnitzel into bite-sized pieces,» a friend recently commented on the phenomenon.

At this point, we have to talk about a misconception. No, rabbits don’t need grain food or hard bread. On the contrary, it actually harms them. They should also only eat fruit and root or tuber vegetables in moderation. Rule number 4 explains why this is. As folivores, i.e. leaf eaters, rabbits are dependent on fresh green food: meadow plants such as grass, dandelions, yarrow, ribwort plantain and sorrel, but also branches and wild herbs. Rabbits’ teeth grow throughout their lives and wear themselves down as they chew, not through food. However, if the animal eats something hard, the tooth abrasion (website in German) doesn’t work as effectively. This can cause serious dental diseases and fatal abscesses.

Green and fresh: what rabbits want all year round

If you want to feed your rabbits properly, you’d better get picking. Normally, I find it really relaxing – green wellness in the evening between the meadow hogweed and horsetail. It’s only when I’m picking grass for hours in the constant rain, staring at my plant identification app, not having put on my wellies again and getting irritated looks from dog owners, that I sometimes wish I didn’t have a leaf eater at home.

But as soon as I’m no longer crawling through greenery in all weathers because winter has arrived, things get expensive. In the cold months, rabbits need fresh food such as bitter leaves, herbs, cabbage and greens from the supermarket. This quickly adds up to several hundred euros per month. Rabbits are almost as expensive to keep as cats, as heimwerker.de has calculated (website in German). Far from small and cheap…

Make room: a rabbit always needs at least two square metres of space

Rabbits are actually luxury animals: the cost of their accommodation, which I partly built myself, was almost in the four-figure range. At night, my two live in a walk-in aviary with a canopy and sleeping box on a spread over six square metres. When our neighbour came into our garden for the first time, she said: «Your bunny’s hutch is bigger than our children’s room!»

So, rabbits need space – around the clock. Rule number 5: plan for at least two square metres per animal. The animal husbandry calculator (in German) created by the Swiss Animal Protection STS even assumes a minimum area of six square metres for two animals.

My first rabbit, Mr Trixie, spent a good two years with us. In the end, he got away. Not in Denmark, but on my grandma’s porch, which led out onto a one-hectare garden next to a forest. To this day I hope that Trixie didn’t immediately encounter a hungry wild animal there. Compared to that, my current bunnies live in Fort Knox: even the smallest hiding place is protected with marten-proof wire. Because martens can squeeze through holes that are as small as a chicken egg. However, they can’t open doors with slide bars. Luckily!