Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund
This website is the best place to start if you have just adopted pet rabbits. If you are considering a rabbit as a pet, please look here first! The Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund is the largest organisation devoted to improving the quality of life of the UK's pet rabbits. Despite being one of the most popular pets, rabbits are amongst the most neglected. Through its campaigns and advice, the RWAF aims to change people's perceptions of pet rabbits; to many, a pet rabbit is viewed as a cheap, easy-to-care-for children's pet, which can be kept alone in a hutch. The RWAF strives to show that, instead, rabbits have many complex health and welfare needs, and this common myth that they are a great 'starter pet' is a main cause of neglect. With the right perception, owners are more likely to provide proper care, and in turn their rabbits' will respond by showing their true, incredibly intelligent, and fun nature.
We became members of the Association in 1998, to find information on how to keep a rabbit indoors. Over the years, we've learned so much through the RWAF and developed our approach accordingly. For example, our first houserabbit, Lupin, was kept in an indoor hutch when we were at work and overnight… now our bunnies have 24/7 access to our living room, and can also access a run on the patio – our living room is a bunny playground!
Through our membership of the RWAF, our vet was able to access the RWAF specialist veterinary advice service, and thanks to this, Mabel had several extra years of quality life, for which we are so grateful.
Our bunnies have starred on the cover stars a couple of times, and their photos have appeared many times within the magazine!
We highly recommend visiting the RWAF website, and it’s worth becoming a member.
This group supports the Good Practice Code for the Welfare of Rabbits and aims to change the law in England, to improve the lives of pet rabbits. The RAAG campaigns through the Rabbit Awareness Week (RAW), an annual event which highlights a different welfare message to rabbit owners each year. The RAAG website is another invaluable source of information on the best way to care for your rabbits.
Pellets or nuggets should form only 5% of a rabbit’s diet, and muesli-type food should be avoided, as it encourages selective feeding. See our page on diet to discover what rabbits should eat.
Our rabbits eat Burgess Excel nuggets, and we scatter-feed them rather than placing in a bowl, so they enjoy foraging for them. Fortunately for our bunnies, Burgess Excel first became available back in 1998 – just as our first rabbit came to live with us!
Apart from making tasty nuggets, Burgess also invests in projects which promote rabbit health and welfare, eg. Rabbit Awareness Week, and webinars for vets. The Burgess website contains plenty of useful information on rabbit care.
Hay (or grass) should form at least 85% of a rabbit’s diet (see our page on diet to find out why it’s so important). Our bunnies have a definite favourite: Pillow Wad, and especially like their Timothy hay. They enjoy this quality dust-extracted hay, and we love that Pillow Wad is a friendly, family-run business, committed to sustainability – and as part of this commitment, their bags are made of potato starch, so we can empty the bunnies’ litter tray into these empty hay bags and throw them straight into our compost! The bunnies also love their range of herbs and forage.
Just4rabbits is a family run business offers rabbit safe enrichment, forage, and treats. The 'Forage and Enrichment' subscription box is a delight, both for bunnies and humans! It's full of seasonal, healthy forage and treats, and even an enrichment toy!
Another small business selling a wonderful range of dried herbs, forage, and treats... and even seeds, for those people considering growing their own! There’s also plenty of advice for rabbit owners.
This modular connective run system allows rabbits to exercise safely.
Oolong, the “head performance” bunny
The website featuring Oolong, a Dutch rabbit in Japan, was listed on our original Bunnymad links page, in 2002. The site no longer exists, but you can still view pages, courtesy of the ‘Wayback Machine’ archive. We think this deserves a place on our links page, as apart from being a pioneer in photo blogging, Oolong’s owner, Hironori Akutagawa, inadvertently started one of the first internet discussions about rabbit welfare. Read more about Oolong here.
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