Rabbits Grooming Question

[jasminepeak]

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all doing well! I have a grooming-related question about my rabbits and was wondering if anyone could share some insights.

Lately, I've noticed my rabbits grooming each other excessively. While I understand grooming is a natural behavior,

I'm curious if there's such a thing as too much grooming. Are there any potential issues or health concerns associated with over-grooming among rabbits?

Should I intervene, or is it generally a harmless behavior? I'd appreciate any advice or experiences you can share.

 

[jasminepeak]

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all doing well! I have a grooming-related question about my rabbits and was wondering if anyone could share some insights.

Lately, I've noticed my rabbits grooming each other excessively. While I understand grooming is a natural behavior,

I'm curious if there's such a thing as too much grooming. Are there any potential issues or health concerns associated with over-grooming among rabbits?

Should I intervene, or is it generally a harmless behavior? I'd appreciate any advice or experiences you can share.

thanks in advance for any help

 

[judymac]

I'm curious if there's such a thing as too much grooming.

This excessive grooming is called 'barbering'. I raise angora rabbits, and occasionally have a rabbit that will overgroom its littermates, trimming their long fiber down to a short coat. Definitely not a good thing for fiber yield. I have not seen any detriment to the groomer, even though you would suspect excess hair ingestion to be an issue, it hasn't been a problem.

I've read a variety of potential causes, from boredom to lack of fiber in the diet, to dominance issues (the groomer is showing dominance over the rabbit being groomeed) to nutritional deficiencies. If the groomer is housed alone, you can skip the dominance theory, and move on to exploring other possible causes.

 

[eco2pia]

We see this in rodents also--generally it runs in lines and is thought to be related to stress--so some mice have a genetic predisposition to a low stress tolerance and expressing it by over grooming until the baby mice never grow fur, for instance, typically on all the upper (reachable) parts of their body. If it is barbering I would try to select against it or look for reasons for excessive stress.

However, if there is not actual hair loss, or some underlying skin condition, I would not call it barbering, and I would not intervene.

 

[tambayo]

I see "overgrooming" other animals in horses with itch for instance. So first check for parasites or skin problems.