Our bunnies hold a spot close to our hearts. For any rabbit owner, I’m sure you could agree with this. They are emotion filled creatures who we form an outstanding bond with. Some owners even sleep with their bunnies and our kids and family grow attached to our bunnies quickly. Why wouldn’t we? Bunnies are great small pets that do nothing but show love back to us. With that in mind, sometimes as concerned bunny owners, we do have questions and want the best for our rabbits. I always wondered one thing. Do rabbits cry? Here is what I can tell you about the topic.
So, do rabbits cry? Yes, rabbits do cry, but it’s different than what you may expect. For a rabbit to cry, your bunny would need to be in extreme fear or pain or a deeply saddened emotional state. Rabbits do have tear ducts and are fully capable of whimpering, crying or screaming audible noises and tones.
What causes this emotional state with your rabbit and what can we as owners do, to not only be aware of our rabbits’ emotions and feelings but to help as much possible?
That’s what I plan on breaking down for you in the article. I want to take a deep dive into your rabbits’ emotions so that you, as the owner can be prepared. If you stick around for just a moment hopefully, we can answer all your questions and concerns.
Contents
Understanding Your Rabbit and Preparing to Comfort Your Bunny Accordingly
As we touched on previously, it’s 100 percent possible for your bunny to cry and make many different audible sounds. This could be teeth grinding, hissing, snorting, screaming and yes as we have mentioned crying. That’s a possibility as well. Many different factors need to be considered so we can begin pinpointing what’s happening with your furry friend. Here’s a look at some of the areas we need to dive into to discover the issue at hand.
Illnesses With Your Bunny
Disease and death as a rabbit owner should be priority #1 to double check and avoid at all cost. Your bunny not feeling quite right or experiencing a disease could be a primary reason that your bunny lets out a loud cry, but it’s not the only reason they may cry.
Monitoring other behaviors with your rabbit during these times is essential. If something even seems slightly off, you should call your vet and double check that your bunny is okay. Better safe than sorry and with bunny cries, it can sometimes be difficult to understand fully what the issue is.
Pain Your Rabbit May Be Experiencing
Your rabbit could also be experiencing some form of physical pain. This could either be due to mishandling them, an unknown injury or it could be related to or in conjunction with an illness. This is another good reason to double check everything is okay with your vet and monitor all your bunnies’ behaviors during these times.
Discomfort with Your Bunny for Other Reasons
This is going to be much more of a whimper than a crying noise. It could also fall into the same category as an illness, but rarely will a rabbit cry out of discomfort from mishandling or grabbing them inappropriately. We will break down some other rabbit noises such as whimpering in more depth to help give you a better idea of what’s going on.
Do Rabbits Whimper?
You bet, we briefly just touched on this. Your bunny can let alone a whine or whimper in several different situations or circumstances. It’s not uncommon at all. You have five primary reasons that may warrant a loud whimper out of your rabbit. Here’s a look at them.
Five Primary Causes of a Bunny Whimper Sound
1.) They Don’t Want to Be Handled
2.) You are Handling Them Incorrectly
3.) Female Pregnant Rabbit Will Whimper When Near Other Rabbits
4.) They Don’t Like the Environment They Are in Or Feel Frightened
5.) They Feel Unsafe for Other Reasons but Not an Extreme (We Will Cover a Rabbit in Danger Shortly)
None of these causes are too much to worry about and are easily fixable. If your bunny doesn’t want to be handled, respect those wishes and try another again another time. If you are mishandling your rabbit and he or she whimpers, listen to what your rabbit is communicating and adjust if need be.
Out of all the sounds, a rabbit can make while in distress, this is one of the sounds that should cause the least amount of panic as a bunny owner. Don’t be fooled in some situations.
It’s not included in our top 5 reasons of why rabbits may whimper, but some clever bunnies have developed the street smarts to whine for no other reason but garnishing some attention from their owners.
Let’s be real though; it works on everyone when this happens so might as well admit defeat now. The whimper will capture your heart each time.
Why Do Rabbits Scream?
This one is absolutely zero fun to talk about. A rabbit scream is 100% different than a whimper or a rabbit crying. A rabbit screaming usually indicates no joke and is never good news. Usually, if you hear your rabbit screaming it’s either when it’s passing away or when it knows it’s in extreme danger, or an enemy is close.
Don’t Jump the gun too much. There have been videos and situations where a bunny can scream doing more laughable events such as taking a bath or something built around humor with an owner, but in many situations, if you aren’t putting on a comedy show, you should take a rabbit scream seriously. It’s most likely something either very scary or bad news, unfortunately.
What About Wheezing? What Does This Mean?
If your rabbit is wheezing, it’s again most likely due to an illness or respiratory infection or nasal infection such as stridor or stertor and needs some attention from you. I would advise that if this is the sound you are hearing that you contact your vet as soon as possible or take them into your vet in person to double check if everything is the way it should be. No need to risk letting the illness progress or get any worse.
Do Bunnies Get Lonely on Their Own?
Yes, rabbits prefer companionship. Without an owner around or another rabbit friend, rabbits can become severely depressed. We talk about this in our article about how rabbits grieve. Rabbits are sociable loveable creatures that prefer as much love and attention as possible and others around to share the joy with when possible.
It won’t take long for your rabbit to grab a case of the “blues” and become depressed. It can even lead to your rabbit becoming ill if not handled appropriately and ultimately death. If you can’t spring the money for a second domesticated rabbit, be sure to shower your rabbit with love and affection as much as possible.
Why Do Rabbits Scream When They Die?
It’s just a common behavior for rabbits to let out these terrifying screams of terror. It’s something no rabbit owner or pet owner ever likes to hear from any animal that we love. Rabbits tend to panic when they know their enemy is close and often will also continue to scream throughout the attack.
It’s very disheartening to watch or hear this sound so if you decide to stroll the internet looking for a rabbit screaming video, proceed with caution. They aren’t very enjoyable to watch. In my opinion at least.
How Can I Make My Rabbit Happy?
While writing this blog posts, I realized that all I did was give terrible scenarios when sounds that often indicate the worse: illness, depression, discomfort, and even death. I wanted to wrap things up on a more cheerful note and mention that these sounds shouldn’t be very common, and you can 100% avoid them by keeping your bunny safe and happy.
But how do I do that? Well, as we have said in this posts and others, you need to shower your bunny with love and affection. Show attention to your bunny. Take good and ethical care of your rabbits.
Designate play time/interaction time and cuddle time. If you are an extremely busy individual be sure to allow time in your schedule or consider getting your rabbit a companion to stay with him or her in the cage.
You can’t protect your rabbit from everything but keeping a clean, safe and loving environment is one way to ensure that you shouldn’t have to hear the bunny sounds we have laid out here for you today. Or at least the sounds that indicate the worst possible scenarios.
Your Rabbit, A Pet of Many Sounds and Emotions to Understand
At the end of the day, rabbits are unique in the noises that they make and the timing of when these sounds tend to be unleashed from your rabbits’ vocals. It’s important to understand what each sound means and to respond accordingly.
Your rabbit potentially being ill or having other reasons of discomfort is an issue to tend to immediately. Do you have any stories related to your rabbit crying or making other funny noises? What caused it and how did you handle it? Be sure to drop a comment below.
