To start off the chapter of Rabbit Care Necessities, the room of which the rabbit will go in, at least for me, was the first thing I had to figure out before anything else. Because it can be so incredibly annoying to figure out where your rabbit can go in your house, and where it can’t, and what should, and doesn’t need to be bunny-proofed, I would like to go over the basics.
Step 1: Discuss With Your Family
The 1st, and most important step is to discuss your thoughts with your family. By now, I would assume that you have already told your family that you want a rabbit, that you have done your research, and that you’re ready for the responsibilities, if not, do it as soon as possible, and make sure you take those three steps before continuing. If you don’t take those three steps before you go on with the rest of the process, you’ll find yourself stuck and lost in what you thought was going to be an easy process, it isn’t.
The best way that I found to talk to your family about owning a rabbit is when you’re in the car with one, or both, of your parents. This is a nice, private time to talk about you have been thinking about. This is what I’ve found easiest since your parent(s) are focused on the road, but are still listening in, this way, you don’t feel all that pressured if you happen to be nervous of their reaction. That being said, you really shouldn’t feel nervous about talking to your family. They provide your materials, and your life, to the point that I would expect that you would have good enough of a bond with one of your parents to at least talk to them.
Once you actually get on to talking to your parent/guardian, I would recommend the following:
- Considering the positives and negatives of all of the different options
- Coming up with multiple options
- And accepting your family’s concerns
This all ties in to come to the conclusion of how important it is to consider everything. If you think of a negative side of a location that you really want your rabbit in, don’t avoid it, because it will come back to you later, and trust me, your family will not be pleased the moment that they realize they missed a needed discussion, and that you had tricked them into letting your rabbit stay in that area.
Another important consideration is enforcing the positives. Even though you should still mention the negatives to avoid as many future conflicts, if your parents don’t want a rabbit, you will need to enforce as many positives as possible, including the great housing options that work for you, and your family.
With this being done, I would like to recommend writing down the different options and rate them based off of the amounts of positives and negatives. This way, you will know what your family thinks is best, and what you may want.
As for speaking to siblings about getting a rabbit, I feel that siblings are much more supportive of getting the rabbit than the parents, but they kind of adjust to it so quickly that it doesn’t really phase them. All in all, just make sure to keep them updated and aware of everything, and keep them on the positive side! In my situation, my sister was always on my side during this process, mainly because she was the one who got me into wanting a rabbit.
If you happen to live by yourself, this step will be very simple for you, you can either chose to skip it, or you could talk to yourself, which means you still get to skip this step, but you’ll still want to do the ratings for the different options to make the next step is as easy and thoughtful as possible.
Step 2: Make the Decision
The next step forward would be to make a firm decision, with your family, of where the rabbit will be staying, whether it’s in a designated room, if the rabbit will be in your room, or if the rabbit will be free-roaming. These would be the options that I would give. There shouldn’t be anything with caging up your rabbit, they naturally shouldn’t be caged, whether your family wants the rabbit caged or not, they should have access to a play area at all times.
In my case, and many other cases as well, I have found that parents and family members only want to go by the way that rabbits USED to be taken care of. The way that rabbits were kept, caged, and neglected, should never be the way that rabbits should be kept, especially with the facts we now know today.
Based off of the results from the different “scores” that each room or area that was given an option, this is where, I, personally, would make the decision based off of. From here, I would get into contact with my parents/guardians, and family, preferably face-to-face, to talk about the future location of which your rabbit will be staying. Once the decision is made, and all of your family members have agreed, you’re able to move on to the next step.
This step could be done solo if you live in your own house, or in an apartment, etc. In other words, if you live by yourself, all you would have to do is find what would work best with you, and based off of the results, you should be able to find the best option.
Step 3: Plan Out the Area
Now that your family has agreed on the area that you would like to keep your rabbit, the next step, if you haven’t already at this point, is to start planning out your rabbit’s area, along with the setup.
The fist step to this would be drawing the borders to the rabbit’s area on a piece of paper, this way, you can add in the different wall and areas, along with furniture that may or may not get in the way of the setup, this way, you can make arrangement ideas before you make the arrangements. Without this, the luck of making an arrangement that is sure to work, but doesn’t, would be in my manner. Because of this, you would end up having to redo everything, yeah, that would be my case without this planning, at least for me.
From here, I would show your plan to your family, to then figure out adjustments and options that will work for everyone, so that you don’t mess up as much with what you thought everyone was okay with, but wasn’t, and on, and on.
This is where a lot of the action comes in. At this point, you should have made up a plan of where the rabbit will stay, and the area, along with any furniture changes that will be taking place.
The changes to record would be:
- New items being put in
- Where the new items will go
- Whether any past furniture will be moved
- What will an won’t stay in the same place
- Past furniture’s new position
Step 4: Clean Up the Entire Area
The most activity-based part of this process, is cleaning up the entire area of where your rabbit will be staying. Whether you plan to get your rabbit in a week, a month, or 6 months, do it as soon as possible, because the more you procrastinate, the worse the future cleaning will be. The following steps I took to clean my bunnies’ area were:
- Sweep and dust everything in sight. Whether your rabbit is getting a room to itself, or not, please do not ignore this step. Even if your rabbit is going to be free roamed, this gives your family an amazing opportunity to deep clean the entire house. The best time to do this is when you’re in the process of relocating furniture.
- Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum. Vacuum like you’ve never vacuumed before because trust me, more dust will pop out of nowhere after sweeping and dusting. The more that can be disposed of, the better.
- Disinfect with a natural disinfectant. The disinfectant that I would recommend would be a 50/50 water and vinegar spray. Not only is this spray an extremely easy access disinfectant, this is also a room deodorizer, which can prohibit territory problems with a newly brought home rabbit, that just wants to feel comfortable in its new environment.
- Replace the newly cleaned furniture in its new spot. After a deep clean, you will want to place the furniture in its new position if it is being moved around. This way, you can get the furniture moved, and in its spot, as soon as possible, with less stress.
Extra steps to cleaning your rabbit’s area could include washing the floors thoroughly, painting the walls a different color, and/or washing the walls. This just gives the area a nicer touch, with great timing, and in a great manner.
Please keep in mind that this cleaning is what was needed for my rabbits’ area, and for my rabbits’ needs. This may not be the right order, cleaning method, or overall task for you, but this was just to give an idea of what I would recommend.
Step 5: Plan Out Playtime Areas
Using the same steps to figure out the room/area your rabbit will be living in, I would recommend looking into where you would like to bring your rabbit for playtime. This way, if your were to run into a predicament and you have to move your rabbit out of its area, you will know where the best place is to bring your rabbit.
With this, if you have found an area that would work for your rabbit’s playtime, please bring them to that area if you haven’t already. This way, your rabbit will become more and more used to the transit and process, along with the overall area when you need to bring your rabbit there. This will make moving your rabbit into that area so much smoother for any emergency, or task, needed in your rabbit’s area.
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Thank you so much for coming back again for this post. If the information was helpful, please leave a like and share this post with your friends and family who are in the process of preparing for owning a rabbit. I appreciate all of the support. Please come back every other day for a new post, but until then, continue to spread proper rabbit care!
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