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The claim that a rabbit living indoors lives longer than one living outdoors needs a scientific citation. This kind of overly broad statement is not a neutral point of view as it uses a citation from the House Rabbit Society website who has an (understandable) bias toward indoor rabbits. This claim could be credible if true but it needs a scientific source with supporting data to be encyclopedic. Truthsleuther ( talk) 00:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to indicate the citation for a redirect, to show that the name is common, so for now, I'm putting them in the talk page. Here are a couple high-profile web sites that use the name "House Rabbit": [1] [2]. -- Ed Brey 22:01, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
While it makes sense for this article to redirect to Domestic rabbit, since all house rabbits are domestic and since the domestic rabbit article contains a lot of info for house rabbits, IMHO it would be even better to split off the content specific to house rabbits and put it on this page. For more discussion of this, see Talk:Domestic_rabbit#House_rabbit?. -- Ed Brey 22:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
the statement that rabbits do not need vaccinations is entirely false and should be removed. There are a variety of illnesses which rabbits need to be vaccinated against, including indoor rabbits, as many diseases are carried by fleas.
Additionally rabbits should be spayed or neutered, especially females which start to become prone to ovarian cancer after 4 years of age. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.137.151.22 ( talk) 09:37, 13 May 2007 (UTC). Spaying males can affect their interaction with humans and make them docile and less playful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smarkpearson ( talk • contribs) 19:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
The Rabbit page had a big and rambling section on pet rabbits. I've taken pretty much all of the content and moved it to the relevant sections here, trying to make sure that it doesn't clash with the existing material. Well, I think it's partly successful, but I invite house rabbit experts to fine tune it. Arikk 07:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
A mixture of pronouns had crept into the rabbit page. I cleaned it up to use exclusively the gender male pronoun. This better captures owners' affections than "it" and avoids the wordiness of he/she, ambiguity of unnecessary plural phrasing, and inconsistency of plural pronouns without plural phrasing. I'm pretty sure that no one will get confused such that he thinks the article only describes male rabbits, since the gender male pronoun construct is very well known. -- Ed Brey 17:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Since the sex of the rabbit is irrelevant the gender neutral pronouns "it", "they" & "them" should be used throughout. wjemather bigissue 21:06, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
For an unknown unspecified animal.He is plain wrong, He/She is unnecessarily cumbersome, It is fine, this article should be using it, itself etc. Mighty mickey ( talk) 15:08, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I undid an edit that made the term binky a link to a page not yet created. I contemplated this when introducing the term early in this page's history. It seemed unlikely that there would be enough content to make a worthwhile wikipedia article for binky, to I used elected not the make the broken link. I believe that still stands, but if someone wants to present a vision of a binky article, I'd certainly be interested. -- Ed Brey 17:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
This article was flagged as needing additional citations for verification; however, there aren't any specific fact tags in the article. Does anyone know of anything in the article that isn't backed by one or more of the references? -- Ed Brey 01:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
This article was tagged as falling within the scope of the Pocket pets work group. However, I've never heard of anyone putting a rabbit in his pocket. Has anyone else? I think rabbits may have been lumped over-broadly in with other lagomorphs. -- Ed Brey 01:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I removed the reference to fly strike from the "Health" section. I agree that it is an important problem, and indeed gets good treatment in Domestic rabbit. The problem is that listing all the possible health problems in the beginning of the health section would overwhelm a reader with too much technical info, and just listing just the one root cause obscures the others (unless fly strike is especially common; if so, please say so). More useful is to list symptoms that the reader would readily recognize. Perhaps there should be a better reference to the list of heath problem causes. One possibility would be to fork the list in Domestic rabbit into its own article, which could be readily linked from the "Health" section of House rabbit. Thoughts on that? -- Ed Brey ( talk) 15:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Fly strike is one of the most common reasons for emergency presentation of rabbits. The In Practice article (Pract. Cousquer 28 (6): 342.) referenced details the rapid time scale of progression of the condition without treatment, and the consequent deterioration of the prognosis. This section starts with a list of symptoms that require urgent veterinary attention. Many rabbits live happily with a head tilt for years, not to say that if a rabbit suddenly develops a head tilt it doesn't need to go to the vets, but it depends on the cirucmstances so it seems unbalanced to have that on the list rather than fly strike where every hour counts. As you say it is a list of symptoms so maybe it should say maggots, rather than fly strike. Maybe the list should be removed as it is not complete and therefore not particularly helpful. I tried to put a reference up to Vet Help Direct http://www.vethelpdirect.com which basically provides an automated triage service. Its free to use, all the content is by vets and I felt it fulfilled Wiki's criterea ie 'Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to amount of detail' 86.157.97.79 ( talk) 21:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to find a really good main picture for the article. Following are the features I'd like to see in the picture. I'm interested in suggestions on the features and specific picture suggestions.
-- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:51, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
"Willow with keys.jpg" covers the all the features well. "Domesticrabbit.jpg" is lacking regarding the first two (not surprising given the file name). -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
The lead image looks awkward compared to the rest of the article at the default size. The guidance on lead image size is confusing. I posted a question about it here: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Lead_image_size. For now, I'd like to use a size similar to the other images, but a bit bigger to avoid a stacked look. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I moved the emergency care section here, since it largely duplicates the beginning of the Health section. Are there any points that should be added to Health? Is there enough to warrant its own section? If so, how would Health be updated accordingly? -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I removed a sentence "In addition, if a grid is used with no litter box, it will prevent rabbits from ingesting their cecotropes, an essential part of their digestive process." because, AFAIK, rabbits reinject their cecotropes before they hit the ground. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I think this article should be merged with Domestic rabbit. All it is is a series of poorly written paragraphs just so the owners can post pictures of their 'cute' pets. There's no article for house dogs. If you need tips on how to train your pet rabbit, then I'm sure there are plenty of websites catered for that. Such an article like this is just redundant. Much of the encyclopedia worthy information can just be included in the domestic rabbit article. - Depor23 ( talk) 06:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
It is important to keep this site active. If you don't like the personal pics, then remove them. The term house rabbits is vital to not only the definition of a proper domesticated rabbit with rights (eliminate domestic rabbit if anything) but the name is vital to a variety of non-profit groups. To delete this is to not understand the importance of the rabbit movement and the thousands of people and hundreds of groups trying to educate people. This is a valid site and term. If you think it's poorly written, then fix it, don't delete it. - dgoodberg ( talk) 13:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
It would be highly inappropriate to merge the House Rabbit article with the Domestic Rabbit article. The Domestic Rabbit article discusses meat rabbits and wool rabbits. It would be offensive to combine the two. This article is an expanded topic that is alluded to on the Domestic Rabbit article page, but should have its own entry separate from the Domestic Rabbit page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leporidae ( talk • contribs) 01:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Most readers of this article will benefit from it being independent of the Domestic Rabbit article. To your point, Depor23, "House cat" is a common term and "House rabbit" is beginning to gain prevalence, especially because of the advocacy of the House Rabbit Society. The term is a distinction between pet rabbits and rabbits that are bread specifically for fur or meat. Though meat and fur rabbits are bred to be very docile (and make excellent pets) the majority of rabbits that live as companion animals with people are bred as pets -- intentionally or accidentally. Dogs are common enough as to not warrant the distinction, but cats, as with rabbits, are often found feral in many urban areas. House rabbits are the third most common animal surrendered to shelters in the United States [7], so the House Rabbit as distinct from other domestic rabbits warrants a separate article. If there is a problem with the writing style I can volunteer to do edits. As for the "cute pets" I agree. The motivation is certainly there to put a cute House Rabbit photo up, since any rabbit outside of a pet owners home would be contradictory to the core of this article. Rhinokitty ( talk) 05:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
This is a very useful article and definitely encyclopaedia worthy. Its scope is very different than that of the domestic rabbits article. Hence there is no reason to merge the two. Rcomplexity ( talk) 21:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
There are two main distinction between house rabbits and other domestic rabbits. One is that they are for companionship vs. commercial purposes. They other is that they reside inside a human home, vs. outside. People who have a rabbit inside their homes for companionship are faced with different issues (e.g. rabbit proofing) than other rabbit owners. These unique circumstances are the core of the article and justify its existence as a separate article. For completeness, the article fills in other aspects of how owners care for the rabbit, some of which overlap with Domestic rabbit, but not excessively. If the articles were meged, it would be more difficult for a reader to quickly understand what it is like to own a house rabbit. Therefore, I believe House rabbit should remain separate. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
The tone and aim of the two articles are quite different; there is little doubt in my mind that they should be separate. However, it would benefit both pages if certain sections were taken from Domestic rabbit to House rabbit. I'm thinking particularly about Socialization, Acquiring, Training, etc. That way, Domestic rabbit remains an overview of the different contexts in which domesticated rabbits live, whereas House rabbit gives details of the specifics of keeping a rabbit at home. Under that system, there should really be a section on Commercial rabbit, although I don't volunteer to write it... Arikk ( talk) 20:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Forgive me if my formatting is off...first time doing this. I would highly advise NOT merging the ‘rabbit’ and ‘house rabbit’. While this discussion is on domestic vs house, the article says a merger between rabbit and domestic rabbit. I would advise against merging ‘house rabbit’ and ‘domestic rabbit’ but ONLY if the lines are better drawn. Let’s make a stronger differentiation from domestic v. house so people understand a house rabbit is always a type of domestic rabbit, but a domestic rabbit is not always a house rabbit.
