Preparing: Before You Bring Your New Bunny Home
Here is a compiled list of our favorites that we utilize in our Rabbitry regularly. This is meant to help with the sometimes overwhelming task of shopping and preparing for your new bunny. These are our suggestions, you are always welcome to choose whatever you prefer. We know that transitioning to a new environment can be stressful for a kit, so our goal is to help you make this process go as smoothly as possible and without common mistakes. A cage setup video can be found on our Facebook page.
Food
Bunnies need fresh unlimited timothy hay or orchard medley daily. We try to purchase the most recent cutting from a local farm in bale form. You can store this in a tote or garbage bag while using. If you cannot find it locally there are two great online sources above.
Food and Beverage Containers
Cages
Above are four nice rabbit cage options found online. All have solid floors (or are easily adaptable to a solid floor). If you decide you would rather purchase a cage with wire flooring that is fine as well. This is just what we have found is the easiest for accessibility & cleaning. We fill litter boxes with rabbit-appropriate litter and vacuum/sweep the solid cage floor daily with a shop-vac.
Litter Training
Our kits come 75%-100% litter trained as they have had a litter pan in their cages since birth. Bunnies generally eliminate close to where they eat so keep that in mind when designating your food and hay area. While our kits are learning, we set up their cages with both a dish pan filled with hay (eliminating the use for a messy hay feeder) and a corner pan sprinkled with bedding. As your Holland matures you can do away with the dish pan and graduate to only having to use/change the corner pan. We use pelletized bedding as litter in our pans but there are plenty of other options if this doesn’t suite your needs.
Toys and Exercise
Our bunnies get exercise daily and we find this important for their overall development/well-being. If you don’t have a safe space for them to run free range out of harms way, you can purchase a puppy exercise pen or super yard used for toddlers/babies. We like to fill our exercise pens with tunnels, balls (cat balls at the dollar store work perfectly), toilet paper tubes stuffed with hay, apple sticks, non-oily tree slabs, and boxes or hides (see links above for some of our favorites).
Additional Accessories
The above items are great things to purchase for grooming, or to have on hand in case of emergencies. Your bunny's nails should be trimmed once a month at the minimum and growth should be monitored weekly.
Caring: A Guide to Giving Your Bunny a Healthy Life
There is loads of information on the internet about caring for bunnies. Here are a few simple guidelines to help you raise a happy and healthy Holland Lop.
If your Holland has watery liquid diarrhea, remove food pellets and give hay and oats only (no treats) with plenty of water (add a bowl of water in addition to your regular water bottle) until you see normal droppings. Hollands can easily get dehydrated and have very sensitive digestive systems. If your Holland stops eating and drinking, you may need to see a veterinarian. Hollands have soft clusters of poop called “cecotrophs” in addition to their normal round/firm droppings. Your baby has learned from his/her mama how to eat these tasty turds. It is completely normal & helps them to maintain a healthy gut.
Please do not bathe your Holland. A young Holland is very sensitive to cold. The stress from bathing and the cold can be fatal. Hollands will groom themselves regularly. They will also ingest lots of fur in the process which is why they need unlimited hay. The high fiber helps to move all the fur through their little guts. You can brush your bunny to help keep his/her hair clean and smooth. If your Holland becomes soiled with stool try to brush it out. If that fails you can cautiously trim the soiled fur with scissors. As a last resort you can wash your Hollands bottom only with mild soapy warm water & be sure to dry as best as you can.
As your bunny grows, you will need to trim their nails seasonally with a cat nail trimmer. Only trim the nail up to the “quick," a visible blood vessel in each nail. Dark toenails make it difficult to see the “quick” so use plenty of light.
Hollands do get bored. We provide ours with plenty of toys (plastic treat balls, cardboard, wood blocks, straw tunnels, boxes, etc.). Chew toys like apple sticks also keep teeth healthy. If your bunny has an outdoor play area make sure that there is plenty of shade because they can easily overheat.
Please allow your new Holland time to transition and settle in to their new home. Bunnies can get easily stressed by too much handling and lots of change at one time. Enjoy getting to know your new bunny and best of luck!
- Make sure that your Holland Lop has fresh, cool water at all times. Water bottles are what all of our kits learn to drink from. Crocks/water bowls work well but can be dumped and soiled easily, so it it important to check them regularly.
- We feed Blue Seal Show Hutch Deluxe 17. You may choose your own feed (no corn or soy ingredients). We have provided transition feed to mix with your new feed for the first week or so. Do half transition feed and half new feed, gradually decreasing until your bunny is used to all new feed.
- Feed 1 teaspoon of old fashioned oats (not quick oats) daily to all Hollands under 6 months of age. If your Holland digs or dumps the food bowl, give the oats in a separate smaller dish.
- Provide fresh, unlimited timothy hay or orchard medley daily (no alfalfa as it is too rich).
- ½ cup of feed per day at the same time or ¼ in the morning & ¼ in the evening
- Fresh, unlimited timothy hay
- 1 teaspoon of old fashioned oats weekly
- *NO food treats until 6 months old. Food treats may be given weekly after 6 months old but should be very limited. Too many treats can make your Holland overweight and unhealthy, and could also give your bunny diarrhea and be fatal. Our weekly Holland safe treats include: plain shredded wheat, plain cheerios, dandelion greens & parsley. A great source for bunny safe treats: riseandshinerabbitry.com
If your Holland has watery liquid diarrhea, remove food pellets and give hay and oats only (no treats) with plenty of water (add a bowl of water in addition to your regular water bottle) until you see normal droppings. Hollands can easily get dehydrated and have very sensitive digestive systems. If your Holland stops eating and drinking, you may need to see a veterinarian. Hollands have soft clusters of poop called “cecotrophs” in addition to their normal round/firm droppings. Your baby has learned from his/her mama how to eat these tasty turds. It is completely normal & helps them to maintain a healthy gut.
Please do not bathe your Holland. A young Holland is very sensitive to cold. The stress from bathing and the cold can be fatal. Hollands will groom themselves regularly. They will also ingest lots of fur in the process which is why they need unlimited hay. The high fiber helps to move all the fur through their little guts. You can brush your bunny to help keep his/her hair clean and smooth. If your Holland becomes soiled with stool try to brush it out. If that fails you can cautiously trim the soiled fur with scissors. As a last resort you can wash your Hollands bottom only with mild soapy warm water & be sure to dry as best as you can.
As your bunny grows, you will need to trim their nails seasonally with a cat nail trimmer. Only trim the nail up to the “quick," a visible blood vessel in each nail. Dark toenails make it difficult to see the “quick” so use plenty of light.
Hollands do get bored. We provide ours with plenty of toys (plastic treat balls, cardboard, wood blocks, straw tunnels, boxes, etc.). Chew toys like apple sticks also keep teeth healthy. If your bunny has an outdoor play area make sure that there is plenty of shade because they can easily overheat.
Please allow your new Holland time to transition and settle in to their new home. Bunnies can get easily stressed by too much handling and lots of change at one time. Enjoy getting to know your new bunny and best of luck!