Rabbits are highly social animals that suffer when kept alone — appropriate companionship is a welfare essential.
A solitary pet rabbit is a rabbit experiencing chronic social deprivation. Rabbits communicate constantly through subtle body language, shared grooming, and proximity — behaviours that simply cannot be replicated by human contact. A bonded rabbit pair shows lower stress hormones, more exploratory behaviour, and higher indicators of positive welfare. The investment required to bond a second rabbit — the process takes days to weeks and requires careful management — is entirely justified by the lifetime welfare improvement it provides.