The reasons for not merging domestic/house with ‘rabbit’ are because, 1) house rabbits are almost all exclusively in the European rabbit gene line (few exceptions) which comprises only a small portion of rabbits, 2) people looking for information on pet rabbits may have zero desire to see discussions about eating them, 3) the context in learning about "a rabbit" and "a pet rabbit as a companion" are completely different and the intent on information is likely distinct enough to not merge, 4) the information on a house rabbit in the general thread would make it longer and more difficult to navigate, and most importantly, 5) the difference in a 'house rabbit' versus a rabbit is as dramatic as a wolf versus a dog. While genetically-speaking they may be very similar, the behavioral differences are so dramatic it becomes an apple v. oranges sort of thing.
If anything, I think further differentiating rabbits as wild vs. domestic vs. house is worthwhile.
Now for house v. domestic…Another issue is how to classify domesticated rabbits used for meat, fur, and research...these rabbits are domesticated in a fashion to allow humans to breed them, but they generally do not have personalities that bear resemblance to wild rabbits nor house rabbits, putting them somewhere in the middle. People seeking information on this likely are not seeking general information on rabbits nor general information on house rabbits. I think the best solution here is to have DOMESTIC=meat/fur/research/etc. with a link to ‘house rabbits’ and a blurb that says “one kind of domesticated rabbit kept solely for companionship is the [link]house rabbit[link] followed by a definition.
One issue would be left…how do you classify rabbits kept outside for companionship? They technically are not ‘house rabbits’ by pure definition, but they also aren’t quite fitting the bill for ‘domestic’. We would need to classify these one way or another.--user NickZac ( talk) 17:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)NickZac
There was a tag claiming that the article contained original research. There were a lot of recent edits for which I couldn't find support in the article's citations. I removed the tag and the material that needs to be sourced, which I am listing below. If anyone has a source for these, please re-introduce with a citation. Keep in mind, too, that the article should describe common practice, but not be a "how to" guide (e.g. don't use "you" when writing).
Also, I removed two sections, "Problems" and "Reproduction" because there were redundant with other info in House rabbit and Rabbit.
Finally, there is this blurb, which has some value, but needs to the right context. It should be folded into the section on organizations:
-- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
One more removed unsourced assertion, which came over from Domestic rabbit: "they can also be trained to recognize different patterns of the voice. Rabbits can be taught their names, although they recognize the pattern of the noises more than the words." -- Ed Brey ( talk) 03:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Alot of lines in the current revision as of Oct 10th 2007 are very iffy.
