When it comes to keeping bunny healthy and happy, there are really only a few basics you need to keep in mind.

It’s very important is that you have your rabbit spayed or neutered. Doing so removes your female bunny’s uterine cancer risk in addition to eliminating a whole host of other issues. It’s also reduces, if not eliminates, urine spraying. Spaying and neutering can also make your life much more pleasant as altered bunnies are much, much easier to litter train.

You should brush your bunny regularly. This will prepare him for extensive brushing during a heavy molt. In addition, it will help keep his digestive system free of hair balls.

Next, make sure that your bunny gets at least 4 hours of exercise each day. Exercise is important to your bunny’s digestive tract in addition to his mental and physical heath. Be sure to provide your bunny with a safe exercise area that is free of electrical cords and other dangers.

Finally, you need to feed your rabbit properly. This includes unlimited timothy hay, a cup or so of leafy green vegetables at least three days a week and the proper amount of a high quality timothy pellets. Follow the label for the daily quantity based on your rabbit’s weight. Make sure that you avoid the pellets that have alfalfa, seeds and fruit bits in them. If in doubt, go with Oxbow Bunny Basics/T or Purina Rabbit Chow.

You have many options for housing your bunny, especially if you’re a creative or a “handy” type of person.

The first, and least recommended, are the store bought plastic cages. They tend to be entirely too small for most bunnies. Some even come with the dreaded wire bottoms which can give your bunny sore hocks.

Option two is to construct a bunny condo out of Neat Idea Cubes. NICs are 14×14 wire mesh panels that you can tie together with plastic zip ties. You can add a plywood roof and floor for even more strength. The advantage of this type of enclosure is that you can construct it in whatever size and shape you wish.

You can use an anodized pet play pen. If you use it to “fence” off a corner of a room, your bunny’s living quarters can be quite spacious. Make sure that you get a play pen tall enough that your bunny cannot jump out, or fabricate a roof if required. Additionally, check the bar spacing to ensure that your bunny can’t get his head stuck and injure himself.

Finally, you can purchase one of the many roomy pre-fabricated cages from a company like Leith Petwerks.

We strongly advise against keeping your bunny outside in a hutch. Bunnies belong inside with their family just like any other house pet. There are far too many negatives that accompany outdoor hutches. Everything from heat stroke and predators (both animal and human) to boredom and loneliness are just a few of the things that can cause harm and even kill your bunny.

One of the negatives to having a free running rabbit is Thumper’s tendency to chew things that we’d rather they not. Cords, baseboards and furniture are all on the menu.

Bunnies are “hardwired” to chew and therefore cannot help themselves. Since they have open rooted teeth that continually grow, they must chew and gnaw on various materials to wear them down.

You have a couple of options in dealing with this behavior.

First, you should provide them with approved chew toys. Bunnies love cardboard boxes, toilet paper spools, phone books and bunny safe wicker baskets, twigs and sticks. Properly prepared pine cones can also be provided. This is probably the single most important thing you can do because I think that bunnies resort to chewing the furniture when they lack alternatives.

Second, you can restrict their access to things you don’t want chewed. You can close doors, put up baby gates and cover electrical cords in plastic tubing or spiral wrap. Some people even make creative use of plexiglass and/or wood strips to protect baseboards and furniture legs.

Chewing is a fact of life when living with a rabbit. With some gentle redirection and training, you can eliminate the worst of it.