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If you own a pet rabbit, it's important to groom them periodically. Grooming your rabbit removes loose hairs from their fur, which makes their coat appear more healthy. More importantly, it also stops your rabbit from accidentally swallowing the loose hair that's built up in their coat. Rabbits go through periodic shedding cycles, and you'll need to groom your rabbit even more often when they're shedding heavily. To learn more about why it's important to groom your pet rabbit and how to do it properly, read on.

Why Do Rabbits Need Periodic Grooming?

Rabbits naturally groom themselves throughout the day in order to keep themselves clean. When they're shedding large amounts of fur, they'll swallow the loose hairs while they're grooming themselves. The swallowed hair can bind together in the rabbit's stomach, where it can become stuck and cause a bowel obstruction — this is a serious medical emergency that often requires surgery in order to treat. To prevent your rabbit from swallowing too much hair, you'll need to periodically remove loose hair in their fur by grooming them.

Removing loose hair is also important to stop your rabbit's fur from becoming matted. Mites can easily hide in matted hair, and they can cause your rabbit's skin to become highly irritated.

How Do You Groom Your Pet Rabbit?

The best tool to use for rabbit grooming is a small flea comb that's designed for kittens. Run the flea comb through your rabbit's fur at an upwards angle, making sure not to make contact with their skin — rabbits have very delicate skin, and the flea comb's tines can scratch and irritate it. Shed hair will become trapped in the tines of the flea comb, where it can be removed and disposed of.

It's best to groom your rabbit's fur from front to back, which is the same direction that their hair naturally grows in. Grooming your rabbit's fur in the opposite direction can cause hairs that haven't shed yet to become trapped in the tines, which means that you may accidentally pull them out of your rabbit's skin.

How Often Should You Groom Your Rabbit?

Rabbits go through four shedding cycles each year, and the ones during the summer and winter are the heaviest cycles. During these heavy shedding cycles, you'll need to groom your rabbit's fur every day in order to prevent loose hair from building up in their fur. If you have a long-haired rabbit, you'll need to groom them multiple times a day when they're shedding heavily.

Outside of shedding season, it's a good idea to groom your rabbit at least once a week. This will keep loose hair to a minimum, preventing it from building up and forming mats on your rabbit's fur. It also helps your rabbit becomes more acclimated to being groomed.

If you aren't sure that you're grooming your pet rabbit properly or if you're having trouble keeping up with grooming during a heavy shedding cycle, it's a good idea to take your rabbit to a rabbit grooming service. In addition to removing shed hair from your rabbit's fur, a rabbit grooming service can also clip their nails and carefully cut away areas of matted fur, ensuring that they'll be perfectly groomed and in great shape.

For more information, contact services like Rabbit Groomers Inc.