How to Care for a Blind Bunny

A little over a month ago I adopted a blind bunny and named her Velvet-Sky. I wanted a special needs bunny, so I searched Petfinder.com Velvet-Sky is absolutely perfect, the light of my life and an ongoing experience with an animal spirit.

Caring for a blind bunny requires seeing your environment in a whole new way and from a completely different perspective.

Rabbits are prey animals, so each of their five senses is crucial for survival. As caregivers of domestic rabbits we are obligated to respect their instinctive prey animal reactions. For example, a knowledgeable rabbit caregiver knows that they hate being picked up or worse grabbed. This instinctive response comes from birds of prey swooping down and grabbing rabbits in the wild.

One of the senses that a rabbit's instincts call upon to survive is absent in a blind bunny. As caregivers, we have to work harder to give them security. Trust is the first and most important thing to develop with a blind bunny. We have to be their eyes and we also have to help them to see without eyes. They need to know that they are protected, where they are unable to protect themselves.

Toys:
Toys that lay on the floor are an obstruction that a blind bunny can bump into. Rolling toys are great, because they can push them and they will roll with their movements. They also like toys that hang from the bars of their cage, without blocking the door. Rolling toys and hanging toys insure that your unsighted bunny is in control of her toys, instead of toys controlling and confining her. When she is ready for expanded territory you can introduce other kinds of toys, in a more open area.

Encouraging them to chew is an extra challenge. Since they can not see, they are not attracting to things that they can chew. This may seem like a blessing that they can not find your baseboards, but they need to chew to keep their teeth filed down. Offering palatable chew toys and apple tree twigs is important. A little applesauce or molasses will spark their initial interest.