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bathing bunnies

22 10:20:04

Question
Hi Mr.Meyer,
          I have two male bunnies, one and a half year olds and short haired variety.I know rabbits are clean animals and my bunnies groom themselves everyday. They are clean otherwise but lately i see urine stains on their fur. I am tempted to give them a bath but my earlier experiences tell me my bunnies absolutely hate water.They jump and climb all over u and try escaping the shower in every possible way. Even tubs don't work. They may even hurt themselves in the process.What do i do, should i leave them alone?

Answer
Hi,

do NOT bathe your rabbits.  Rabbits by nature clean themselves and with extremely rare exceptions, avoid water.

I am assuming that the urine stains you are seeing are on their back legs (hocks).  My suggestion is cleaning their bedding material (whatever soft towels/bedding you have in their cages for them to rest on), and also, to change their used litter material more often so that when they are in their litterpans, they are not always sitting so long on wet litter.

I would suggest a litterpan litter material such as hardwood wood stove fuel pellets that you can get at any home store.  It is safe for them, and when they get wet, they break down into sawdust.  It does a great job absorbing urine.  You can easily see what material needs to be replaced.  It is safe for their lungs, and is the lease expensive litter product you will find out there.  They generally sell it in 40 pound bags for around 4 dollars a bag.