Finding a new home for your rabbit

Photo of a white and brown rabbit lying on a white blanket inside a wooden arch.

Note: Sunshine is not currently taking in new bunnies from individuals. This includes bunnies that are being relinquished by owners (except bunnies adopted from Sunshine) or bunnies that have been found outdoors. This page is a guide to help you find other options for where to bring your bunny in the Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Orange County areas.

“I have a rabbit I need to find a home for. What should I do?”

Like all rabbit rescues, one of the most common questions we hear is, “I have a rabbit I can’t take care of. Can I bring him/her to you?”

There are lots of reasons that someone might look for a new home for a rabbit. The rabbit might be a beloved family pet but the family is experiencing hardship. Or the rabbit may have been saved from outside by a concerned citizen. Whatever the situation, it can be hard to figure out where to take a bunny who needs a new home.

Unfortunately, we are not currently taking in new rabbits from individuals at Sunshine. Some of your other options include: relinquish the rabbit to another local non-profit rescue (if they have space and funds), surrender the rabbit to a local municipal shelter, or rehome the rabbit yourself through your family and friends.

How to decide whether to find a new home for your rabbit

Before exploring your options for rehoming your rabbit, you may want to consider whether rehoming is the right fit for you and your family. Even at the most loving rescues, rabbits can wait months—or even years—to find their new families. As long as the rabbit is not in danger, it’s often better for the bunny to stay with his/her family instead of being relinquished.

Here are some of the common reasons we hear for rehoming rabbits and what we wish rabbit owners knew:

  • “My family member has developed an allergy to rabbits, so we have to give him/her up.” Often, what bunny owners are allergic to is actually hay, not rabbits. Switching to orchard hay (widely available, including in the Sunshine shop) frequently helps reduce allergies.

  • “I worry I’m not spending enough time with my rabbit. I don’t want him/her to be lonely. So I’m giving him up to find have a better life.” Instead of relinquishing your rabbit, consider getting him/her a partner! We (and many other groups) offer matchmaking and bonding services.

  • “We bought this bunny for our child when she/he was younger but now our child is going to college.” These rabbits are some of the sweetest but also the hardest to rehome because they are often already seniors (6 years+). Consider keeping the bunny in the home—another reason for your college student to come visit during breaks!

  • “We recently got a dog or cat, so now we can’t keep our rabbit.” In some cases, with careful introductions and monitoring, dogs and cats can live in the same household as rabbits. This guide from House Rabbit Society on dogs and rabbits offers a helpful starting point.

Relinquishing your rabbit to a local rescue

If you do decide to rehome your rabbit, there are a number of non-profit animal rescue groups in the greater Los Angeles area (LA, Orange County, Long Beach, the San Gabriel Valley, Pasadena, Inland Empire) that take in rabbits. These groups work hard to find rabbits safe, loving homes.

But these rescues are small and run on tight budgets, so they don’t always have space to take on new rabbits or the funds to pay for medical expenses like spay/neuter, vaccination, or emergency treatment. Rescues are not under any legal obligation to take in specific rabbits. Please contact these rescues directly to ask whether they have space available:

Important: Never abandon a rabbit at a rescue. Leaving an animal at a rescue facility without the staff’s express permission is a crime in California. It places an unfair burden on the rescue and puts the rabbit at severe risk for harm or even death.

Surrendering your rabbit to an animal shelter

If none of the rescues you contact are able to take your rabbit, or if you’re not able to travel to one of these rescues, another option is to surrender your rabbit to a local municipal animal shelter.

Animal shelters are government facilities run by cities and counties. They are not small non-profit groups like rescues. Many are required by law to take in all animals that are surrendered to them. Each shelter has its own policies for how to surrender an animal, what medical treatment they provide, and whether they ever euthanize. Contact your local shelter to inquire.

Which shelter you can go to depends on the city you live in and/or the city where you found the rabbit, if you found the bunny outside. Each city (or neighborhood, in a large enough city) is associated with a different shelter. Consult a map or Google “animal shelter for [city name"]” to find your shelter.

Some of the shelter systems for the greater Los Angeles area include:

Important: We strongly recommend not bringing your rabbit to SEACCA, the contracted shelter that serves the cities of Bell Gardens, Bellflower, Buena Park, Downey, Lakewood, La Palma, Montebello, Norwalk, Paramount, Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs, South El Monte, South Gate, and Vernon. If SEACCA is your local municipal shelter, please let the rescues you contact know that you are looking for an alternative to SEACCA.

Rehoming a rabbit through friends and family

Another option is to find a new home for the rabbit yourself by reaching out to family and friends. This can be a great option, if you know someone you trust to provide safe, loving care. Consider friends of friends who can vouch for them. It’s ok if they’re still learning; you can help teach them and possibly provide some of the rabbit care items you were using for the bunny.

However, we do not recommend placing public posts on social media sites like Facebook, Craigslist, or Nextdoor as a way to rehome your rabbit. It is harder to vet a potential new family who you do not know. Unfortunately, sometimes individuals “adopt” small animals from social media posts to use as food for other animals. It’s truly heartbreaking.

What should you do if you find a rabbit outside?

In Southern California, it’s unfortunately common to find abandoned domestic rabbits outside in parks and backyards. Domestic rabbits can’t survive outside because of dangerous predators like hawks, coyotes, and racoons.

If you’ve found a rabbit outside, we recommend contacting Kribs for Kritters—a rescue group that helps with catching and rehoming abandoned bunnies.

If you have already caught a bunny you found outdoors and are caring for it while finding it a home, we recommend reading about proper diet for rabbits, to make sure the bunny is eating appropriate foods (lots of hay, leafy veggies, a small amount of pellets).

If you adopted from Sunshine and need to rehome your rabbit

If you adopted your rabbit from Sunshine Rabbit Center and now need to find your rabbit a new home, please contact us (via email at contact@sunshinerabbit.org or phone at 562 231 7116). We are happy to discuss your situation and, if appropriate, coordinate a time to relinquish.

We are committed to taking back into our care any rabbits that we adopt our from Sunshine. They are all precious to us—and we know they’re precious to our adopters as well!