"They are a very cute pet to have and they are a good companion." I don't remember cuteness being a measurable value. "The complete MAIN thing a rabbit needs in it's diet is medow hay. The diet can insist of other foods but you MUST have medow hay all the time. Lettuce has little nutritional value, you can feed it to your pet rabbit, but don't use it instead of other foods.House rabbits are..." - Fully capitalized words, bad spacing, and most of all: Wikipedia:NotHowTo. • ∈nigma • ( talk) 13:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Don't you think the average life span of a house rabbit is a bit important? I couldn't find life span info in the house rabbit OR rabbit page. C'mon you guys, that seems pretty rudimentary for an animal article. I'd post it myself if I knew but that's why I came to this page! Sixthcrusifix ( talk) 05:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following text, because it isn't supported by the cited source or any source that I could find. If anyone has a good source, please put the text back in: "When a stranger approaches slowly with an outstretched hand, a rabbit will often respond positively by sniffing and pushing the hand with his nose. [8]" -- Ed Brey ( talk) 02:04, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
The article as it stands is mostly an instruction guide on how to take care of pet rabbits. I wonder how much content would actually be left once all the non-encyclopaedic stuff has been removed. Perhaps this WP:CFORK would be best merged back into domestic rabbit. wjemather bigissue 21:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I think the link to the condo building instructions should remain. This is a good example of a how-to guide, which should not be - and is not - part of the page. However, it is still valuable to readers to have it be linked. It is not required to be a WP:RS, since it is not supporting facts in the article; it's just an external link. Ideally, the how-to would be a Wikibook or Wikiversity article, but until someone volunteers, having an external link to a decently pageranked how-to page is better than nothing. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 02:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Despite the description on the image page, there is nothing in the picture to suggest the rabbit is dashing anywhere, let alone under a couch. Caption changed to reflect what can actually be seen – a rabbit with some keys. wjemather bigissue 18:48, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
The picture of a rabbit and its owner eating an apple is a better photo aesthetically, more interesting, conveys the concept of a "house rabbit" better, and has a matter-of-fact caption. I moved it up to the main photo spot, and got rid of the photo of the rabbit with the keys. Lisieski ( talk) 02:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
This article is a terrible example of a how-to guide. I'm going to have a go at cleaning it up but would appreciate the support of others - especially in identifying the stuff to be pruned. -- Simple Bob ( talk) 11:52, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
So it looks like there are a group of us who agree that the article needs cleaning up. Wikipedia is built on such consensus being reached, so have at it then! -- Simple Bob ( talk) 22:09, 13 November 2010 (UTC) Made a sort of big edit, removed a lot of POV and How-to information. I'm sure there's more to go, though. I elected to delete things rather than tag them, because (for the most part) they said things like "rabbit owners should" or "x is better for house rabbits" etc. I don't want to go through the trouble of a merge, but it seems like it might be in order. Lisieski ( talk) 01:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
The recent short-lived addition, about having a rabbit "wake" when one of them croaks, was not intended to be funny, I'm sure. But it was. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:38, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
My recent edit containing this text:
"House rabbits are often kept in pairs, trios, or larger groups, to help cater to their social needs, which may not be fully met by their keepers. [4] Pairs or groups of rabbits that live together will bond with each other, exhibiting an increase in affiliative behaviors such as mutual grooming, physical contact, and eating together and a decrease in aggressive and defensive behaviors. Some house rabbit keepers claim that rabbits are aware of the absence of their bonded peers after they have died, exhibiting abnormal behavior; proponents of this idea advocate that the surviving rabbit(s) be allowed to "view" the body of the deceased rabbit in order to "accept" its death. [5]"
was quickly reverted. I want to defend it (or at least its spirit, if not the exact text) and see what people think before editing it again.
I think it's fair documentation of common practices (in fact, many references can be found citing the behavioral effects of housing rabbits socially.) I'll work on getting some scholarly sources about the effects of pair housing on social behavior, which I'm sure exist in abundance - social behavior in mammals is well-studied.
The "viewing" thing is a bit off-the-wall, but it seems to be mentioned on most online resources that deal with pet rabbits dying. I don't think it's POV, although it certainly hasn't been investigated in any scientific way - though there is at least one peer-reviewed article mentioning it ( http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/wov/2005/00000009/00000002/art00003 ). I think it's an important practice among people who identify as house rabbit keepers specifically, and so should be included in the article. Lisieski ( talk) 21:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
So one sentence, no weasel words, citing that source, with a caveat that no behavioral research has been published? BTW, I also think it's a questionable practice, psychologically (who knows what it actually "means" to the surviving rabbit, or if it affects their behavior) but noticed it several times while reading about house rabbits, and think it's one of the subcultural practices that might differentiate the way "house rabbits" are kept from the way other rabbits are kept. Lisieski ( talk) 18:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
The person who removed this link specified that it contravened the WP:NOTHOWTO rule. This is simply not the case! The page provides a wealth of information for house rabbit owners to interpret the body language of their pets. It is not a 'how to' guide in any way, other than allowing you to understand what your rabbit is telling you so you may respond accordingly. To interpret this page as a 'how to guide', simply due to the semantics of its title, is being pedantic to the extreme. CrackDragon ( talk) 12:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
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The claim that a rabbit living indoors lives longer than one living outdoors needs a scientific citation. This kind of overly broad statement is not a neutral point of view as it uses a citation from the House Rabbit Society website who has an (understandable) bias toward indoor rabbits. This claim could be credible if true but it needs a scientific source with supporting data to be encyclopedic. Truthsleuther ( talk) 00:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to indicate the citation for a redirect, to show that the name is common, so for now, I'm putting them in the talk page. Here are a couple high-profile web sites that use the name "House Rabbit": [1] [2]. -- Ed Brey 22:01, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
While it makes sense for this article to redirect to Domestic rabbit, since all house rabbits are domestic and since the domestic rabbit article contains a lot of info for house rabbits, IMHO it would be even better to split off the content specific to house rabbits and put it on this page. For more discussion of this, see Talk:Domestic_rabbit#House_rabbit?. -- Ed Brey 22:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
the statement that rabbits do not need vaccinations is entirely false and should be removed. There are a variety of illnesses which rabbits need to be vaccinated against, including indoor rabbits, as many diseases are carried by fleas.
