By: Moses Wright
The minute anyone thinks of a rabbit, most people will see rabbits as docile and cuddly animals. Rabbits however, do take some time to adapt and feel at ease in unfamiliar environments. With enough time and assurance provided by owners, the rabbits should adjust soon. They like human company but might respond less positively to being held.
Rabbits are more intelligent than most people thought. They can be litter trained and can even be taught little parlor tricks to amuse others. A Japanese man raised a rabbit named Oolong and it had a quaint talent for balancing miniature objects on its head while it hopped around.
There are over 50 different breeds that are recognized by the American Rabbit Breeders Association. However there is much more varieties than that, for example Snowshoe hares are not included in the listed 50 breeds.
This is because as a professional association concerned with organizing them in fairly strict standards they have differentiated the breeds accordingly. With different features, sizes and colors specific to each breed, there are some similarities among all the rabbits irrelevant of their breeds. Rabbits belong to Lagomorphs species. Since they have constantly growing teeth they are often misunderstood as rodents.
Rabbits breed very fast and tend to have a high number of offspring. They live up to 10 years and mature in about 6 months and start breeding immediately. This is because they had survived in the wild being prey to a lot of predations. They have an innate instinct to protect themselves and this has helped in their survival over thoussands of years. Their gestation period is as little as a month and they produce a lot of kits - rabbit babies.
Unlike other mammals whose teeth shift but do not grow after adulthood, rabbit's teeth keep growing through out their lives, To control the growth of the teeth, they keep chewing on anything and everything possible. That could be a problem for rabbit owners since they damage the furniture and other materials in the house. The most common or even favorite thing for the rabbits is the shoe. This problem can be handled by consciously keeping the shoes out of reach.
Rabbit proofing the furniture at home helps to prevent the furniture from further damages. Owners should provide their rabbits with lot of chewable toys available in pet shops to keep them from exploring and chewing other items in the house. Another natural instinct of rabbit is digging because they live in burrows in the wild. This can become and issue with domestic pets, as they will dig holes in the garden and spoil the foliage.
Their emotions can be adversely affected easily. Due to stress, rabbits can suffer from a number of medical afflicitons. They can be easily disturbed with loud noises and screaming. Children may not be aware that rabbits dislike to have their ears played with. They could even bite children if they are stressed.
Rabbits have a vision of close to 360 degrees to afford them a good view of possible predators. However, they do have a blind spot under their face that is approximately about 10 degrees. So, they could shift their heads frequently, and try to gauge the distance of objects through looking at the objects in different perspectives.
Rabbits need regular grooming. Though they are clean animals naturally, it is necessary to brush them often to avoid accumulation of fur balls in the intestine.
With more and more people choosing rabbits as their pets, it is clear that these small animals are gaining popularity and make good companions who amuse their owners well.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Moses Wright is a an experience dog lover with 3 beautiful dogs. He created a pet problems and solutions site to help fellow pet owners stop their pet behavior problems. You can get more information about rabbit problems and solutions at his site.
