Buying a Pet Rabbit - Characteristics and Health Information

Rabbits are cute and soft with fascinating behavior. While they are affectionate animals, they may take some time to get adjusted to a new environment. But once they are given enough time and sense of security, they love the company of human being, however it is good to note that they do not like to be held.

Rabbits are more intelligent than most people thought. They can be litter trained and can also be trained to perform some amusing activities. A Japanese man raised a rabbit named Oolong and it had a quaint talent for balancing miniature objects on its head while it hopped around.

There are over 50 different breeds that are recognized by the American Rabbit Breeders Association. However, there are more varieties as some breeds like the Snowshoe hares are not on the list.

This is because as a professional association concerned with organizing them in fairly strict standards they have differentiated the breeds accordingly. With different features, sizes and colors specific to each breed, there are some similarities among all the rabbits irrelevant of their breeds. Rabbits belong to Lagomorphs species. Since they have constantly growing teeth they are often misunderstood as rodents.

Rabbits breed very fast and tend to have a high number of offspring. They live up to 10 years and mature in about 6 months and start breeding immediately. This is because they had survived in the wild being prey to a lot of predations. They have an innate instinct to protect themselves and this has helped in their survival over thoussands of years. Their gestation period is as little as a month and they produce a lot of kits - rabbit babies.

Unlike other mammals whose teeth shift but do not grow after adulthood, rabbit's teeth keep growing through out their lives, To control the growth of the teeth, they keep chewing on anything and everything possible. That could be a problem for rabbit owners since they damage the furniture and other materials in the house. One of the favorite toys for your rabbit could be your shoe. This problem can be handled by consciously keeping the shoes out of reach.

To prevent the furniture from suffering additional damage, rabbit proofing of your home is advised. Owners should provide their rabbits with lot of chewable toys available in pet shops to keep them from exploring and chewing other items in the house. Another natural instinct of rabbit is digging because they live in burrows in the wild. This could be a problem with domestic pets, since they dig up the garden and damage your plants.

Their emotions can be adversely affected easily. There are several medical conditions that they are borne to as a result of stress. They can be easily disturbed with loud noises and screaming. Children may not be aware that rabbits dislike to have their ears played with. They may even attack the children if they are stressed out.

Rabbits have a vision of close to 360 degrees to afford them a good view of possible predators. However, they do have a blind spot under their face that is approximately about 10 degrees. So they may move their head constantly in order to estimate the distance of objects by analyzing the object in different angles.

Rabbits need regular grooming. Though they are clean animals naturally, it is necessary to brush them often to avoid accumulation of fur balls in the intestine.

With more and more people choosing rabbits as their pets, it is clear that these small animals are gaining popularity and make good companions who amuse their owners well.

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Moses Wright loves to help pet owners with their pet problems whenever he is free. You can find free pet problems and solutions resources, rabbit problems and solutions on his site.

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