House Rabbit Society of Chicago

02/14/2025

I always tell our adopters to avoid these things! As much as the bunnies love them, they are not beneficial for them at all.

We were contacted by a lady reporting that her rabbit had passed and she would like to donate his items as she no longer wanted another rabbit.
Even though our bunnies are vaccinated we disinfect any donated toys and avoid opened food, and we always ask the cause of death of said bunny.
The lady mentioned that according to the vet her bunny died from bloating. 💔
As you know bloating is a life-threatening condition in rabbits that occurs when their stomach/cecum become distended with gas.
Even though it can be caused by several factors, such as :
🔺Hairballs - Rabbits groom themselves and often ingest hair, which can form hairball that can block their digestive tract.
🔺Dietary changes: - inappropriate foods can lead to an imbalance in gut bacteria and gas production.
🔺Gastrointestinal stasis: A condition where food doesn’t move through the digestive system, allowing gas to accumulate.
In the case of her bunny the vet believed that the high ingestion of bamboo sticks was the cause of his death. 💔💔😞
The "sweet bamboo" chews found commonly on the internet are actually dried sugar cane stalks rather than true bamboo; as such they are heavier in sugars than a plain wood chew.
Sugar ferments easily and fermentation produces gas. 💔😞
If a rabbit consumes too many easily fermentable sugars and starches, the cecum can become overloaded, leading to excessive fermentation and potentially harmful byproducts leading to gas and bloating, gut stasis, diarrhea or even toxin-producing bacteria leading to illness.
Unfortunately rabbit food is not regulated and just because they have a picture of a bunny in their package doesn’t mean their product is safe.
Please be diligent about what you feed your bunnies.

02/14/2025

Happy VD and welcome to safety Crouton 💌 yes, the people who dumped him outside in the freezing cold also dyed his hair pink 🤡 How festive! He’s just a young guy who binkies when he sees me coming 🥹 Thanks to good sam Susan for contacting us to catch him and thanks to my childhood bestie Mollie for helping me catch!!!

If anyone can chip in a few dollars towards getting him vetted, that would be amazing 💕💕💕

If you can’t donate, please comment and share! We get like a fraction of a cent for every share and comment on our posts. It does add up!

02/12/2025

Could not agree more!

No animal should live in an educational environment, and we will never rehome any of our rescues to live in one.

Animals are sentient beings, not tools for education - they are deserving of consistent care from a family in an environment where all that is expected of them is to live full, content lives with all of their welfare needs met.

You can read more on our stance on prey animals inhabiting education settings here: https://bunnyjackpotfoundation.co.uk/guidance/prey-animals-in-education-settings

02/07/2025

Isn’t Brooke Shields beautiful? Everyone who meets her talks about what a stunner she is but she’s also had almost zero interest from adopters. She’s a little shy but will eventually settle in for head pats. She loves to explore, especially hopping up onto furniture to do binkies 🤗 She is quite tidy as well. She’s a big girl so she needs a big space!

L1nk to adoption app is in the b10 or here - https://hrschicago.org/available-pets/adoption-application/

02/06/2025

Day 6 of and today’s featured bunny who has been waiting way too long for her forever home is Skyler. She was also … caught as a stray last year. She is a spicy smol girl who loves to bury herself in a blankie just as much as she loves to party. She has had almost zero adoption interest and I can’t understand why! She’s petite and not “boring” looking which is usually what people go for!

Interested in Skyler or any of our other buns? Link to our adoption app is in bi0 or here - https://hrschicago.org/available-pets/adoption-application/

02/05/2025

Can you see where the problem occurs?

😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓😓

02/05/2025

Penelope is another bunny who has been waiting toooooo long for her forever home. She was picked up as a stray by a local animal control last year and her previous “guardian” had been starving her. Fear not, her emaciated days are far behind her as she’s now a BBB(big beautiful bunny.) She is very sweet, personable and active. She’s looking for a home with a compatible bunny friend and at least 60 sq ft of space at all times so she can get her zoomies in every day!

02/04/2025

Butters is another one of our eligible bunchelors who we recently took in. He was caught as a stray in October and has made many fans since! He is a very sweet and affectionate guy. He loves to cuddle! Every app we get is looking for a cuddly and affectionate rabbit but the most affectionate rabbits are usually the REW’s that nobody ever applies for!

02/03/2025

February is the month of love and coincidentally it’s also Adopt a Rescue Rabbit Month… so why not let us help find a compatible match for your solo buns?

We specialize in rabbit-led, ethical bonding and understanding rabbit behavior. This means we keep the rabbits’ welfare at the heart of the process and we listen to what they have to say. If bunnies are not compatible, we do not force the process, drawing it out for weeks, months or years. We never ever employ stress bonding techniques such as tiny space, bath tub or car ride bonding because our aim is to minimize stress as much as we can.

Our rabbits’ European wild counterparts do not go on short dates every day and swap items back and forth between separate territories or live side by side until they are bonded - so it doesn’t make sense for us to do that with our bunnies either, especially when you take into account how territorial they are as a species! This is why the “dating” method is often unnecessarily stressful and confusing, inefficient and leads to rabbits being mislabeled as “unbondable.” Our companion buns are social creatures just like their European wild cousins who live in close-knit groups. In the wild, new rabbits in a warren fully integrate themselves into the group at once or they quickly move onto a different group they get along with better.

