1. Make sure you are not giving it away as snake food, which is the destiny of many free bunnies. Charging $30 adoption fee will discourage snake owners from targeting your bunny.
2. Make sure you are giving it to a person that is not abusive, nor neglectful. Once I posted for adoption a couple of bunnies, and I found them a good home, but the owner gave them to someone else instead. A month later I saw them posted again, as free bunnies, and I managed to save them from becoming snake food. Only to discover that they have been so neglected during the four weeks this person had them, that one of the bunnies had no hair on half her face - and the new owner never noticed.
3. Make sure the person has the means to feed the bunnies, and is wiling to use a vet if it ever becomes necessary. So many times I get bunnies that live only on wet lettuce and other greens from the kitchen, which can be very upsetting for their health. Screen out any person who wants a free bunny for the reason that they have to pay for food costs from now on. They are either trying to get a free meal for their snake of ferret, or they are too poor to keep a pet.
4. Do not dangle the cage benefit too much. Some people will take your bunny because they need a cage for another pet (like it was the case in the neglect story above), then abandon them or give them for free to whoever wants them, including snake owners. Screen out anyone who seems to be very interested in the cage and accessories, and has fewer questions about the bunny itself. In fact, if you have a male that is not neutered, he has a much lower change for adoption. Therefore it is better if you sell the cage and have him neutered with that money, rather than giving the cage free with the bunny. Dr. Rana's regular price for neutering a bunny male is only $60 (find him on our Vets page).
5. Do not act like you are desperate to have the bunny rehomed right away, as this will bring you a lot of low ballers and opportunists. Rather tell people you will use a rehoming service if a home is not found on time.
6. Write down, both through E-mail and on paper, all the important info about your bunny, and give it to the new owner. In case the adoption breaks down, they can pass the info on to the following owner or rescue service. Also, write down our contact info, so they can have Bunny Homes as a backup in case something goes wrong with the adoption.
7. If you run out of time, we can help rehome your bunny the proper way. See more info below.
Your ADVANTAGES when using our rehoming service:
1. We do not rush the rehoming process, we have time to wait until a good home is found, and the bunnies are well cared for during that time.
2. All bunnies seem to benefit from living with us. Generally they become calmer, and more balanced. Within a couple of weeks, nipping/biting, territorial behaviour and many other problem behaviours reduce or disappear. We provide regular physical and emotional care and as much food as they want, to ensure they do not stay in survival mode (which makes them more anxious, competitive and territorial). And there is a huge benefit in having a bunny community they can relate to and learn from. Sometimes they even find a lifetime friend here, bond to each other, and they live happily ever after with their new mate.
3. We screen potential adoptive homes, and make sure they are looking for a bunny pet, as well as have the resources to care for it.
4. We are a backup contact in case adoption breaks, or if the owners' circumstances change and the bunnies have to be rehomed one more time.
5. We try to understand what potential adoptive homes are looking for, as well as their style and resources. Thus we help the matching process, to reduce the number of adoptions that break down. Having several bunnies to choose from, also helps with finding a good match, and a lifetime relationship.
6. We advertise bunnies for adoption continuously, on several social sites, and a lot of traffic comes to see our bunnies available for adoption. That increases your bunny's chance to find a good match,, rather than an interested person without experience.
7. We make sure new owners have all the important info, and we provide support if they run into issues during the adjustment stage. Once in a while people contact me about returning the bunny they adopted from us, because of new emerging behaviours. However, after I help them address the issues, they decide to keep the bunnies. Without this backup support for new owners, these bunnies would have ended up on craigslist as free bunnies.
8. In case it really does not work out for an adoption we facilitated, we take the bunnies back right away, and continue searching for a match based on the new info about their needs and limitation. Sometimes we initiate a return, if during follow up we realize that the new home and owners are not really meeting the needs of the bunny.
How you can rehome bunnies through us:
1. Adoption Posting
No fee service, suitable for persons who still have time in their hands, and want to use our service to ensure their bunny rabbit is going to a good home and has long term support. We take a picture and basic information about your bunny, and we post it on our adoption page. We also advertise on internet community sites, answer any inquiries, and screen prospective adoptive homes. We need a reliable phone number to contact you if a showing is booked, and meet with prospective adoptive persons. We collect the small adoption fee to cover expenses inquired advertising your bunny and whatever is left over covers regular expenses for bunnies in our rescue that come with no resources, or are hard to get adopted and stay with us for a long time.
2. Full Care
This is the only option if bunny rabbits have to go right away (allergies, landlord request, moving, etc). Since most bunnies take several weeks (sometimes 3-4 months) to get adopted, their care involves numerous expenses, from feed and bedding to gas and cell phone. We provide daily intensive work caring for the bunnies, through FEEDING (food, water, hay, treats), CLEANING (grooming, waste removal, bedding material, blankies, etc.) and EMOTIONAL SUPPORT (holding, roaming, petting, playing, toys, socializing with people and other bunies or pets, play dates or bonding with other bunnies, etc.). Occasionally we have HEALTH SUPPORT expenses for bunnies that come with issues or need neutering/spaying in order to get adopted.
If you choose this option, we need your help with some minimal resources - given the numerous expenses we have to cover with no funding from outside. . Usually this involves the bunny coming with a cage and basic accessories (e.g. water bottle, food bowl, litter box, etc.). If the bunnies end up staying with us for a long time, the small adoption fee we collect is far from covering our basic expenses caring for them, then we have the option of selling a cage to fund further care expenses for your bunny, and for other bunnies that come to us with no resources (e.g. bunnies found in a park),
If your bunny has no cage (or if it is not in sale-able condition) then you can choose one of the following options:
- Pay $25 to our vet - which goes towards Bunny Homes Neutering and Critical Care Fund. On our adoption page we often add a note for bunnies that need neutering. You can assign your donation for one of those bunnies, or you can put it in our general critical care fund, which is for bunnies that need medical attention.
- Or provide two 55lb-bags of rabbit pellets. You can buy them for $11.65 a bag (the 14% type) from Otter CoOp Feed Store in Aldergrove (Fraser Hwy with 248 Street), which has good food at the most affordable prices. Please do not buy rabbit food from pet stores ($23-27 for the same 55 lb bag), and definitely do not spend on small bags of pellets from Superstore, etc.. If you can not go to Otter CoOp, you can submit $25 with your bunny and we buy the pellets from them the next time we need feed.
