Can we save the rabbits?
Detail:
Rabbit Awareness Week ends on Sunday, a week in which nationwide events were held to help raise awareness about rabbits and their welfare. Formerly called Burgess National Rabbit Week, this year’s event focused on obesity.
The facts are depressing. Rabbits are still all too often viewed as the perfect soft, fluffy children’s pet, and many are bought on impulse – especially around Easter time. Then what happens is a large percentage end up being abandoned at rescue shelters, or released into the wild and even on housing estates!
To compound the problem, many owners, it appears, are not aware of what it takes to keep a rabbit healthy and happy. Simple things like the fact that rabbits need fibre – lots and lots of it. And not just from the veg, fruit and carrot sector either, but mainly hay and grass.
Or the fact that rabbits need company, preferably a sterilised male and female from the same litter. Or that it could cost more than £3,000 all-in to keep a rabbit over the course of its lifetime.
Why is there this horrific lack of knowledge? Or are owners being told what is best, but they choose instead to carry on keeping the pet in the same way they did when they were children?
It’s a hard one but, as always, it’s down to education and continuously raising awareness by driving the message home, for which Burgess and its partners of this week-long initiative deserve credit. During the week, for instance, participating vets across the country held free rabbit health checks.
Retailers, obviously, have a huge part to play – and not just during such an event, but all year round. But apart from helping educate current and potential owners, it is also important that all staff know how to sex rabbits (and all small animals for that matter) accurately. Rescue shelters are full of abandoned animals, in which a female suddenly turns out to be male. And the truth is realised only when a litter is born.
The facts are depressing. Rabbits are still all too often viewed as the perfect soft, fluffy children’s pet, and many are bought on impulse – especially around Easter time. Then what happens is a large percentage end up being abandoned at rescue shelters, or released into the wild and even on housing estates!
To compound the problem, many owners, it appears, are not aware of what it takes to keep a rabbit healthy and happy. Simple things like the fact that rabbits need fibre – lots and lots of it. And not just from the veg, fruit and carrot sector either, but mainly hay and grass.
Or the fact that rabbits need company, preferably a sterilised male and female from the same litter. Or that it could cost more than £3,000 all-in to keep a rabbit over the course of its lifetime.
Why is there this horrific lack of knowledge? Or are owners being told what is best, but they choose instead to carry on keeping the pet in the same way they did when they were children?
It’s a hard one but, as always, it’s down to education and continuously raising awareness by driving the message home, for which Burgess and its partners of this week-long initiative deserve credit. During the week, for instance, participating vets across the country held free rabbit health checks.
Retailers, obviously, have a huge part to play – and not just during such an event, but all year round. But apart from helping educate current and potential owners, it is also important that all staff know how to sex rabbits (and all small animals for that matter) accurately. Rescue shelters are full of abandoned animals, in which a female suddenly turns out to be male. And the truth is realised only when a litter is born.
By:
Sandra
Date/time :
29/04/2010
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