Anyone got/had a pet rabbit?

My rabbit (my baby!) is 9 years old and slowing down quite a bit. She's started sleeping so soundly that we can come in the house and she doesn't even hear us (there's nothing wrong with her hearing). I'm even having to wake her up some mornings to feed her.

Some days she's more alert than others.

She's a house bunny, but loves to play outside in her run on the nice days. But I'm in a bit of a catch 22 here.... She mopes about all sad if she can't get out to play on the nice days, but it quite clearly exhausts her.

My question is, what would you do, have her mope about all sad because she's not getting out, or let her out even though it completely wipes her out?

Any opinions would be greatly received.

let her out and enjoy herself and you can always do it for a shorter time!

I have had several rabbits over the years and I agree also to keep letting her outside. Our houses are not healthy environments. Animals that stay inside will have more respiratory and skin conditions as a whole. They need sunshine for vit D so even in the house you can put her in a spot by a window with sun.

My bunnies got too much for me to handle physically, so they never got old under my care. My problem was that they had TOO MUCH energy and ate up my house (the baseboards, the wallpaper, the walls themselves, the carpet, the books in my bookcase when they could maneuver themselves around the blockades, etc. You name it, they probably ate it!). It got so hard to change their litter box because bending over made my head get worse that I finally gave them to my vet, who said she could find a good home for them, probably together, and I figured they would be better cared for than I was doing. I wasn't even able to feed them as much hay as they would have liked because it got too piled up and needed the litter box to be changed (since you put the hay in the litter box for them to eat and go at the same time).

Intuitively, though, I would go with the other posters and let the bunny out for whatever he or she can handle. Think of our own lives. I used to mope around the house and not even try to leave it because I didn't want to pay the price in pain the next day. But even if I didn't leave the house, I'd still have to pay a price pretty regularly anyway. So I have come to see that I just need to mete out my schedule, planning times of rest and times of doing stuff. And I'm much happier and more rewarded when I do go out to do things than if I hold back for fear of being in pain.

Vicki,

Reading your post brought back memories form when she was younger. She used to chew EVERYTHING! 2 phone wires in one day. The cable on an expensive pair of hair straightners I'd had for a little over 24 hours (not plugged in might I add. She doesn't get near live electrics!) My mum's curtains, OOPS. And newspapers! She chewed them constantly!

After we got her spayed, the chewing stopped. Apart from the newspapers, she'd still do that today if I gave her them.

They are hard work, a lot more work than some realise when they buy them for their young children. Mine is a demanding little madam, comes grunting at me whenever she wants something, or just for good measure sometimes! But I wouldn't have her any other way

Thanks all for your replies. I've had her out a bit in the last few days (we don't get great weather here!) and it's like watching her as a baby bunny again. She loves to play outside, it's just a pity the effect it has on her.

I guess so long as she wants out, I'll keep letting her.

You are right about people's not knowing how hard work bunnies can be. Before I got my buns, I did RESEARCH! I had never had any pet other than a dog, which I knew would be too much work for me, so I got online and googled like crazy and got a couple books and talked to my cousin's wife, who used to have them (in fact, Precious had been hers, but she couldn't take the bunny with her when she got married, so I got her). I thought for sure I knew what I was getting into. The materials all said that as long as you give the bunnies something legitimate to chew, then they'll leave your other stuff alone. That's NOT true! I learned that bunnies are like 2-year-olds! Anything illegal is what they want! Pepper never chewed my walls until Precious taught him.

They also weren't allowed in my bedroom because I had my computer in there and had cords that weren't protected, so any chance they could sneak in there while they were out of their pen, they took it! Fortunately, they didn't go for the cords, which I did manage to protect them from in case they did. But they wanted to hide under my bed and never come out. I called it Bunny Disneyland.

Pepper came neutered to me (I got him at six months from a bunny rescue group, who found him in a dumpster!), and I got Precious spayed as soon as she was healthy enough (the stress of moving to a new place made her get sick), so I can't say whether the surgery did anything or not. I loved my bunnies, but it got so I couldn't ever let them out of their pen because they'd eat everything.

Here's my favorite picture of Pepper:

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And here's a picture of the two together. You can see that Precious (not my name for her; it's what Jeneen came up with) is 50% larger than Pepper. Interestingly, I learned that female bunnies tend to be the dominant one, which was true with mine. She would even mount him to show him who was queen! I always felt bad for Pepper because she seemed to crush him during those times!

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Awww... what a cute pic of pepper, he has a beautiful face!

Precious looks like a big bunny indeed, but beautiful too

My bunny too likes to crawl under my bed, like you we try to keep her out of the bedroom but when she does manage to sneak in, she's straight under there thumping away at us.

I wish I had a second bunny, so they could keep each other company while we're out but we didn't actually buy her, she was found in a field not too far from my home. She's definitely not a wild rabbit though, someone had lost her for sure. I think she's too old and set in her ways to give her a companion now.

Were your bunny's ever vocal when you had them? She is getting more and more of a chatterbox the older she gets, she grunts at me all the time. Even when you just walk by her, she's at your feet grunting up at you. Before it was only ever when she was looking for food. Not that I mind it, the little grunts that come out of her are so adorable.

I wasn't sure it was normal for a rabbit to be so "chatty" so I searched the internet and apparently some are, but whenever anyone is visiting and hears her for the first time, they're amazed and find it hilarious!

No, mine were never vocal. And they only thumped if they were alarmed. The first time I brought Precious home with me, Pepper sat in his pen (on the other side of the room) and thumped away while she explored her pen. It was the first time I'd heard him do that, and I'd had him three or four months. I put a barrier between their "territories," while I was getting Precious acclimated to my home, before starting the bonding process. That way, neither could get close to the other's pen. But they were highly aware of each other's presence.

Then, I started letting them both out at the same time, so they could check each other out from across their respective territories, and they became really into each other. They'd cuddle together, with the fence between them. But once when Pepper managed to break down the fence, I came back into the room a few minutes later to discover tufts of fur all over the place and Precious looking a wreck! He had gone after her! So the next step was to put them in the bathroom together, but they just explored different corners of the bathroom, which I had never let them see before because I knew I'd need that to introduce them (all the bunny people say to introduce them in a "neutral territory"). So I ended up putting them in the tub, and immediately one of them peed in it! Comet came to the rescue!

Eventually, I could let them in the whole room together, supervised, and I was surprised at how soon after all this work (at least a month before I could do this), they were comfortable enough to live together.

I did get a kick out of the fact that the first time I took down the fence, Pepper rushed to Precious' pen and marked it as fast as he could. For the non-bunny owners, the way a bunny marks its territory is by rubbing its chin all over it because the scent glands are in the chin. So Pepper looked so funny making exaggerated motions to make sure his scent was everywhere in Precious' pen. And what was Precious doing? Playing with Pepper's toys! (They were identical to her own, but they were PEPPER'S and therefore better!) Girls seem to be smarter, I think!