what to expect before your rabbit's stay - health requirements + why they matter

If you have ever boarded a dog or cat, you already know the drill:

• Current rabies vaccine

• Bordetella

• DHPP

• Flea and tick prevention

• A wellness exam within the past year

No reputable dog or cat boarding facility will accept a guest without these - and no one questions it. It is simply understood that a shared environment requires shared standards.

Bun Chia Burrow holds the same standards for rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, hamsters, and rats. Yet, because your small pets are still widely perceived as low-maintenance animals that don't require "real" veterinary care, we are occasionally asked to explain ourselves.

So we hope this helps.

To Keep Your Animals Safe

When your rabbit, guinea pig, or rat comes to BCB, they are entering a shared environment - other guests and staff who handle multiple pets throughout the day are here.

A wellness requirement is not bureaucratic box-checking. It is the most basic assurance we can have that the pets coming through our door are not carrying something that could spread to every other guest in our care. A pet with a current wellness exam has been assessed by a veterinarian recently enough to catch early signs of illness, parasites, respiratory infection, or other conditions that parents often cannot identify on their own.

Without these requirements, we are accepting every guest on faith - and faith is not a biosecurity protocol.

To Keep Our Animals Safe

Marshmallow, Macaron, and Chocolatte occassionally visit during our long shifts. They are our family - we owe it to them to hold the same standard we would want any facility to hold if they were the ones boarding. A facility that does not require wellness checks is a facility that is willing to accept unknown health variables into its environment - and we will not let our bunnies be willing participants in that experiment.

Because Rabbits Deserve to Be Taken Seriously

Dogs and cats have decades of established boarding standards behind them. Rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, hamsters, and rats do not - not because their health matters less, but because the industry has never been held to the same standard.

BCB is holding that standard anyway. Not because we are required to, but because your pets deserve it.

A rabbit who comes to BCB deserves the same level of care and environmental protection that a dog at a reputable kennel receives. A guinea pig boarding with us deserves the same biosecurity consideration that a cat at a reputable cat hotel receives. The species may be different, but the standard is not.

What Our Requirements Actually Are

BCB requires a current wellness exam from a exotic-savvy veterinarian, not a general practice vet, within the past year for all non-rabbit guests, and current RHDV-2 vaccination for all rabbits (which already requires an annual vet visit). This is not an unreasonable ask - it is the minimum we need to responsibly accept your pet into our care.

We also understand that veterinary visits carry their own stress and exposure risk for small animals. Our wellness requirement is designed to be as minimally burdensome as possible - an annual exam, not a pre-boarding checkup every time. If you are already seeing your exotic vet annually as recommended, you are already meeting our requirement.

If a Facility Doesn't Have Standards - Be Concerned

We will say this directly: if you are evaluating a boarding facility for your small pet and they have no health requirements - no wellness exam, no vaccination verification, no biosecurity protocol of any kind - that should concern you.

It does not mean the facility is staffed by people who don't care. It may mean they are understaffed, under-resourced, or operating without the expertise to know what standards should look like. But the result is the same: your pet is entering an environment where the health status of every other animal is completely unknown.

Standards exist to protect animals. A facility without them is a facility that has decided that protection is optional. Before you board your rabbit, guinea pig, chinchilla, hamster, or rat anywhere - ask what their health requirements are. The answer will tell you a great deal about how seriously they take the animals in their care.