Our process is not so different! If bunnies are not getting along, we move on until we find a compatible match. Sometimes we get lucky and bunnies bond with the first friend they meet but plenty of bunnies need to meet a few(or more) to find a beneficial match. We never force incompatible buns to stay together. This does not mean every pair or group is an insta-bond. Most rabbits need a bit of time to figure out how to communicate with a new friend or friends. With the method we use for bonding, most bunnies figure it out in a matter of hours and the rest of the week they spend with us is really quite uneventful.

Once we’re confident your rabbits have met the right match, we will help you transition them home and be on hand to support your guardianship journey!

Photo by 🐰🐰

02/02/2025

Very sad

02/01/2025

I truly cannot believe Junior has not been adopted yet. He is so precious and playful and fun to watch. He’s a young man and loves to party. He may look large here but he’s just a lil guy. He’s looking for a home with lots of room to zoom and a compatible bunny friend(or a couple!) As always, we do the bonding for all approved adopters(takes about a week) so it’s minimally stressful for everyone involved.

Interested in this cutie? Apply here - https://hrschicago.org/available-pets/adoption-application/

Thanks to his foster mom for making our VD post template 🤩

01/28/2025

Please read and help us help Buttercup!!!

I want to say to start, I think it should go without saying that folks shouldn’t have pets for selfish reasons like needing an animal to cuddle with them - if that’s what you need out of a companion animal, I would steer clear of rabbits. Rabbits are prey animals and their nature is to be scared of everything. Sometimes people do get lucky with a super affectionate bunny, what a great bonus! Personally I am happy to give rabbits a home where they can act like rabbits and I don’t need anything in return from them.

Now that brings me to putting out a plea for our girl Buttercup. She has been returned twice now. The first due to failure to bond. In that case it’s what we would always prefer. Some bonds just won’t ever work and we do everything to ensure all of our rabbits go to a home where they’ll have a friend of their own species.

But that second time- the second return, her adopter inexcusably broke her bond with their original bunny - who Buttercup instabonded with - because BC is very shy. They didn’t like Buttercup’s personality so they upended her life and stole a friend from their own bereaved rabbit in the process. Unfortunately this truly evil action only further confirmed Buttercup’s fear and distrust of humans.

Buttercup is VERY SHY and will never be a people bunny, which to a lot of people is totally workable; some even preferred. Especially after she has been massively failed by humans and split from a bunny she felt so safe with.

My plan was to keep BC as a sanctuary bun to ensure she is never failed by humans again but she has sadly rejected all of the sanctuary groups I’ve tried to add her to 💔 I just know there is another somebunny out there for our girl.

Please help us find Buttercup a home with a compatible bunny friend or friends (because companionship is absolutely vital) and a guardian who doesn’t mind having a rabbit who acts like a rabbit around the house.

01/26/2025

💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

Seeking a cuddly, handleable rabbit should be a thing of the past.

As prey animals, our rabbits prefer all four paws on the ground - with obvious exception for vet treatment, health checks and necessary transport.

As guardians, we should avoid picking our rabbits up for cuddles or attention, and should instead focus on letting them come to us on their own terms. Building trust at a rate they can dictate is so rewarding and creates such a strong bond.

01/25/2025

It’s a well-known narrative that rabbits can live just as contented and fulfilled a life singly as they can with a friend of their own kind.

And unfortunately it’s this narrative that leads to so many rabbits - 42% in the UK - living by themselves without a key welfare need being met.

Rabbits are incredibly social animals who thrive on being able to spend time, talk to (in their own language) and interact with a bonded friend or friends. As crepuscular animals, most active dusk and dawn, we’re often asleep when they’re up and about, and we also have life commitments that prevent us from snuggling up with them every day for hours when it’s nap time.

Rabbits are prey animals, they find being removed from their home environment for vet trips, boarding facilities, health checks and the like stressful and scary - and studies have shown that having a friend to accompany them through experiences like this lowers their cortisol and helps them settle and relax far quicker. From a rescue point of view, we have always seen pairs and groups of rabbits adjust to boarding far faster than single rabbits who are left to navigate a foreign environment on their own, without a support buddy.

One of the five freedoms (which are the animal version of human rights), is to afford rabbits the right to be with their own kind, rather than isolate them. Seeing bonded rabbits together will leave any guardian with no doubt that it is the best thing for their rabbit’s health, welfare and wellbeing.

No amount of human interaction can replace the value and importance of rabbits having a friend or friends of their own kind; studies have shown that rabbits value companionship as much as they do food - and as guardians it is our responsibility to ensure our rabbits live as happy, comfortable, healthy and fulfilled a life as possible.

Find your single rabbit a friend today - and always adopt, don’t shop.

01/18/2025

Swipe for Monty’s glow up 🤭 Never expected him to go full hipster on us with a mohawkmullet and mutton chops 😆

Interested in Monty or any of our other cuties? Apply here - https://hrschicago.org/available-pets/adoption-application/

01/17/2025

Bunnies + Blankies: A Love Story

Photos of some of our currently adoptable buns and alumbuns with their blankies

Skyler, Yeti, Harvey, Dotty, Tofu, Dotty again(gotta be the biggest blankie fan I’ve ever met) and Monty 🤗

Do your bunnies love blankies? Show us pics in the comments!