My three-year-old mini-lop eared bunny, Talulah, does a lot of cute things, and I thought I would share my top five favorite things she does, and hopefully, you’ll learn more about rabbits, so here they are, enjoy!
- The Grumpy Face :(
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Okay, so for context, Talulah, or Lulu as she is often called, is a prey animal and her eyes are on the sides of her face, rather than the front. This location of her eyes allows her to have almost 360-degree vision, which helps her better detect predators. And around these eyes, she has white and orange fur that obstructs the appearance of her rounded eyes, making them instead appear to be squinted in frustration, and because of this, she often appears to be grumpy when you look at her head-on, which I find absolutely adorable. I know she is not actually grumpy or upset most of the time, because she rarely expresses her discontent through thumping, or pounding her hind feet against the ground, as most bunnies will do to let you know they are upset, and she only thumps if she hears a loud noise, or because I moved her things around to clean up her area. Now, back to the grumpy face, sometimes it is funny to see her look grumpy in different situations, like when she is relaxed on her carpet under the futon, or pooping in her litter box.
- Throwing and Munching
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Lulu enjoys toys that she can munch on and toss around, and it is very entertaining to watch her do so to her toys. She especially enjoys throwing around her colorful, hard plastic baby keys. She picks them up in her mouth, raises her chin up, and throws them down, or shakes her head side to side to jangle the keys, like she’s roughin’ them up in an interrogation. She also likes to throw around and munch on her empty toilet paper rolls, which are a great toy for bunnies as long as they do not eat too much, and the roll is empty and has no glue, ink, or dyes on it. Continuing with the munching, Lulu loves her romaine lettuce, and I love to see her happily crunching on the big leaves one at a time, looking like a paper shredder gradually working away at a piece of paper. I recommend researching the appropriate toys to buy and give your bunny before you give them to them because there are a lot of toys on the market that are advertised for bunnies, but are in fact unsuitable for them. I recommend the link down below for the Rabbit House Society, they are a great source!
- Moving Hay Bin
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Next, I’m going to talk about how important hay is for rabbits. It is essential to their diet and should make up 80% of it. And this is important to mention, I do not know everything about rabbits, and I am certainly not a vet, so please consult with your rabbit’s vet for clinical advice, and this is what I have gathered from my experience with owning a bunny, and every bunny is different. So, as I was saying, according to the article, “The Importance of Hay” on the House Rabbit Society, eating plenty of hay daily benefits the rabbit in a variety of ways, such as promoting dental health, regulating gut health, and much more. But not any old hay will do, grass hays are the most healthy, and the type of hay given also depends on the rabbit’s dietary needs. For example, the high levels of calcium and fat in alfalfa hay should only be given as a treat to adult rabbits and should be given to young bunnies who need the extra calcium and fat to grow. Therefore, adult rabbits should be given other grass hays such as timothy hay, which is more suitable for adult rabbits who do not need as much calcium and fat as they did when they were young. And bunnies adore hay, and Lulu loves to get it all over the place! She has a large, plastic bin full of timothy hay on the ground that she can jump into and munch on at all times. This is great because she is getting the nutrition she needs and her urge to graze is satiated, but she sometimes gets frustrated if the hay bin is in her way, so she likes to grab the rim of it with her teeth and knock it over, or sometimes she nudges it with her head and it tumbles over, hay everywhere! She does this quite often, and I like to think of her doing this as her way of redecorating her area.
- Binky/zoom/flop/sploot/periscope
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Get ready for some bunny terminology. A binky is when a rabbit jumps and twists in the air, and they do so to express happiness and comfort. For Lulu, it is often spontaneous and happens many times in a row in the morning when I open up her bag of pellets. A zoom is when a rabbit, or another animal, spontaneously runs really fast, often in a circle to express playfulness and happiness. My apartment has a lot of carpets so she can freely run around and not slip on the laminate flooring. A flop is an expression of relaxation and usually occurs when a rabbit is sitting and suddenly flops onto its side. It’s so funny to see her flop, she looks so silly. A sploot is another expression of relaxation and occurs when an animal stretches and lays on their stomachs or sides with their legs stretched out behind them. Lulu loves to do this under the futon, which is her hiding spot, which is very important for rabbits to have because as prey animals they prefer a place where they can easily hide and escape from predators. And finally, a periscope is when a bunny stands on its hind legs, lifts its body up, and dangles its paws from its chests. When Lulu does this it looks like she’s looking for something, most likely a treat, and I know she’s also checking out her surroundings, as again, she is a prey animal, so it is instinct for her to survey her area.
- The Nudging and Twitching
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Lulu likes to nudge me with her head and most of the time I’m not sure if I’m in her way, or she is claiming me as her own by rubbing her chin with scent glands on me. Either way, the “out of the way!” attitude she displays when she does this is adorable, and I love her sassiness. Now, onto the twitching, which sounds weird, but is so cute. When my boyfriend or I give Lulu a treat we like to say that she gets the “Banana Butt”, which is a butt twitch she does when she eats a banana treat or a small piece of a banana. She and many other bunnies go bananas for bananas and she gets so excited when she has a bite of a banana that she shakes her booty! I mean come on, how much cuter can you get?
Well, I hope you learned more about bunnies, and if you’re curious to learn even more about these lovable lagomorphs, I included a link in the sources to an amazing resource for rabbit information, enjoy!
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