Additionally rabbits should be spayed or neutered, especially females which start to become prone to ovarian cancer after 4 years of age. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.137.151.22 ( talk) 09:37, 13 May 2007 (UTC). Spaying males can affect their interaction with humans and make them docile and less playful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smarkpearson ( talk • contribs) 19:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
The Rabbit page had a big and rambling section on pet rabbits. I've taken pretty much all of the content and moved it to the relevant sections here, trying to make sure that it doesn't clash with the existing material. Well, I think it's partly successful, but I invite house rabbit experts to fine tune it. Arikk 07:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
A mixture of pronouns had crept into the rabbit page. I cleaned it up to use exclusively the gender male pronoun. This better captures owners' affections than "it" and avoids the wordiness of he/she, ambiguity of unnecessary plural phrasing, and inconsistency of plural pronouns without plural phrasing. I'm pretty sure that no one will get confused such that he thinks the article only describes male rabbits, since the gender male pronoun construct is very well known. -- Ed Brey 17:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Since the sex of the rabbit is irrelevant the gender neutral pronouns "it", "they" & "them" should be used throughout. wjemather bigissue 21:06, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
For an unknown unspecified animal.He is plain wrong, He/She is unnecessarily cumbersome, It is fine, this article should be using it, itself etc. Mighty mickey ( talk) 15:08, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I undid an edit that made the term binky a link to a page not yet created. I contemplated this when introducing the term early in this page's history. It seemed unlikely that there would be enough content to make a worthwhile wikipedia article for binky, to I used elected not the make the broken link. I believe that still stands, but if someone wants to present a vision of a binky article, I'd certainly be interested. -- Ed Brey 17:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
This article was flagged as needing additional citations for verification; however, there aren't any specific fact tags in the article. Does anyone know of anything in the article that isn't backed by one or more of the references? -- Ed Brey 01:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
This article was tagged as falling within the scope of the Pocket pets work group. However, I've never heard of anyone putting a rabbit in his pocket. Has anyone else? I think rabbits may have been lumped over-broadly in with other lagomorphs. -- Ed Brey 01:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I removed the reference to fly strike from the "Health" section. I agree that it is an important problem, and indeed gets good treatment in Domestic rabbit. The problem is that listing all the possible health problems in the beginning of the health section would overwhelm a reader with too much technical info, and just listing just the one root cause obscures the others (unless fly strike is especially common; if so, please say so). More useful is to list symptoms that the reader would readily recognize. Perhaps there should be a better reference to the list of heath problem causes. One possibility would be to fork the list in Domestic rabbit into its own article, which could be readily linked from the "Health" section of House rabbit. Thoughts on that? -- Ed Brey ( talk) 15:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Fly strike is one of the most common reasons for emergency presentation of rabbits. The In Practice article (Pract. Cousquer 28 (6): 342.) referenced details the rapid time scale of progression of the condition without treatment, and the consequent deterioration of the prognosis. This section starts with a list of symptoms that require urgent veterinary attention. Many rabbits live happily with a head tilt for years, not to say that if a rabbit suddenly develops a head tilt it doesn't need to go to the vets, but it depends on the cirucmstances so it seems unbalanced to have that on the list rather than fly strike where every hour counts. As you say it is a list of symptoms so maybe it should say maggots, rather than fly strike. Maybe the list should be removed as it is not complete and therefore not particularly helpful. I tried to put a reference up to Vet Help Direct http://www.vethelpdirect.com which basically provides an automated triage service. Its free to use, all the content is by vets and I felt it fulfilled Wiki's criterea ie 'Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to amount of detail' 86.157.97.79 ( talk) 21:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to find a really good main picture for the article. Following are the features I'd like to see in the picture. I'm interested in suggestions on the features and specific picture suggestions.
-- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:51, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
"Willow with keys.jpg" covers the all the features well. "Domesticrabbit.jpg" is lacking regarding the first two (not surprising given the file name). -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
The lead image looks awkward compared to the rest of the article at the default size. The guidance on lead image size is confusing. I posted a question about it here: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Lead_image_size. For now, I'd like to use a size similar to the other images, but a bit bigger to avoid a stacked look. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I moved the emergency care section here, since it largely duplicates the beginning of the Health section. Are there any points that should be added to Health? Is there enough to warrant its own section? If so, how would Health be updated accordingly? -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I removed a sentence "In addition, if a grid is used with no litter box, it will prevent rabbits from ingesting their cecotropes, an essential part of their digestive process." because, AFAIK, rabbits reinject their cecotropes before they hit the ground. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I think this article should be merged with Domestic rabbit. All it is is a series of poorly written paragraphs just so the owners can post pictures of their 'cute' pets. There's no article for house dogs. If you need tips on how to train your pet rabbit, then I'm sure there are plenty of websites catered for that. Such an article like this is just redundant. Much of the encyclopedia worthy information can just be included in the domestic rabbit article. - Depor23 ( talk) 06:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
It is important to keep this site active. If you don't like the personal pics, then remove them. The term house rabbits is vital to not only the definition of a proper domesticated rabbit with rights (eliminate domestic rabbit if anything) but the name is vital to a variety of non-profit groups. To delete this is to not understand the importance of the rabbit movement and the thousands of people and hundreds of groups trying to educate people. This is a valid site and term. If you think it's poorly written, then fix it, don't delete it. - dgoodberg ( talk) 13:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
It would be highly inappropriate to merge the House Rabbit article with the Domestic Rabbit article. The Domestic Rabbit article discusses meat rabbits and wool rabbits. It would be offensive to combine the two. This article is an expanded topic that is alluded to on the Domestic Rabbit article page, but should have its own entry separate from the Domestic Rabbit page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leporidae ( talk • contribs) 01:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Most readers of this article will benefit from it being independent of the Domestic Rabbit article. To your point, Depor23, "House cat" is a common term and "House rabbit" is beginning to gain prevalence, especially because of the advocacy of the House Rabbit Society. The term is a distinction between pet rabbits and rabbits that are bread specifically for fur or meat. Though meat and fur rabbits are bred to be very docile (and make excellent pets) the majority of rabbits that live as companion animals with people are bred as pets -- intentionally or accidentally. Dogs are common enough as to not warrant the distinction, but cats, as with rabbits, are often found feral in many urban areas. House rabbits are the third most common animal surrendered to shelters in the United States [7], so the House Rabbit as distinct from other domestic rabbits warrants a separate article. If there is a problem with the writing style I can volunteer to do edits. As for the "cute pets" I agree. The motivation is certainly there to put a cute House Rabbit photo up, since any rabbit outside of a pet owners home would be contradictory to the core of this article. Rhinokitty ( talk) 05:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
This is a very useful article and definitely encyclopaedia worthy. Its scope is very different than that of the domestic rabbits article. Hence there is no reason to merge the two. Rcomplexity ( talk) 21:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
There are two main distinction between house rabbits and other domestic rabbits. One is that they are for companionship vs. commercial purposes. They other is that they reside inside a human home, vs. outside. People who have a rabbit inside their homes for companionship are faced with different issues (e.g. rabbit proofing) than other rabbit owners. These unique circumstances are the core of the article and justify its existence as a separate article. For completeness, the article fills in other aspects of how owners care for the rabbit, some of which overlap with Domestic rabbit, but not excessively. If the articles were meged, it would be more difficult for a reader to quickly understand what it is like to own a house rabbit. Therefore, I believe House rabbit should remain separate. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
The tone and aim of the two articles are quite different; there is little doubt in my mind that they should be separate. However, it would benefit both pages if certain sections were taken from Domestic rabbit to House rabbit. I'm thinking particularly about Socialization, Acquiring, Training, etc. That way, Domestic rabbit remains an overview of the different contexts in which domesticated rabbits live, whereas House rabbit gives details of the specifics of keeping a rabbit at home. Under that system, there should really be a section on Commercial rabbit, although I don't volunteer to write it... Arikk ( talk) 20:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Forgive me if my formatting is off...first time doing this. I would highly advise NOT merging the ‘rabbit’ and ‘house rabbit’. While this discussion is on domestic vs house, the article says a merger between rabbit and domestic rabbit. I would advise against merging ‘house rabbit’ and ‘domestic rabbit’ but ONLY if the lines are better drawn. Let’s make a stronger differentiation from domestic v. house so people understand a house rabbit is always a type of domestic rabbit, but a domestic rabbit is not always a house rabbit.
