Thank you for your interest in rehoming a rabbit from the RSPCA Chesterfield Animal Centre.

We want as many people as possible to be able to rehome a rabbit from us – what’s important is matching you and your family with the right rabbit. Below you can find information about what steps to expect during our rehoming process along with lots of other useful information. We hope to see you soon!

In this section: How rabbit rehoming works | Help and support for adopters | FAQs 

Adopting a rabbit from the RSPCA Chesterfield Animal Centre

How the process works

1. View the available rabbits on our website and read their profiles.

2. Complete the online rabbit application form for the animal you are interested in adopting.

3. If you meet the requirements of the rabbit and your application is selected, a member of the team will call you to discuss your application and the next stage of our rehoming process. Please note that we are only able to contact successful applicants to discuss the next stage of our rehoming process. If you are not contacted within 2 weeks from when you submit your application, unfortunately you may not have been successful on this occasion. We are unable to provide feedback on unsuccessful applications. We may receive multiple applications for a particular rabbit, for which we are very grateful. If we do have a number of applications to review, please rest assured that we will be in touch if your application is chosen.

4. If all goes well with this discussion, we’ll ask you to provide us with videos or photos of your home and garden, your rabbit accommodation and any existing animals you have. We’ll also need to see written permission from your landlord to keep a rabbit if you live in rented accommodation, we may come and visit you before or after the adoption as part of the rehoming process.

5. Once we’ve received all the information from you, we’ll arrange an appointment for you and any other members of your household to meet the rabbit at the animal centre.

6. If the introductions are successful, we will arrange an appointment for you to adopt your new family member from the animal centre. We’ll ask you to provide some form of ID (proof of name and address) prior to the adoption.

7. You will receive a follow up email or call from the animal centre after the adoption to find out how your new rabbit has settled in.

Adoption fee | £95 per rabbit | £50 per guinea pig

If you would like to support our work, please visit our donation page. Thank you.

Our recommended sizes and setups for rabbit accommodation

Rabbits are active animals – they love to run, dig, hop and jump. Providing them with spacious housing attached to a secure run will help keep them active, happy and healthy. The recommended enclosure size for a pair of rabbits is:

  • Hutch – 6 ft long by 2 ft deep (183 cm by 61 cm). This is suitable for small to medium breed rabbits

  • Shed or wooden Wendy House – 5 ft by 5 ft (153 cm by 153 cm)

  • Exercise run – 10 ft long by 5 ft wide by 3 ft high (305 cm by 153 cm), total space: 60 ft2. This will need to be permanently and securely attached to the hutch or shed allowing your rabbits the choice to move between the two.

Groups will require a bigger space depending on their breed and activity level.

One rabbit or two?

Rabbits are very sociable animals and it’s important for their wellbeing that they are able to live with companions. If you currently have a single rabbit, we are able to rehome to you another single rabbit. If you have no other rabbits, we would be looking to rehome to you a pair or group of rabbits. This ensures that their companionship needs are met in their new home. Please visit our advice and welfare pages for more information about introducing and bonding rabbits.

Help and support for adopters

Introducing a new rabbit to your home will be exciting and very rewarding. It may take a while for your new rescue rabbit to settle into life with you, but don’t worry, if you do encounter some tricky bits, you’re not alone. Once you’ve adopted your new rescue rabbit, we’ve prepared lots of free online content for you about rabbit welfare and advice.

Remember, we’re still here for advice and support. Please get in touch with the animal centre and we’ll do our best to help with any questions you may have.

Important information

Please be aware that information relating to the temperament and behaviour of our rabbits has been based on observations of them whilst in our care. Please note that there may be differences in behaviour observed in an animal centre environment compared to in a home environment. Any background information or history from before our rabbits came into our care has been provided by third parties and will be shared by us in good faith. We cannot give any guarantee to the validity of the information provided or how one of our rabbits may behave or react in a new home.

Veterinary responsibilities

Please be aware that after the adoption, you will become legally responsible for obtaining and funding all future veterinary treatment for your new rescue rabbit. This includes treatment for any pre-existing condition(s) and/or any conditions that your new rescue rabbit may have contracted at the animal centre and applies whether or not the symptoms were present or made known to you prior to adoption.

Frequently asked questions about rabbit rehoming

Yes, all of our rabbit rehoming is by appointment once you have been successfully matched. We do not offer general viewing in our rabbit house. Please visit the rabbits on our website and complete an online rabbit application form if you are interested in adopting.

Our adoption fee for rabbits is £95.00 per rabbit. This fee goes towards the costs of caring for the rabbits that come into our care. Every rabbit adopted is:

  • Neutered (or comes with a neutering voucher)

  • Microchipped

  • Vaccinated

  • Vet checked

  • You will also receive four weeks’ insurance with Petplan absolutely FREE. This is all included in the one-off adoption fee.

