Rabbits good or bad pets, a Dead_Eric life lesson

First, I want to apologize for bailing Sunday on Hardhat. Life happens...

My daughter has a rabbit, got him for Christmas last year. We’ve owned 4 so far and all in all they are decent pets. Quite, don’t take up a lot of room, litter trainable, low maintenance and supplies are not too expensive. This last one is making me doubt ever getting a rabbit again. He's costing me a small fortune.

He wasn’t fixed. My god the smell of a not fixed male rabbit piss is not something I never want to smell again. All inclusive nut chopping at the vet = $200

Rabbits like to chew on wires, new cell phone charger = $30

Rabbits like to chew on wires, Replacement DSL Modem = free, with a 1 week wait for shipping.

Rabbits like to chew on wires, AC hurts more than DC, trip to Vet = $350

And the reason for my bail:
Yesterday I get a call from my sobbing daughter. She was trying to get him back in his cage and stepped on his head, stuff was coming out of his eye. Long story short, scratched cornea = $420

Dead_Eric wrote:

First, I want to apologize for bailing Sunday on Hardhat. Life happens...


Rabbits like to chew on wires, AC hurts more than DC, trip to Vet = $350

And the reason for my bail:
Yesterday I get a call from my sobbing daughter. She was trying to get him back in his cage and stepped on his head, stuff was coming out of his eye. Long story short, scratched cornea = $420

First of all, being a 30 means never having to say sorry for bailing a video game for a real life anything.

AC hurts more than DC had me laughing, so thanks.

I can't beleive you can litter train that thing. We had them growing up and the cages stank. No rodents for my kids.

Got Leopard Gekos. I do not advise these as pets.1) Reptiles are finikey about environment. Did you know too much direct light is bad for these desert dwelling creatures? Who knew? Certaintly not the Pet Store. had to learn the had way from the vet.
2) Reptiles are finikey about food. Dust worms in calcium poweder, dont feed too many worms or they get sick.
3) Cant tell the sex when you buy them.
4) 2 males will kill eachother.
5) Pregnant geckos act a lot like gekos with impacted bowels.
6)The Herpatologist in my area cant tell the differance between a pregnant gecko and an impacted gecko.
7) Geckos need to go to a herpatologist and not the vet where the dogs go.
8)Did you know you can x-ray a gecko? (This will never happen)
9) Did you know there is no one in your community that knows this stuff and if you want to learn it you have to go on line and do hours of research?

Good for you for fixing the eye. Dont let people give you grief about taking care of your animals.

Never had a rabbit, had hamster's and I have always had a 1 or 2 mule's since I was a kid (canary/finch) my old man shows and breeds them.

I am getting a rat, hopefully I can train him like the hamsters. ie not to eat wires, came when called ect..

Also did not know you could litter train a rodent. I had a guinea pig as a kid and that cage become foul in short order.

Something about giving an animal permission to shit in my house doesn't sit right with me, even if it is into a containment device. If you could train them to sit on the John and actually flush, then that would be different.

I have a nice veggie garden, so rabbits are my sworn enemy. They have been on the receiving end of my .17HMR many, many times. Got a few slingshot kills too! Big steel bearings do the trick.

My newest dog (English Setter) has a fondness for all types of animal scat in the yard, and guess what? Rabbit poop has some really nasty bacteria in it! Acute pancreatitis and 3 days in the vet hospital totalled near $1000, so yeah...rabbits are not on my friends list.

Last year for my birthday we went out for dinner with my inlaws. When we get home, I see white rabbit sitting at the curb. We took it in because it was freezing outside. We got a crate, litter box, water bottle, blah blah blah. All the things a rabbit would need. Eventually, I couldn't stand the smell of its urine, and the thing poops ALL THE TIME!

Now, the rabbit lives in our backyard feeding on all of the plants. We'll let it inside when it gets too cold, but we've learned to keep it in its crate or else it'll chew up all of the cords.

If anyone near the Houston area wants a rabbit, let me know. I'll even deliver him if you aren't too far away.



I'm being serious.

Rabbit Etouffe is outstanding...

/just sayin'

fatbrowndog wrote:

Rabbit Etouffe is outstanding...

/just sayin'

I've joked around about rabbit stew... my wife didn't laugh.

Long story short on rabbits. Yea daughter had the whole rabbit thing to.

