How to Groom your Rabbit - Teeny's Tips

Hi, my name's Teeny. Today I'll show you through this video various techniques on brooming your rabbit safely. Grooming your rabbit is not only a good time to bond with your rabbit but also a great time to check on its overall health. Rabbits like cats are ? groomers. What this means is they like keeping themselves really clean. So as long as you provide them with a healthy diet and keeping their living areas clean, they'll mostly do the rest. However sometimes, they do still need our help. Rabbits shed once every three months, alternating between a light and heavy shed. Rabbits can lose a lot of fur during a heavy shed and may develop bald areas. Thus, we need to remove the dead hair because if we don't, it'll get indigested in the rabbit and it can cause serious indigestive problems. During a heavy shed, you can gently pull out of loose hairs with your fingers and follow up with a brushing. Dampening your hands with water and stroaking your rabbit from head to tail can often removed dead fur. If your rabbit is going through a heavy shed, you should brush them everyday. Brushing should be done in the direction of the coat. If you reversed the stroke from tail to head, you will damage the fur. Be careful when selecting a brush for your rabbit although their coats are fairly thick, the skin underneath is very delicate and you do not want to injured the skin with a painful brush. For that reason, slicker brushes like this are not very appropriate at all unless your rabbit is experiencing a very heavy shed. A bristle brush like this is much more appropriate for daily grooming. Remember, you want your rabbit to enjoy grooming time, not dread it. Okay, rabbits do not need to be bathe as they keep themselves really clean. The fact is for most rabbits, bathing is incredibly a stressful experience thus, it's important not to subject them to this unnecessary trauma. If your rabbit has only a small area of its body that needs to be clean, spot clean that area with only plain water. Many shampoos contain harmful ingredient so using clean water is safest In Sugar's case here, she's a little chucky especially around the tummy area. Female rabbits tends to get a little overweight so she has a problem bending down to clean her butt. So I help her. Depending on the severity, you should clean the affected area every other day to once a week. First, you wanna make sure you have the necessary cleaning supplies, for example water, tissues, a trash bin, scissors, brush, etc. Next, get your rabbit in a position that makes it easy for you to do cleaning. I like to sit on my floor with legs stretched out and have Sugar facing up. Sugar is in what we call a bunny trance, rabbits gets more relaxed in this position and enables you to do the necessary cleaning. It should be fairly easy to trance your rabbit once you've get them in this position but if you're having problems, a tower over the eyes helps calm and down. Then you want to remove any poo that is stuck near her ***. The poo is usually stuck in between the folds of her skins. So gently push that back so you can get to the poo then you wanna dampened the tissue and clean the area. Do this until the area is all clean. You may noticed clumps of fur in your rabbit. These are called mats. Similar to when our hair gets tangled. It's important not to try to comb these mats out as yanking the rabbits fur will cause bleeding. What you want to do is to carefully snip this mats of and check with your fingers first that you're not snipping the rabbit's skin. While you're handling a rabbit, do check for the following as well. Examined ears for signs of waxy build up, debris or any false smell. Dark wax are the appearance of dirt in the ears can be a sign of ear mites. Remember, never ever stick a cotton swob or any other such items into the rabbits ear canal. Check for crusty, flaky skin with bald patches as this is usually a symptom of mites. Lump sores or any kind of inflammation may be an indication of disease or an infection and you should bring your rabbit to see the vet immediately. Rabbits teeth grows continuously and it must be checked to make sure that they're wearying down properly. It's no problem if your rabbits have straight teeths but if your rabbit has crooked teeths or what we call Malocclusione, you'll need to bring it to the vet to have it's teeth trimmed. If left untreated, your rabbit will not be able to eat and may even starve to death. When you're brushing and combing your pet, keep an eye out for fleas. Rabbits that are housed indoors, seldom have fleas but if you do spot some, do contact your vet. While you're handling a rabbit, check it's eyes for any kind of discharge. Examine the bottoms of its feet for any kinds of sores. Check under its chin and make sure that it's ? glands are not swollen or infected With a regular and proper grooming, you can be assured of a happy, healthy pet. Good luck!