The reasons for not merging domestic/house with ‘rabbit’ are because, 1) house rabbits are almost all exclusively in the European rabbit gene line (few exceptions) which comprises only a small portion of rabbits, 2) people looking for information on pet rabbits may have zero desire to see discussions about eating them, 3) the context in learning about "a rabbit" and "a pet rabbit as a companion" are completely different and the intent on information is likely distinct enough to not merge, 4) the information on a house rabbit in the general thread would make it longer and more difficult to navigate, and most importantly, 5) the difference in a 'house rabbit' versus a rabbit is as dramatic as a wolf versus a dog. While genetically-speaking they may be very similar, the behavioral differences are so dramatic it becomes an apple v. oranges sort of thing.
If anything, I think further differentiating rabbits as wild vs. domestic vs. house is worthwhile.
Now for house v. domestic…Another issue is how to classify domesticated rabbits used for meat, fur, and research...these rabbits are domesticated in a fashion to allow humans to breed them, but they generally do not have personalities that bear resemblance to wild rabbits nor house rabbits, putting them somewhere in the middle. People seeking information on this likely are not seeking general information on rabbits nor general information on house rabbits. I think the best solution here is to have DOMESTIC=meat/fur/research/etc. with a link to ‘house rabbits’ and a blurb that says “one kind of domesticated rabbit kept solely for companionship is the [link]house rabbit[link] followed by a definition.
One issue would be left…how do you classify rabbits kept outside for companionship? They technically are not ‘house rabbits’ by pure definition, but they also aren’t quite fitting the bill for ‘domestic’. We would need to classify these one way or another.--user NickZac ( talk) 17:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)NickZac
There was a tag claiming that the article contained original research. There were a lot of recent edits for which I couldn't find support in the article's citations. I removed the tag and the material that needs to be sourced, which I am listing below. If anyone has a source for these, please re-introduce with a citation. Keep in mind, too, that the article should describe common practice, but not be a "how to" guide (e.g. don't use "you" when writing).
Also, I removed two sections, "Problems" and "Reproduction" because there were redundant with other info in House rabbit and Rabbit.
Finally, there is this blurb, which has some value, but needs to the right context. It should be folded into the section on organizations:
-- Ed Brey ( talk) 17:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
One more removed unsourced assertion, which came over from Domestic rabbit: "they can also be trained to recognize different patterns of the voice. Rabbits can be taught their names, although they recognize the pattern of the noises more than the words." -- Ed Brey ( talk) 03:00, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Alot of lines in the current revision as of Oct 10th 2007 are very iffy.
