Do not buy your child a bunny this Easter — or ever

There’s nothing easy about owning a rabbit, writes PETA’s Emily Rice. While they look cute and fluffy, bunnies are high-maintenance and expensive pets. So this Easter, please stick with chocolate rabbits.

Bread rolls are pushed aside by hot cross buns; condiments are relegated to a far corner to make way for every conceivable variety of chocolate; everything has a bunny motif — welcome to Easter.

With chocolate bunnies appearing soon after Christmas, the Easter holiday is a retailer’s dream.

But there’s one thing you should absolutely avoid buying: a real, live rabbit.

Oh, it’s tempting — there they are, all lop-eared and twitchy-nosed, tiny fluffballs marketed by breeders and pet shops as “easy” and “perfect for kids”.

Suddenly you notice little bundles of bunny joy appearing for sale in droves, and isn’t the timing perfect?

This very week, in the midst of a seasonal binge of bunny arts and crafts and tales of magical rabbits, you find out that bunnies are suddenly your child’s favourite animal.

Rabbits are the mascot of Easter merchandise but that doesn’t mean you need to buy a real one. Picture: iStock

Here’s the rub: rabbits are adorable, sure, but they’re also very high-maintenance, surprisingly expensive to keep, fragile, fussy, messy, and perhaps not as “exciting” to kids in the long run as you might have been led to believe.

MORE OPINION: ‘For someone like me, a job means the world’

Don’t get me wrong. Rabbits are curious little adventurers, each with a unique personality and funny quirks, but kids tend to like to play their own way and so do rabbits.

They can be paradoxical. They demand attention and will nudge you for affection but also display an independent, defiant, and non-cuddly — or, at least, less interactive — side that may well see your child’s interest in them wane.

Aside from not being able to join you at the beach or on a road trip to Queensland, where they’re illegal, rabbits are territorial and a little OCD.

Makes for a cute photo but after she’s been kicked and scratched a few times, bunny will be banished to its cage. Picture: Getty

They’ve been known to grump — and even nip — if they feel their environment isn’t ideal, so you have to be ready to concede a fair amount of space.

As prey animals, most rabbits don’t like being held, picked up, or carried, and they can administer a strong kick or scratch to communicate this.

MORE OPINION: Insults, hashtags and memes — is this really our worth?

I’ve even fostered one who, for a year, didn’t accept being petted. I’m not sure too many young kids are ready to put in a solid 12 months of patience and persistence when their rabbit is hiding in a box.

So, like many stuffed Easter toys before him, poor Bugs fails to trump an iPhone on the engagement front and he sees his novelty wear off.

Before you know it, complaints that “Bugs doesn’t wanna play with me” have become the soundtrack to your life, and by Halloween, Bugs is relegated to a cage.

But wait, where do you plan to put that cage? Contrary to popular belief, rabbits are not outdoor animals.

Not only are they prone to dying of heatstroke if the mercury creeps above 28 degrees, they’re also vulnerable to fly and mosquito borne calicivirus (RHDV2, RHDV1 — K5), for which there’s no available vaccine.

In nature rabbits live underground, piled in with dozens of others. An outdoor space where predators can see, smell and perhaps even attack them leaves them feeling vulnerable and stressed.

MORE OPINION: I know better than Justice Wigney. And so do most women

There are, of course, some additional things to consider before you opt for a rabbit that’s not made of chocolate.

If you can train a rabbit to jump hurdles, like Lighting at Sydney Royal Easter Show, you qualify to own them. Picture: Toby Zerna/News Corp Australia

Rabbits are not a “set-and-forget” affair.

They drink, on average, more than a medium dog every day.

A rabbit pair (most rabbits need a companion to be happy) eat about $50 a week in food.

And they poo a lot … and not exclusively in the litter tray. Rabbit guardians spend up to an hour a day cleaning their rabbits’ area.

Vet bills can also add up. Rabbits have a very sensitive gut. If they don’t eat the right balance of (rather bland) foods, or if they feel stressed, they can experience stasis, a painful blockage requiring emergency treatment by a specialist vet.

MORE OPINION: What if your kids just don’t like Bluey?

If you read the words “emergency” and “specialist” as dollar signs, you’re not far off.

In his 9-year life, my late lagomorph set me back around $30,000 in operations and hospital stays.

That’s another thing: buckle up for a long-term commitment, as many buns live to age 12 and beyond.

If you’ve read this and still think you’d be a wonderful bunny parent, great. I’m not saying they’re not amazing — they are.

They’re just not toys, and you shouldn’t believe it when the salesperson tells you they’re the perfect children’s companion.

After all is said and done, if you still want to venture down the rabbit hole, never, ever purchase one.

Google “adopt a rabbit” and you’ll quickly see how many are sitting in shelters waiting for permanent homes. If you arrive at a rescue centre equipped with all of the above knowledge and are still keen to make a rabbit’s life wonderful (and have yours enriched beyond measure in return) rescuers will welcome you with open arms.

After all, they’re still trying to find homes for last Easter’s forgotten rabbits.

For more engaging opinions, head to RendezView.com.au

Emily Rice is Outreach and Partnership Manager at PETA Australia, and an avid rabbit enthusiast.