Rabbits are active animals – they love to run, dig, hop and jump. Providing them with spacious housing attached to a secure run will help keep them active, happy and healthy. The recommended enclosure size for a pair of rabbits is:

  • Hutch – 6 ft long by 2 ft deep (183 cm by 61 cm). This is suitable for small to medium breed rabbits

  • Shed or wooden Wendy House – 5 ft by 5 ft (153 cm by 153 cm)

  • Exercise run – 10 ft long by 5 ft wide by 3 ft high (305 cm by 153 cm), total space: 60 ft2. This will need to be permanently and securely attached to the hutch or shed allowing your rabbits the choice to move between the two.

Groups will require a bigger space depending on their breed and activity level.

Rabbits are very sociable animals and it’s important for their wellbeing that they are able to live with companions. If you currently have a single rabbit, we are able to rehome to you another single rabbit. If you have no other rabbits, we would be looking to rehome to you a pair or group of rabbits. This ensures that their companionship needs are met in their new home. Please visit our advice and welfare pages for more information about introducing and bonding rabbits.

We promote responsible pet ownership as part of our rehoming procedures. All our rabbits are vaccinated against common diseases and neutered (or adopted with a neutering voucher).

Existing rabbits must be neutered and we would recommend that they are vaccinated.

A rabbit’s best companion is another friendly rabbit. A guinea pig’s best companion is another friendly guinea pig. Keeping rabbits and guinea pigs together isn’t an ideal combination. Here’s why.

Owning a rabbit is a wonderful privilege, but with that comes financial and legal responsibilities. We are always very grateful for the offer of loving homes for our rabbits, however your current financial situation could impact on your ability to adopt, or to adopt a particular rabbit considering its welfare needs.  

We have a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that potential adopters have the ability to meet routine and emergency vet bills along with any other financial commitments that come with owning a rabbit. In some circumstances, such as people currently unemployed, on low income and/or low income benefits, we may need to ask for further information and/or evidence of your ability to fund veterinary costs so we can be sure that you are able to meet your responsibilities in relation to the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

We deal with each situation on a case by case basis but if after considering your individual circumstances and the information provided, we have any concerns about your ability to meet the costs of owning a rabbit, then unfortunately we would be unable to proceed with rehoming to you.

 Animal Welfare Act 2006

Section 9 of the Animal Welfare Act places a duty of care on people to ensure they take reasonable steps to meet the welfare needs of their animals to the extent required by good practice. In short this means positive steps must be taken to ensure owners care for their animals properly and in particular must provide for the five welfare needs, which includes the need to protect an animal from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

Further information about what this means in practice can be found in a specific Code of Practice produced by Defra (for England) and by the Welsh Government.

PDSA

We do not recommend relying on another charity to help finance your existing rabbit’s veterinary treatment and careful consideration should be given to this, as the charity’s service could be reduced or withdrawn at any stage or you could find that you become no longer eligible.

If you plan to use the PDSA to help finance your veterinary fees, we strongly advise that you contact them first or visit their website to check if you are eligible to qualify for PDSA veterinary services and live within a catchment area of a PDSA service. 

Please note that the PDSA has closed its Pet Practice scheme in the Chesterfield area to new registrations. 

In light of the above, we are unable to adopt to anyone who would be dependent on the PDSA or another charity as the principal source of funding for veterinary treatment and you would therefore need an alternative means of meeting these costs should you wish to rehome a rabbit from our animal centre.

Insurance

We would always recommend that pet owners consider taking out pet insurance. This will help you to cope financially with any unexpected bills. However, it is important to be aware that insurance will not cover preventative treatments such as vaccinations or flea and worm treatment and nor will it cover any pre-existing conditions that your rabbit has prior to the commencement of the insurance cover. You would therefore need to have sufficient funds to meet these costs and would also need to take account of the relevant excess (this is the amount of each claim the policyholder must pay) that applies to the insurance policy.

Yes. If you live in private rented accommodation, then you will need to provide the animal centre with written permission from your landlord stating that rabbits are allowed to live at the property.

We do not require written permission for council or housing association properties.

As long as you are permanently resident in the UK and you are able to visit the animal centre as many times as necessary to complete the rehoming process, you are welcome to rehome from our animal centre.

Please do not travel to our animal centre to visit our rabbits without an appointment as we do not offer general viewing of the rabbits. 

Every adoption is treated as an individual case, so while the process normally takes about a week, it can be shorter or longer depending on a number of factors, and this typical timeframe should not be taken as a guarantee.

Some dogs might need to get to know their new owners more gradually over several visits and others might be completing veterinary treatment before they can be adopted.

If you know there is a big event (moving house, going on holiday, a new baby) coming up soon, it’s best to start the process after everything has settled down, so that whenever you find your new dog, you’re ready for them.

We aim to publish new animals on our website weekly and update reserve information daily.

However, please be aware that our rehoming pages may not represent all the animals we have staying with us and during busy periods information may not be fully up-to-date.

Please feel free to contact the animal centre for the latest information.