The Hidden Costs of Buying a Bunny Rabbit

After oohing and aahing at the bunnies at this year’s County Fair, my daughter decided that she would like a bunny rabbit of her own. I could hardly blame her, rabbits are rather adorable and seem like they would be rather easy to take care of.

We had rabbits as kids; Dad kept them in hutches in the back forty, and fattened them up on diets of alfalfa hay and carrots from the garden. Like cows, rabbits are grazing animals and do quite nicely on foods grown in the yard, or so I recalled.

Pet shopping

When the big day arrived, my daughter and I went to the local pet store and picked a darling little male rabbit who was around 5 weeks old. The pet store clerk told us he was a “Silver” and a perfect breed for a beginning rabbit owner. As I reached into my wallet for a twenty, the clerk interrupted me.

She told me that our old guinea pig cage wasn’t big enough for a rabbit, and our new pet would need a cage that was at least 20 inches wide by 30 inches long (retail price $56). In addition to the cage, he would also need a rabbit sized watering tower ($3), tip proof food dish ($10), and a special type of rabbit litter of recycled paper ($20). Oh, and did I know that bunnies could be litter trained? No, I didn’t,” I sighed, and the clerk insisted we’d really want a plastic rabbit litter box ($10).

On top of these various accoutrements, we also learned that a bunny rabbit needs a shish kabob skewer ($6) which suspends from the top of the cage to hold gourmet treats ($8), special peach bark twigs ($5) for sharpening teeth, and a fun bunny toy to keep him engaged and entertained ($12). And let’s not forget nail clippers! Rabbit nails grow quite fast and needed to be cut with special bunny clippers ($4) at least twice a month. “If you’ll be wanting to walk your bunny rabbit”, the clerk added,” you’ll need a leash and harness set ($15). And for food, we recommend this marvelous organic alfalfa-carrot pellet product ($12) and bag of Timothy Hay ($10).”

$200 later, we managed to escape from the store before the clerk talked us into a hand carved rabbit hutch with dual platforms, collapsible ladders, and sleeping hammock for outdoor playtime.

How much did we really need?

Mr. Nibbles, as my daughter has dubbed him, is an adorable little guy who enjoys sitting outside in his cage eating dandelion greens and nibbling on carrots. While I don’t deny that a large cage was necessary, a lot of these other things turned out not to be that essential after all.

In retrospect, we could have kept costs down by just buying just the cage, water bottle, and nail clippers. The bunny toy and the peach twigs pretty much get ignored, and one of my pottery bowls would have worked just fine for food.

The harness and leash also turned out to be pointless, since rabbits tend to hop where humans can’t follow. And while recycled paper shavings are pretty nice, for 1/3 of the cost, aspen shavings would have also worked. And what about that litter training? Mr. Nibbles chomped the litter box to pieces in less than a month, and these days, we are using an old Purex container instead.

Had we bothered to do a little reading at the public library before buying Mr. Nibbles, we would have known all this before going hog-wild on rodent accessories.

Buying a rabbit can be a wonderful experience for both you and your child. But before buying that new animal, take the time to do your research of what is necessary for the health and well being of your new pet. And while all these fun things are certainly appealing, it’s always makes the most economic sense to start with the basic package and add the accessories later as you can afford it.