Scamp’s evening exercise routine involves a lot of binky-chase (you run at me and jump, I race half way across the room throwing in a binky, you run at me… and so on around the sofa and under the table). Binky-chase always ends with Scamp doing a sudden stop instead of a run, so the chaser has to take avoiding action to avoid stepping on him. That’s your cue to administer nose rubs and, as soon as you signal your willingness to comply, he’ll flop over until he’s received enough ear rubs to recharge ready for the next round. This goes on for at least an hour – with occasional snack breaks – which is when he scoffs down his home baked treats.

It’s very hard to get photos of this process, particularly the chasing part as it’s usually evening when the light is bad and I’m chasing a rabbit which is never a good combination for non blurry photos which include the rabbit in the shot. I did manage to get these of the flop portion, although you’ll have to excuse the angle as he was flopped across my feet which again makes taking a picture a little tricky.

Doesn’t he look cute and sleepy? In two minutes time he’ll be recharged and back to racing around like a silly whatsit.

Rabbits love fresh plants, but sometimes they love them too much and the poor plant doesn’t stand a chance. If only they’d learn just to nibble a little bit instead of eating it down the ground and then digging out the roots.

Drum roll please, introducing the super duper just bunny-just-nibble-a-bit planter that allows your bunny to browse without committing plant-homicide – as modelled by Scamp – do you think he looks a bit suspicious?

Okay yes, it’s a flower pot with an upside-down hanging basket on top, but it will let your bunny engage in a little bit of foraging from the comfort of their pen, or, if your bunnies have access to your garden, it is also an excellent way to give your pot plants enough protection to stay alive.

How to Make Your Bunny Garden

First you’ll need a flowerpot, or a bucket, or something similar that will contain soil. My top tip would be the flower buckets they sell cut flowers from. These are often disposed of rather than reused and if you ask your local florist nicely they may give you one for free – ours asks for 25p to charity.

I used this flower pot, which, even though it looks tiny, is about 12″/30cm cross.

Then you’ll need some soil to put in it. You could dig some out the garden – or just use multi-purpose compost from the garden centre. My top tip would be to add a handful of bunny poops in the bottom layer – these are great organic fertilizer and particularly great if you’re just using soil from your garden which might be low on nutrients. Which reminds me, I must do a post about my lovely compost.

Here’s some soil (it’s in a flower bucket in case you were wondering what they looked like):

You’ll also need a hanging basket. The trick is to find one about the same size as as your pot, ideally you want it to sit just inside the rim. They are often standard sizes like 12″, 14″ or 18″. Here’s mine – 12″ to fit my 12″ pot. Just unclip the chains, you won’t need them.

The final thing is something to grow in it! There are so many choices, you could try Nasturtiums, Pot Marigolds or Pansies if you wanted something pretty but safe if your bunny should nibble.

Some tasty looking nasturtiums!

Or you might like a mix of your rabbit’s herbs – parsley? Basil?

Bail grown from seed

Or perhaps a natural mix of grass and weeds such dandelion and thistle. You could collect seeds or look out on ebay etc. for people selling seed mixes aimed at rabbits/tortoises.

That's some long grass!

You can grow your plants from seed – sow them straight in your pot if you like, or buy plants if you want faster results.  As your bunny nibbles around the edges you should end up with a nice bushy plant under the hanging basket which sticks occasional leaves out for your bunny to nibble on. Some plants like basil, actually do better if you pinch the tips out, so your bunny is really doing you a favour!

You’ll need to water your pot when it gets dry (so you might want to put a tray underneath) and most plants will need some sun so, if you have it indoors, pick a sunny spot or move it outside sometimes to get some light. As the basket protects the roots/base of the plant from being chewed to bits it should last months!

I think Scamp sniffed every blade of grass…

.. before he found the best one…

Scamp’s vaccinations were due recently, and after the trouble he had last year with a reaction to his VHD jab, I was very interested in the newly released combined VHD-Myxi jab. It contains a genetically engineered version of the myxomatosis virus with VHD bolted on. It’s also water-based, unlike the older VHD vaccines, which are oil-based, and we’re fairly sure that was what Scamp had reacted to. The good news is this time he absolutely no problems and now he’s protected for a whole year against these horrible diseases.

I thought I’d post a little about vaccinations for anyone reading that hasn’t got around to vaccinating yet – this mainly applies to the UK as the US doesn’t seem to have the same issues with them as we do and routine vaccination isn’t standard. Remember I’m not a vet, so if you’ve got any worries give your vet a call.

How do vaccinations work?

Vaccinations give your rabbit’s immune system a sneak preview of what a particular disease looks like. That way it can learn to recognise the disease and prepare defences (antibodies) to fight it off if it encounters it for real. Different diseases need different antibodies to fight them off, and they take time to manufacture. If a rabbit’s body has never encountered a disease before, the disease can take hold and make them sick before they have time to make the antibodies. If you vaccinate your rabbit, it will have antibodies stockpiled ready for action and can destroy the disease before it can make your bunny sick.

Vaccinating against Myxomatosis helps your rabbit's immune system create defences

How do vaccines give a sneak preview without infecting the rabbit with the disease?

Obviously, we don’t want to give our rabbits the disease for real, so the problem is: how to you let the immune system take a look without catching the virus? Vaccines solve this problem in different ways. The myxi vaccination we use in the UK (Novibac Myxo) actually contains the Shope Fibroma virus, which is harmless but related to Myxi so antibodies made to fight it work on myxi too. VHD vaccines use the actual VHD disease but it is inactivated (killed), so it can’t cause the disease. The new combination RVHD/Myxi vaccine is genetically engineered so it isn’t strong enough to cause the diseases it protects against.

