Top 30 Facts About Rabbits
Aside from their easily distinguished furry little bodies and the common knowledge that dogs absolutely love to chase them, there are many other intriguing facts about rabbits that you may not know. They are kept as house pets or run wild in many places around the world and their adorable characteristics have made them a star in cartoons, movies and even urban legends. Below are the top 30 facts about rabbits that you should enjoy.
- North America is the home to over half of the world’s population of rabbits.
- Pet rabbits can be trained to use a litter box.
- In 1978 and 1999, large litters of 24 rabbits were reported.
- The longest recorded jump for a rabbit is more than nine feet.
- Rabbits have 18 toenails altogether with 10 in the front and 8 in the back.
- A rabbit has two pair of incisor teeth with one directly behind the other.
- One of the most interesting facts about rabbits is that their breeding season lasts for nine months.
- Baby rabbits are called kits and can be weaned by the time they are five weeks old.
- Through the course of one breeding season, one female rabbit has the capability of producing 800 offspring including children, grandchildren and also great-grandchildren because they become sexually active around six months old.
- Rabbits can purr like a cat.
- Droppings from a rabbit are a fabulous garden fertilizer.
- A tiny 4 pound rabbit and a 20 pound dog will drink the same amount of water in one day.
- Rabbits are able to see behind them however, they do have a blind spot directly in front of them.
- The only part on a rabbit’s body that can sweat is their paw pads.
- One of the most fascinating facts about rabbits is that a female has two lobes in her uterus that makes her able to carry two litters that are derived from two separate mating encounters.
- Courting and mating is extremely brief and is typically completed in less than one minute.
- Baby rabbits are born naked, blind and completely helpless.
- A mother only nurses her young for a couple of minutes, twice a day because her milk is so filling and nutritious.
- Rabbits are herbivores, feeding on herbaceous flowering plants, grass and leafy weeds.
- All rabbit species besides cottontail rabbits live in burrows underground that are called warrens.
- There are more than 150 color variations for a rabbit’s coat but there are only five different eye colors being blue-gray, brown, pink, blue and marbled.
- Wild rabbits cannot breed with domestic rabbits.
- A rabbit’s teeth will not ever stop growing which is one of the most interesting facts about rabbits. Therefore, the bigger the teeth, the older the rabbit.
- A female rabbit is referred to as a doe while a male is called a buck.
- These cuddly creatures inhabit many diverse environments including woods, meadows, grasslands, thickets, forests, wetlands and even desert.
- For a lucky rabbit’s foot to actually be lucky, it has to be from the left rear foot of a rabbit that has been shot by a cross-eyed shooter, on a new moon or a full moon, in a cemetery.
- One rabbit year is equivalent to 21 human years. Since a rabbit’s average lifespan is 10 years, they are actually 75 years old.
- Wild and domestic rabbits need hay in their diet to reduce hairballs in their intestines that can cause death.
- Pet rabbits can safely eat apples (no seeds), grapes, pears, strawberries, oranges, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, pineapples, papayas, mangoes, melons, tomatoes, peaches (no pit), beans, peas, carrots, kale, mustard greens, carrot tops, dandelion greens, parsnips, sugar beets, potato peels and parsley.
- Things you should never feed your rabbit include acorns, apple seeds, almonds, asparagus fern, azalea, apricot pits, carnations, bleeding heart, creeping Charlie, daisy, eucalyptus, iceberg lettuce, gladiola, ivy, iris, mistletoe, milkweed, nutmeg, peony, oak, poinsettia, plum or peach pits, skunk cabbage, rhubarb leaves, tulip bulbs and tomato leaves.
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