2 or 3 years ago for easter the family all gets togather. Kids get to find easter eggs hidden thoughout the yard. Well my mom put in the gets tags that said rabbit. Me figuring it was a big chocolate rabbit or something. My mom tells my daughter she gets to pick out a rabbit, for some unknown reason we ended up with 2. So had to go buy a cage, food, ect. kept it outside. Also was told that they where both girls. Well lets just say I now have seen the term "fucking like rabbits" first hand. eventually got rid of baby rabbits. Seperated M and F. Ended up getting rid of them to. Where they are no one but me knows.

My buddy has a pet rabbit, and it is trained to use the litter box. Mostly it just hops around and doesn't really chew shit up so I guess he is fortunate. He had to move because he was getting too many noise complaints in his apartment complex. I guess when he would leave for school it would thump on the floor really loud with its hind foot. He told me that is how the rabbits communicate to find eachother when they are seperated. Regardless, he lived on the 2nd floor and the neighboors below got a little pissed about the rabbit thumping on the floor all day why he was at school.

sorry to hear about all the bills with the pet rabbit. It is tough to have rodents for pets for your kids unless you are wanting to teach them the lessons about life and death. Little gerbils and hamsters only make it about 18 months or so. Trying to soothe an emotionally distraught little girl whose hamster died really sucked.

BigDaddyN8 wrote:

My buddy has a pet rabbit, and it is trained to use the litter box. Mostly it just hops around and doesn't really chew shit up so I guess he is fortunate. He had to move because he was getting too many noise complaints in his apartment complex. I guess when he would leave for school it would thump on the floor really loud with its hind foot. He told me that is how the rabbits communicate to find eachother when they are seperated. Regardless, he lived on the 2nd floor and the neighboors below got a little pissed about the rabbit thumping on the floor all day why he was at school.

I thought that was only in Disney movies...

So a little boy shows up for the first day of school and puts a small baggie of raisins on his teacher's desk.

The teacher thinks, "How thoughtful..."

The year goes on and every day the boy brings a small baggie of raisins for the teacher, until one day when he doesn't.

The teacher asks the boy, "Why didn't you bring me any raisins today?"

The boy starts to cry and says, "My rabbit died."

[FYI: Had a rabbit growing up, didn't have any issues with it, but my dad built a hutch for it and kept it in there in our garage (heated/AC) and had us kids clean it up when we didn't have it out. It was a girl rabbit we named Cuddles because she liked to cuddle with us, except for when she didn't....]

Eat the rabbit grind it up mix in sloppyjoe sauce its good,

Waskiwy wabbits

Never had a pet rabbit but I love hunting them with my beagles. And yes they do make pretty good BBQ.

I love rabbits too, eat em all the time.

And I would be found dead before I would give a doctor 400 bucks to treat me never mind a rabbit.

Had a pet rabbit in college. It stayed at the girlfriend's place. We left for spring break and came back to a dead rabbit. Apparently, there was a heat wave in Berkeley that week and her roommate left the rabbit outside in the cage without knowing that excessive heat can kill a rabbit.

After we buried the rabbit, when they were moving out, we found almost EVERY cord in the apartment chewed on. Kind of a sad legacy.

here i go bring up old shit...

Kids are moving to a new place and can't keep the rabbit. If anyone in the MN area wants a rabbit, let me know.

You can't eat him

Thanks

Want some Sugargliders or 2 more rabbits?

I feel slightly guilty for reading this thread. As a veterinarian, I know that pet care is expensive. Ultimately the choice is yours of whether you treat or not. That being said, I always try to the best for my clients and patients. If something isn't in the budget, I come up with plan B, C, D... I have even written donation/grant applications for some clients to get funds from a charitable organization and often my boss lets people work out payments. I hope you don't all think I'm one of the evil vets I do try my hardest to help as much as possible (even going so far as to pay for someone's cremation so they could have their dogs ashes or get a pot together from the staff to help pay for a surgery).

All that being said...I don't want a rabbit. Got 2 dogs, 3 cats, and a horse....and adding a second horse. If I had to pick from all the critters listed in this thread, I'd vote for getting a rat. And Wini, it really does depend on the vet if they know enough or are comfortable with herps. We admittedly don't get much training on them in school so most of what we know is from continuing education which we as vets are still learning about these critters as they become more common in homes. I will see reptiles though my bosses typically won't. A lot of it stems from my having my own iguana for 20 years.

if a vet tells me the bill will be more than 80 dollars I just tell my wife the pet died in a terrorist attack.