Rabbit kisses and need for salt

Question
We have 2 male (neutered) Netherland dwarf bunnies. At night when it's quiet and the kids have gone to bed the bunnies will come out to say hello to my husband and I. We give them their nightly treats and then they would give us what I call kisses. My husband says it's not them giving us kisses but licking the salt off our skin. I know that rabbits do not need salt but is it possible that they have a salt deficiency?

Answer
Dear Jennifer,

I hate to disappoint your husband, but you're right.  Rabbits don't lick because they need salt.  They are doing this as a sign of affection.  Rabbits groom one another and the humans (and other animals) they love, and it is akin to kissing or stroking as humans do.

Rabbits, like most mammals, are strongly emotional animals.  They may not be able to do calculus, but be assured that they feel love, fear, jealousy, anger and all the common emotions that some naive people like to think are uniquely human.  They're not.  All mammals have the same essential limbic system in the brain, and the more we understand about general brain function, the more we see that mammals have all evolved with similar emotions. Emotions are adaptive, and a product of evolution as surely as the shape and color of any species.  There's nothing anthropomorphic about it.

So give your bunnies lots of love, because they love you!  :)

Hope that helps.

Dana