Why do we need boosters?

The immune system has a lot to keep track off and if it hasn’t seen the disease in while then sometimes it forgets what it looks like and the anti-bodies sit rusting away in the corner. A booster servers as a reminder and ensures that the immune system is still ready for action.

There is some debate over whether we really need boosters. When a manufacturer recommends an annual booster, often what they have done is tested the immune system at a year and found that it is still functioning, so they know for sure that your rabbit is protected for that year. What we often don’t know is exactly how long the immune system will remember without prompting after that. By vaccinating when the year is up, it prompts the immune system again as a precaution to make sure the protection doesn’t lapse.

What’s the new combination vaccine all about?

A new vaccine Nobiac Myxo-RHD has recently been released which protects against both myxomatosis and VHD with a single jab. There are several benefits to this:

• You don’t have to make two trips two weeks apart for two different vaccinations.
• It is based on the actual myxomatosis virus, which should make it even better than the old vaccination (based on Shope Fibroma) at giving protection.
• It lasts 12 months, so you don’t have to return for a myxi booster every 6 months.
• It is water instead of oil-based, so the type of skin reaction Scamp got to his VHD last year shouldn’t happen.

The new combination vaccine protects against myxi and VHD

I’ve heard you can’t use it if your rabbits are already vaccinated?

There is a small issue with this but it doesn’t affect most rabbits in the UK. As the VHD component is hitching a lift on the myxi virus, if your rabbit already has protection against myxi, then it might stop the new vaccine getting in and then your rabbit’s immune system won’t get to meet the VHD part and learn to protect against it.

However, that’s only the case if your rabbit has protection against the real myxi virus not the Shope Fibroma virus used in the UK myxi vaccination. So, the only way this issue will affect your rabbit is if he or she has had a vaccine somewhere other than the UK or has caught Myxomatosis in the past.

If your rabbits Myxi and VHD jabs aren’t due at the same time, it’s fine to vaccinate when the first one is due, even if that means the other overlaps.

If your rabbits had genuine myxi in the past, the left over anti-bodies might stop it getting a look at the VHD piggybacked on to the Myxi jab.

I hope that helps explain things, if you’ve got any questions just give your vet a call and discuss them. And, if you haven’t already, then please get your rabbit vaccinated – even house bunnies like Scamp need protection!

Scamp has almost finished his last batch of treats, and the one thing the soggy weather has been good for is growing grass – so I thought: how about some grass based treats.

Ingredients

I wrote the quantities down as I made it, but then misplaced the piece of paper, but I think it was about 400g of grass, three bananas and a handful of oats. As I was making it up as I went along, I don’t think it matters if you get creative with the quantities. My mix made two A4 sized trays.

Directions

Step 1: Finely chop some grass (as demonstrated by my mum), we used scissors, but I guess if you can do super-speed chief style chopping you could use a knife.

Step 2: Add other ingredients. We added oats for  biscuitness and banana to bind it together. Top tip – mash the banana and then put it in. It’s tricky trying to mash in with the grass.

Step 3: Mix it all together, like so…

Step 4: Dodge rabbit skidding around kitchen floor in paper bag (aka grass collection device)

Step 5: Press mixture into tray; it needs to be quite thin (5mm) as grass contains a lot of moisture that needs to dry out. I also tried scoring it but it didn’t really help when it came to breaking it into pieces later.

Step 6: Bake on low heat for several hours – it took about 3hrs at 130 degrees

Step 7: Prise out of tray (yep, not the prettiest of treats to look at)

Step 8: Conduct a taste test, verdict: very yummy thanks!

Step 9 : Do the washing up!

Licking the bowl is the best bit of cooking!

They aren’t quite so pretty as the Fenugreek & Banana rabbit treats but should be very healthy as they are mainly grass. Scamp is a good hay/grass eater anyway but I wonder if a bunny that’s not so keen might enjoy these as a sneaky way to increase their hay intake. I imagine you could use hay instead of grass and they’d cook quicker. Perhaps next time we’ll try a cross between these and the previous treats.

If you give it ago let me know what your bunny thinks…

Easter is almost upon us again. It seems crazy to me that people would think getting a baby bunny is a good plan for Easter. Surely it only takes the barest of thought to work out that a rabbit will live much longer than the Easter holidays last. That a real rabbit is a living, eating, pooping, chewing creature that will require ongoing commitments in both time and money. But, every year I see signs go up advertising ‘cute bunnies ready for Easter’ or get emails ‘my daughter really wants a rabbit for Easter when can we pick one up’.

Then just weeks post Easter, rescue centres start receiving the post-Easter influx because the kids are bored already, someone’s allergic, the rabbit doesn’t like being picked up, it makes a mess, it costs money… all things that should have been considered before getting a pet.

So, to help people decide is a rabbit is really what they want for Easter, I’ve put together this handy information graphic:

(feel free to take it and spread it around – I’ll even give you an incentive – see below)

Win a Copy of my Book

Pop a link in the comments to where you posted this graphic eg facebook, twitter, your blog, website or forum or any other way you’ve spread the message not to buy rabbits for Easter and I’ll add your name to a draw (on Easter Sunday) for a copy of my book.