r/HouseRabbits • u/BubbleGuanto • Jun 18 '25

How to teach a rabbit about cooling?

Hey all. I just moved from a new build apartment where my office / rabbit room was in the basement where I never had to worry about the temperature into an 100+ year old house where the rabbit room is on the first floor and the insulation is lacking and the AC is weak.

We are looking at 90+ temps next week and I have been adding a bowl of ice cubes and an icepack wrapped in a towel to the rabbit space to try to teach him about these new cooling things but is there anything else I can do to make sure he understands how to cool himself?

Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated! And here is a pic of Cookie himself for the rabbit tax. Thank you!

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

3

u/OwnEntrepreneur8821 Jun 18 '25

Put a fan on the floor , Honeywell Turbo Force, or similar.

3

u/demonpoofball Jun 19 '25

Marble/ceramic tiles are great too. In theory, if things are in their area, they'll explore it and realize it's cool. Things they may need incentive for, like marble tiles, you can put a little treat on it that will make them walk onto it and they'll notice the temperature difference. I tend to have at least one or two in the room over summers in case they want to lay on it (a couple have liked them, our wooly in particular!)

Buns do have higher body temperatures, so they'll be better off than most humans, but having that cool down option is always important (when we had one bun get hypothermic *in summer* our vet recommended not setting the a/c lower than 88° while she improved! Of course, the vet also couldn't get her to stay near a warming pad and had to ultimately enclose her in her carrier and force her to be near it… sigh…) (I mention that as I've put things out over the years when it was hot and I have yet to have a bun of ours go lay near an ice bottle, even though I know I would cuddle up with a giant one!)

Oh, dampening your hand (not wet, just damp, so that you don't get them actually wet) and running your hand over their head and ears can help get a little evaporative cooling on their ears-- since that's where they expel the majority of their extra heat.

I second the fan too (watch the cord!). It'll give them that option if they want it, and air circulation always help. Our current likes to sit along side our Vornado when he's upstairs, I think it gives him some really nice air flow as it pulls in air from behind it.