Daily Coat Care: Brushing Your Rabbit
📝 Summary
Rabbits groom themselves constantly and swallow fur, which can stall the gut and form hairballs — a condition driven less by the fur itself than by slow intestinal motility. Brushing weekly, daily during sheds, plus plenty of roughage and exercise keeps things moving and the rabbit safe.
1 Why Brush Regularly
Rabbits are fastidious and spend hours licking their coat, which means they swallow plenty of fur and risk hairball disease. It is well known to rabbit keepers and common in pets; wild rabbits swallow fur too but rarely get hairballs because they eat and move far more.
The real cause is not the swallowed fur but low gut motility: food and fur pile up, the intestine keeps drawing out water, and the mass hardens until it cannot pass — especially when fur mixes with other debris.
Prevent it with daily roughage and enough exercise to keep the gut moving, plus regular brushing to limit what the rabbit swallows. Brush one to two times a week, and daily during the shedding season.
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