twitching/spasms in hind legs

Question
HI! We're babysitting a friend's pet bunny at the moment. She's 6 months old, extremely friendly and very active. But today she woke me up in the middle of the night - her hind legs were either spasming or twitching, almost as if she wanted to jump really high, and her hind legs' muscles contracted and released (making a loud noise as if she pushed away from the ground), but the rest of her body didn't move. It lasted about half an hour, with about one spasm  every couple of minutes, and then it stopped. She's eating well, she's grooming herself all day, so she appears to be ok, but I couldn't find any info on what happened and why, and whether i really should take her to the vet. Can you help?

Thank you!!!

Answer
Dear Alex,

It's hard for me to know for sure from your description, but I think the bunny may have been thumping.  This is when a bunny makes a very hard, rapid *stamp* with one or both hind feet--usually in response to something that's made her nervous or afraid.  It's the rabbit alarm call.

If she seemed very alert and stiff while she did this, then I suspect that she heard something that alarmed her, and she wanted to wake you up and let you know.

Here is a video of a rabbit thumping, so you can see if this might be what she was doing.  If not, please write back with a bit more detail.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=rabbit+thumping&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

If you do need a rabbit vet at any point, you can find one here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Hope this helps.

Dana