We live in South Birmingham in the UK. If you also live in Birmingham, you may find this guide useful. We sure could have used it when we started!

Vets

Finding a reliable vet with an expert knowledge of rabbits, which are often classed as “exotics”, can be tricky.

Oaks Vets in Bournville is our vet of choice. Rebecca, the co-owner, is a small animal specialist and has confirmed she’s not planning on leaving. Rebecca is calm, straight-forward, knowledgeable, and wise - we cannot recommend her enough! And we’ve never had to wait long for an appointment, which is important as rabbits can suddenly be at death’s door with no notice!

Before we knew of Oaks we tried a few vets. The only other one we might recommend would be 608 Vet Practice in Solihull who neutered Joy, though we never used them regularly.

We had a mixed experience with Value Vets in Kings Heath. A couple of their vets were fantastic rabbit experts, the rest were mostly fine though one older gent treated the rabbits like they were livestock! The problem was turnover, so we started looking elsewhere for consistency, which lead us to Oaks.

Shopping for Supplies

We’ve started buying our hay from Hungry Horse in Earlswood and Sutton. Each bale costs £5 and will last our three rabbits just under a month. They also sell Readygrass at £1 per kilo and large bales of dust free woodchip. Basically, there’s not much difference between a rabbit’s diet and that of a horse, other than capacity, so we’re now buying horse food! (While we haven’t tried them, we were also recommended Gibbs Brothers in Kenilworth.)

Prior to this we were mostly buying from Kings Heath Pets who are much more expensive than the horse shops (though they usually have the best price on Selective pellets) but maybe more convenient if you’re local, and are very nice people.

Pets at Home, the chain in Selly Oak, is a mixed bag. Some of their stuff is good value, some is madly overpriced. But the staff are nice and their vet is open longer hours which is good in emergencies.

Adopting a Rabbit

There are two sanctuaries in Birmingham with rabbits for adoption that we actively support.

Fat Fluffs, between Birmingham and Coventry, is rabbit-specific and would be our first port of call for a new rabbit. Adam, their site manager, is a wizard at bonding buns and everyone there is a lovely. (TW, IG, FB)

Wythall Animal Rescue, south of Birmingham, covers all animals from hamsters to horses and has a dedicated rabbit house. They’ve been established for a long time and do excellent work. (FB)

Local sanctuaries we haven’t visited but would be worth checking out:

RSPCA Birmingham in Frankley. (Tw, FB)

Hopper Haven in Redditch. (FB)

Bramble Rabbit Rescue in Wolverhampton.

If you’re not in the West Midlands have a look on the Rabbit Rehome website for a sanctuary near you.

If you’re local and have any good tips please do let us know and we’ll add them here.