‘They deserve a long, healthy life’

Rabbit rescues caring for surrendered, feral populations

In early 2017, Amy Honey found a severely injured rabbit living outdoors in a hutch with about a dozen other rabbits.

“I didn’t know anything about rabbits. But I noticed one sitting alone in the corner with an injured nose,” Honey said during a recent interview. “I knew he was probably in a lot of pain and he looked really sad.”

Honey said she crawled into the hutch, took the injured rabbit out and took him to her car. She took the injured animal for medical treatment, and eventually, she took the rabbit home.

“I brought him home and put him in our spare room,” Honey said. “I fell in love. I had no idea they had such incredible personalities. And they bring so much joy to your life.”

Honey named her new companion Tycho after a historical figure who lost his nose in a duel.

Today, she describes Tycho as her gateway rabbit. That’s because these days, she operates a rabbit rescue in Seaforth, a community in the Halifax Regional Municipality, called Honey’s Bunnies.

Honey’s Bunnies rescue can house eight rabbits, but Honey supervises about 20 more in foster homes. The goal is to provide medical care as needed and spay or neuter the animals before eventually adopting them out to forever homes. Honey said she always has a waiting list for rabbits to be surrendered and receives requests to deal with colonies of feral rabbits.

“More people need to get educated about how to properly take care of rabbits before they get them,” Honey said. “And special emphasis needs to be given to their proper housing, nutrition and life expectancy. Beyond that I highly recommend spaying or neutering rabbits as this will make them a much better pet, with a longer life expectancy.”

Honey said once rabbits outgrow the popular “baby bunny phase,” pet owners have problems with them due to their hormones, which can impact everything from bathroom habits to aggression issues. This, combined with improper housing, leads most people to give up on them very early, and quite often, they will abandon them, thinking that they can survive outside, Honey said.

“Which they cannot,” Honey emphasized.

“Most people consider rabbits to be a perfect starter pet and they are low maintenance and they are great (pets) for kids. And that’s just not true. Rabbits are not a great starter pet. My mission is to educate people about proper rabbit care, and beyond that, educate them about how wonderful they can be as pets, if they are given the proper care,” Honey said.

Honey said the perception of some pet owners that their rabbit is a disposable pet they can just set free in their yard if they have problems is contributing to the exploding rabbit

Rabbit rescuers say people need to be educated on how to take care of rabbits. They can be great pets - if provided with proper care.

population.

“People are letting their rabbits free in the wild when they don’t want them anymore. The rabbits are reproducing the way rabbits do, which is every 28 days. And rabbits reproduce all year round.”

Honey said she has had week-old baby bunnies brought to her that had been attacked by a cat or other predators.

“I have seen some really bad situations because they don’t belong out there. They are not wild. They are domestic. They are pets,” Honey said.

Brandy Cole, of Bridgewater, became aware of the need to care for abandoned feral rabbits in her area while doing yard work.

“We came across two rabbits in our yard. We almost ran one over one with a lawnmower,” Cole said. “We didn’t realize there was a den in our yard because it was dug into a lot of blackberry bushes on the edge of our property.”

Cole said they discovered three babies and two adults. One died after being attacked by a predator.

Cole said she and her husband grew up with rabbits and understand the kind of care they need. As a result, she started Two Tails Feral Rabbit Rescue in Bridgewater in August, focusing on domestic rabbit breeds abandoned to the wild which have reproduced.

“There is a large need for medical care and rehoming several feral rabbit populations in the Town of Bridgewater,” Cole said.

Cole said the rescue effort relies on volunteers in the community to foster rabbits until they are spayed or neutered, and then hopefully, they get adopted. Cole works to help facilitate the adoptions. The rescue is currently caring for 18 young rabbits and two adults.

“Those adults are not great for rehoming. But we would like to provide them with health care and spay and neuter them so they are not producing in large numbers outdoors anymore,” Cole said.

Cole said she works with two local vets for health care and spaying and neutering the rabbits. She sometimes covers the costs out of her pocket and does fundraising to recover the money.

Cole agrees with Honey that rabbits are not low maintenance pets. She said they need a lot of medical care and they also require a specific diet of hay and fresh vegetables or pellets because a poor diet can cause adverse health issues.

Cole said abandoned domestic rabbits are at risk because they do not have the same survival instincts and physiology as wild snowshoe hares.

“These rabbits have been bred over generations to be companion animals and not to live outdoors,” Cole said.

“They are misunderstood. They deserve a long, healthy life. If they live indoors and have supervised outdoor play, they can easily live for 12 years. They interact with people much like a cat does or a dog. They love to free roam in a home if you have a safe space to do that. They are not happy, healthy or safe outside.

“You wouldn’t let a feral colony of cats go without any help. You wouldn’t let a stray dog wander around too long,” she added.

GO ONLINE:

Information on rabbit adoptions is available at

honeysbunniesrabbitrescue.com and on Facebook

facebook.com/twotailsbridgewater

DID YOU KNOW?

• Rabbits are easy to train to use the litter box just like a cat?

• They can live up to 12 years and sometimes as long as 15 years?

• Rabbits make wonderful pets and are very similar to cats or dogs. They are very loyal and will bond with their owners.

• They can reproduce every 28 days if they are not spayed or neutered.

• Rabbits need to be spayed or neutered to live longer, behave well and be guaranteed to use their litter box.

• They can rotate their ears 270 degrees.

• When a rabbit is happy it will jump straight up in the air. This is called a binky.

• They eat a certain kind of poop they produce and it makes their guts healthy. They do it in the middle of the night.

*Information provided by Amy Honey, Honey’s Bunnies Rabbit Rescue.