Thursday, June 28, 2012

Bunny care - Water and temperature

Bunnies' normal temperature runs over 100 degrees.
Plus they wear little fur coats.

So having a house bunny makes sense, especially here in the South where it can get HOT in the summertime.  The bunnies like air conditioning and avoiding the heat as much as we do. To help the bunnies cool off, we give them cool water, sometimes with ice cubes, in their big crockery water bowl.

GHRS suggested using bottled or filtered water, so they now have their own pitcher in waiting (in the frig). Remember - bunnies should always have access to clean, fresh hay and clean, fresh water, 24/7.

Bunny water service set

An observation about Ethel: She loves when the fresh cool water is first put out in the morning. Not necessarily to drink it - but to lean against it.


You can see the remains of a few ice cubes left floating in the water.
Even in the air conditioned inside, they melt fast.
Tried to get pictures of it, but when I get close, she moves. Sometimes, she almost curls herself around the bowl. Other times, she leans her head on it. This morning, Bunya had backed up to the bowl and was cooling his butt against it.

Be sure to help your bunnies "Be cool!".

9 comments:

  1. great tips,another is for when you don't have air con a frozen bottle of water placed in front of a fan as the fan blows air over the bottle it cools the air

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    1. Good one, Speedy! They can also play with those frozen bottles (http://bunyaboy.blogspot.com/2011/08/bunny-care-stay-cool.html). After that post, I read somewhere that someone recommended slipping the frozen bottle in a sock; that might be okay if they don't eat the sock - I would not trust Lucy at this (she ends up presenting us with little threaded poops - very bad for digestive health). But maybe some bunny would just snuggle against their cool toy. In any form, I think the frozen bottles are best for supervised play.

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  2. Is it alright for me to post the link to this on Facebook?

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    1. Sure. (What page will it be on?)

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    2. Also, you might want to check the Bunny Care page (http://bunyaboy.blogspot.com/p/bunny-care.html) for other posts and some links to great bunny care resources.

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    3. Cool :) I'm just gonna post the link onto my actual page for friends only to see, if that's okay. And thanks for the link!

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    4. Sure, it's fine - if it was one of the animal shelter FB pages, then I wanted to take a peek and maybe request a picture of one of the shelter's adoptable bunnies and their link for a RR post.
      If you don't mind, please ask your friends to become RR "members". Thanks!
      >:)

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  3. I use old 2-liter Coke bottles, fill them up with water and freeze them; then put them in the bunny pen for my furballs to lean up against. Callie loves to roll hers around as she changes locations and often can be found lying her head on the sweating bottle or lounging with her feet under it.

    I keep 4-6 bottles rotating in and out of the freezer so the bunz always have something chilly and wet to lean against.

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