"They are a very cute pet to have and they are a good companion." I don't remember cuteness being a measurable value. "The complete MAIN thing a rabbit needs in it's diet is medow hay. The diet can insist of other foods but you MUST have medow hay all the time. Lettuce has little nutritional value, you can feed it to your pet rabbit, but don't use it instead of other foods.House rabbits are..." - Fully capitalized words, bad spacing, and most of all: Wikipedia:NotHowTo. • ∈nigma • ( talk) 13:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Don't you think the average life span of a house rabbit is a bit important? I couldn't find life span info in the house rabbit OR rabbit page. C'mon you guys, that seems pretty rudimentary for an animal article. I'd post it myself if I knew but that's why I came to this page! Sixthcrusifix ( talk) 05:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following text, because it isn't supported by the cited source or any source that I could find. If anyone has a good source, please put the text back in: "When a stranger approaches slowly with an outstretched hand, a rabbit will often respond positively by sniffing and pushing the hand with his nose. [8]" -- Ed Brey ( talk) 02:04, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
The article as it stands is mostly an instruction guide on how to take care of pet rabbits. I wonder how much content would actually be left once all the non-encyclopaedic stuff has been removed. Perhaps this WP:CFORK would be best merged back into domestic rabbit. wjemather bigissue 21:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I think the link to the condo building instructions should remain. This is a good example of a how-to guide, which should not be - and is not - part of the page. However, it is still valuable to readers to have it be linked. It is not required to be a WP:RS, since it is not supporting facts in the article; it's just an external link. Ideally, the how-to would be a Wikibook or Wikiversity article, but until someone volunteers, having an external link to a decently pageranked how-to page is better than nothing. -- Ed Brey ( talk) 02:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Despite the description on the image page, there is nothing in the picture to suggest the rabbit is dashing anywhere, let alone under a couch. Caption changed to reflect what can actually be seen – a rabbit with some keys. wjemather bigissue 18:48, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
The picture of a rabbit and its owner eating an apple is a better photo aesthetically, more interesting, conveys the concept of a "house rabbit" better, and has a matter-of-fact caption. I moved it up to the main photo spot, and got rid of the photo of the rabbit with the keys. Lisieski ( talk) 02:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
This article is a terrible example of a how-to guide. I'm going to have a go at cleaning it up but would appreciate the support of others - especially in identifying the stuff to be pruned. -- Simple Bob ( talk) 11:52, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
So it looks like there are a group of us who agree that the article needs cleaning up. Wikipedia is built on such consensus being reached, so have at it then! -- Simple Bob ( talk) 22:09, 13 November 2010 (UTC) Made a sort of big edit, removed a lot of POV and How-to information. I'm sure there's more to go, though. I elected to delete things rather than tag them, because (for the most part) they said things like "rabbit owners should" or "x is better for house rabbits" etc. I don't want to go through the trouble of a merge, but it seems like it might be in order. Lisieski ( talk) 01:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
The recent short-lived addition, about having a rabbit "wake" when one of them croaks, was not intended to be funny, I'm sure. But it was. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:38, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
My recent edit containing this text:
"House rabbits are often kept in pairs, trios, or larger groups, to help cater to their social needs, which may not be fully met by their keepers. [4] Pairs or groups of rabbits that live together will bond with each other, exhibiting an increase in affiliative behaviors such as mutual grooming, physical contact, and eating together and a decrease in aggressive and defensive behaviors. Some house rabbit keepers claim that rabbits are aware of the absence of their bonded peers after they have died, exhibiting abnormal behavior; proponents of this idea advocate that the surviving rabbit(s) be allowed to "view" the body of the deceased rabbit in order to "accept" its death. [5]"
was quickly reverted. I want to defend it (or at least its spirit, if not the exact text) and see what people think before editing it again.
I think it's fair documentation of common practices (in fact, many references can be found citing the behavioral effects of housing rabbits socially.) I'll work on getting some scholarly sources about the effects of pair housing on social behavior, which I'm sure exist in abundance - social behavior in mammals is well-studied.
The "viewing" thing is a bit off-the-wall, but it seems to be mentioned on most online resources that deal with pet rabbits dying. I don't think it's POV, although it certainly hasn't been investigated in any scientific way - though there is at least one peer-reviewed article mentioning it ( http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/wov/2005/00000009/00000002/art00003 ). I think it's an important practice among people who identify as house rabbit keepers specifically, and so should be included in the article. Lisieski ( talk) 21:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
So one sentence, no weasel words, citing that source, with a caveat that no behavioral research has been published? BTW, I also think it's a questionable practice, psychologically (who knows what it actually "means" to the surviving rabbit, or if it affects their behavior) but noticed it several times while reading about house rabbits, and think it's one of the subcultural practices that might differentiate the way "house rabbits" are kept from the way other rabbits are kept. Lisieski ( talk) 18:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
The person who removed this link specified that it contravened the WP:NOTHOWTO rule. This is simply not the case! The page provides a wealth of information for house rabbit owners to interpret the body language of their pets. It is not a 'how to' guide in any way, other than allowing you to understand what your rabbit is telling you so you may respond accordingly. To interpret this page as a 'how to guide', simply due to the semantics of its title, is being pedantic to the extreme. CrackDragon ( talk) 12:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
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