Do you have a pet bunny, and you are unsure of its age? Do you feel embarrassed when your friends ask you how old is the little fella is? Don’t worry, I used to get that a lot too! Ha Ha!
You know it’s quite tricky to tell a bunny’s age if you don’t have a track of its birth. But worry not! I have put down all my experience with rabbits below to make sure you know what your rabbit’s exact age is! Curious, eh?
To understand the context correctly, you need to divide their age into some ranges because there is very little difference in different aged rabbits. Rabbits with an age of 9 months are young rabbits. Aged more than nine months but less than three years are adult rabbits and 3-5 years and more than that are elderly or old rabbits.
Steps to Tell How Old a Baby Rabbit is
It might get very difficult to identify the age of the rabbit at first as they do not have any identifiable marks in their body. The young rabbit that is in the prime of his age and the old rabbit can be seen very similar in all the features of its body.
You can follow many steps to get an idea of its age. But the process is very tricky, and you need to be careful in order to do it properly.
Watch Their Eyes:
Like many other animals, bunnies are born with their eyes closed. They tend to open their eyes in around ten days. If the rabbit’s eyes are open and they are hopping but not walking properly hen, it must be 14-17 days old.
The eyes texture will not help you measuring the age after 14-15 days because there is no visible change in the rabbit’s eyes after it’s opened.
Check Their Ear Position:
Another significant feature of a newborn baby rabbit is the ear position. The ears are folded after birth. They are the most apparent feature because ears do not perk before nine days. It starts to grow open after that, but still, it takes them 4-5 days to unfold correctly.
Bunnies tend to respond to sounds with their ears. But it takes them 3-4 days to get used to the response of sound.
Check Their Fur Growth:
A newborn bunny does not have any fur in its body. As it gets older, it gets covered with fur within 14 days. The level of fur in its body can measure its age by up to 14 days. It is rarely the case that a bunny will grow fur after 14 days of age.
Calculate Weight:
Weight calculation gives the most appropriate result if it is done after the full digestion of food the rabbit is provided. From 1-1.4 oz. WIT, the rabbit, is still a newborn. After the weight reaches 4 oz. We can call the bunny a weaning baby.
4.5 to 5 oz. for an independent rabbit and adult one weight around 28 to 43 oz. There is no visible growth in the rabbit’s body after four months of its age.
Watch Them Feeding:
It takes a bunny to leave its mother’s milk for 3 to 4 weeks. So if your pet is still drinking milk from her mother once a day, then it is sure that it did not cross that age.
Identify the Unique Mark:
Rabbits have a unique mark that grows along with their age inside their teeth. They need instruments to watch because they are on the backside of their teeth. It’s better to make them watched by someone who is a specialist in a particular area; otherwise, there is a good chance you may hurt your pet.
Watch their Activities:
Does you rabbit play occasionally or regularly? Or does it have a sleeping habit? The rabbit that have still not reached adulthood play a lot. They are always jumping and reaching their mother now and then. If the sleeping time is increasing every day, then it’s more likely to have entered adulthood already.
This is the best time to train your bunny. Bunnies need more training than many other pet animals, so make sure that you are doing your best to train them in this period of time.
Assess their Behavior:
When your rabbit seems like checking out the environment with upmost curiosity, then it has finally reached the adolescent level. At this age, they try to mate with opposite sex rabbits. They will also be proactive towards fighting.
Suddenly you’ll see many changes in your bunny’s attitude. It will pee in many unusual areas. It won’t let you touch them or pet them. These attitude changes can seem frustrating for you. The best way to deal with the problem is to neuter or spray them.
You cannot maintain your bunnies that are roaming in a small area, and they want to get out of the space they have been given. Are they also chewing on everything they find? They have also developed a digging habit.
They actually have entered adulthood. Give them more attention and bunny toys like a chewing stick because they want attention at this stage. This period extends up to 3 years of a bunnies age.
Check Their appearance:
If your bunny is not moving freely like before and have become more affectionate to you and wants to get closer to you, then it is getting old. A peaceful life is all it demands from you. They are more relaxed and try to sleep more. This middle stage of bunnies ranges from 3-5 years.
At the age of 7-9, your bunny becomes more trusted towards you, and they get affected by some illness also. Some problems with their legs and backs begin to evolve. But with the proper medication, they still remain active.
There is a very minimal difference between the size of an adult and an old rabbit. As time passes by, they develop a shinier and glossy coat in adulthood, and their coats glossiness decreases as they get in the elderly period.
Final Words:
Though knowing precisely what their age is a very critical job, as you get more experienced with your pet, you learn to recognize the signs. These ten steps may help you to understand how old a baby rabbit is where your rabbit stands in the life timeline.
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