male rabbit pulling his hair out

Question
We just got this bunny about five months ago and all of a sudden he is pulling his hair out. No changes have been made, the same bedding, same food, plently of water? What are we missing. He has not lost weight or any sign of being sick?  

Answer
Hi Teresa,

rabbits in general do not pull their hair out without a reason.  Often it is up to us to determine what it might be, as you started to do.

With intact females it can mean pregnancy.  With males, no such easy answer.  But there are several possibilities I will suggest.

Is he strictly an indoor bunny or is he outside sometimes in the grass?  Do you have any other pets you let outside that perhaps fleas or mites might hitch a ride on and get onto your bunny?  Usually you will see black flecks in the areas where the fur is missing (flea waste products from eating blood).

Another possibility is that he is not getting enough (or as much as he is used to) attention.  Have any of your routines changed that affect him?  Are the kids not spending as much time with him anymore, if maybe school has started up?  Are you not around as much motoring little ones around?  I have seen this happen with several rabbits, especially when a new child is born into the home, often the pets take a back seat and are unhappy about more time alone.  The solution that works is to make sure you do schedule time with them, regularly and consistently (as they are creatures of habit) and their behavior will improve and the hair pulling should stop.

The third thing I would point out is that rabbits shed 4 times a year - two heavy sheds and two light sheds.  If there are no signs of bald patches on him, just tufts of hair around, it could be that it is part of his normal grooming process, and that he is just going through his summer shed.

If it is a significant amount of hair pulled out, I would have your (hopefully) rabbit-savvy vet just examine the bare areas to make sure there are no skin infections going on and also rule out any kind of parasite/critters - you DO NOT want to wait and allow it to turn into something life-threatening requiring long treatments with drugs.  If you don't really have a good rabbit vet (a good cat and dog vet is not the same) go to www.rabbit.org\vets and look one up in your area of the country.  They also have excellent material on all aspects of rabbit behavior.

Feel free to write back about this or anything else.  Lee