When bunnies are 2 weeks old can they die if you give them a shower?

Answer 1

Bathing a rabbit can be dangerous and can even lead to death. See the related question below for more detailed information and helpful links.

Some risks of bathing a rabbit include:

- The rabbit can panic and drown (rabbits can swim but, like people, sometimes they drown, too)

- The rabbit can panic and injure itself

- The rabbit can become so anxious and fearful that it has a heart attack

- Water in the ears can lead to infection

- The rabbit's sensitive skin can be damaged by hot water, hot air from the blow dryer, or chemicals in the shampoo/soap

- Wet fur can lead to hypothermia

Healthy rabbits are clean animals and don't ever need to be bathed. A rabbit shouldn't have a bath unless necessary, and if it is necessary something is wrong and you should treat not only the symptoms (the messiness or smelliness) but also the cause: this usually means a trip to the vet.

If your rabbit has a little messiness, a luke-warm flannel (cloth) wiped over the area works wonders. This is called a "spot-bath" and it's very safe on a warm day. (Wet fur can lead to hypothermia on cold days, and even on cool + breezy days).

If you need to bathe your rabbit, follow certain precautions: for example, hold it in shallow water, don't use bath soaps, and be gentle.

If the rabbit is too hot on a hot day, they usually don't mind being sprayed with water, this doesn't cause very much stress and keeps them cool. Always pay close attention to your rabbit on an individual basis because some rabbits hate being sprayed with water. Other methods to cool down a hot rabbit include chilling a ceramic tile in the freezer for the rabbit to lie on, and draping a cold soaking wet towel near the rabbit and aiming a fan at it (the water evaporates and cools the surrounding air). Fans alone are not enough to cool down a rabbit: the reason they cool down humans is because we sweat, but rabbits don't sweat so fans are mostly useless.

If the rabbit needs a medicated bath, consult a vet for more information.

Answer 2

Yes, a 2-week old rabbit could die from being given a shower.

The stress from a shower alone could kill the rabbit. Rabbits are prey animals so they're prone to anxiety. Even an adult rabbit could die after having a shower, but babies are even more sensitive. There's a big difference between a wild rabbit out in the rain, and a pet rabbit in a shower stall. The shower stall is completely foreign to them, which immediately makes them nervous; and it's noisy; and you're handling it, which rabbits generally don't like; and the water is coming down harder than any rainfall a wild rabbit would be happy in (wild rabbits go underground during storms); and there's no escape route (normally a big stressor for any rabbit -- no matter the situation, rabbits like to know their potential escape route). All this stress could make the rabbit very sick, or cause it to panic and injure itself, or to simply have a heart attack and die.

Aside from stress, there's other risks associated with bathing a rabbit: the extra-sensitive skin of a rabbit could be easily burned or irritated from hot water, the blow dryer, or soap/shampoo; water in the ears can lead to infection; and wet fur can lead to hypothermia (and death).

Healthy rabbits are clean animals and there's no reason to bathe them. If your rabbit is dirty, something's wrong. In addition to cleaning it, you should figure out what the problem is -- probably this means a trip to the vet. When you do clean the rabbit, you have to follow specific steps to make sure you're being safe about it. See the related question below for more information and helpful links.