New Year’s Fireworks Are Not Great for Rabbits (but you can help!)

New Year’s Day can be extremely stressful for pet rabbits, especially if there are fireworks involved. Suddenly loud banging sounds that seem to continue at random. This can easily put a rabbit into a panic, causing them to be frozen with fear or shaking all night.

Unfortunately, there is very little we can do about the use of fireworks outside, but we can take some steps to plan ahead and keep our rabbits as safe and stress-free as possible during holiday celebrations.

Keep your rabbit calm during fireworks by insulating them inside from the noise and providing distractions, such as toys and treats. Staying with your rabbit and petting them for comfort can also help reduce anxiety. If you have time to plan ahead, you can also desensitize your rabbit to loud sounds, so that they won’t get quite so stressed during holidays with fireworks.

Note: Some rabbits are more skittish than others. Your rabbit might not notice the fireworks at all. Other rabbits will become completely paralyzed with fear. Whatever reaction your rabbit has, you can work with them to help them calm down and eventually overcome their fear.

Steps to minimize anxiety on New Years Eve

The best thing you can do when you know there will be fireworks in your area is make a plan in advance. You can set up your rabbit’s environment to minimize the amount of anxiety they’ll feel during the ongoing celebration outside and make a plan to be with your rabbit during this stressful time.

1. Keep your rabbit inside: Even if your rabbit normally has access to the outdoors, it’s best to keep them inside during fireworks. Indoors is more insulated from outdoor noise and does a lot to help rabbits feel safe and protected.
2. Give your rabbit places to hide: Understandably, rabbits feel a lot safer if they have a place to hide. You can give your rabbit hiding houses or tunnels to help them feel safe or blankets to burrow under. Hiding is a way your rabbit can comfort themself while they weather the fireworks. 
3. Make sure their flooring in your rabbit’s enclosure isn’t slippery: A bathroom or kitchen floor is not a great place for rabbits to be when you expect fireworks. They can potentially injure themselves (such as back injuries) if they get scared and suddenly try to run away on a slippery floor.
4. Play some gentle music: Try to reduce the outdoor banging noises from fireworks even more by using white noise machine or playing gentle music. These work surprisingly well to mute sounds of fireworks. You can also use the sound of a fan or air conditioning unit to act as white noise (though it may be a bit cold if you live in the northern hemisphere)
5. Have distractions ready: Sometimes rabbits respond better to distractions. If they can spend time looking for treats or playing with fun toys, they might forget that they were scared to begin with. You can even lead your rabbit on a scavenger hunt by hiding small pieces of treats around the room.
6. Give your rabbit ways to use their natural behaviors: When they are stressed, rabbits can get a lot of comfort from using their natural bunny behaviors. Actions such as digging, chewing, and foraging are behaviors that your rabbit will engage in. Try creating fun digging areas for your rabbit. Make a digging box for them, put some flattened cardboard boxes on the ground for your rabbit to shred, or even make some DIY cardboard toys for your bunny to play with.
7. Plan to be home with your rabbit: If this is your rabbit’s first experience of fireworks or you know that they get extremely scared, then you may want to make sure your plans include getting home for the evening. This way you can be with your rabbit to comfort them if they start getting super anxious.

Make sure your rabbit recovers completely

Rabbits who have been overly stressed are more likely to continue being anxious over the next few days. They may be more fidgety than usual and more likely to run away from normal household sounds. Over the next few days to a week, the rabbit’s behavior should return to normal.

It’s best to try to give your rabbit as much opportunity to relax as possible so they can destress and recover completely after the fireworks. Continue to give them a quiet environment and lots of fun toys to help them have fun and forget about that stressful night. You can also spend a lot of time with your rabbit and pet them, to help them feel even more relaxed.

Desensitizing rabbits to loud sounds 

If you still have some weeks before the holiday fireworks, you can work to start desensitizing your rabbit so they won’t be as scared when the day comes. You will essentially be helping your rabbit get used to it little by little while they are in a safe and controlled environment. 

The basic technique to achieve this is to find a recording of fireworks and play it while your rabbit is feeling comfortable and safe. Possibly while you are feeding them their leafy greens or some yummy treats.

• Step 1: Start playing firework sounds at a low volume. Increase the volume until you see that your rabbit notices the sound, but is not showing signs of serious fear. If they start to thump or go on the alert, lower the sound again. For the first few days keep it at this low volume so that your rabbit can get used to the sound of soft fireworks.
• Step 2: Increase the volume a little bit each day. Only increase it a tiny bit to allow your rabbit the chance to get used to the sound. If you notice your rabbit gets too scared, lower the volume and wait a couple of days to increase it again.
• Step 3: Vary the volume levels. After your rabbit is mostly comfortable with the recording of fireworks on a loud setting (similar to the volume level you might expect to hear on an actual holiday), start to vary the volume levels. Increase the volume so there are some loud firework bangs, and decrease it again for softer firework noises. This will be a little more consistent with what your rabbit will hear when there are fireworks going outside.

If your rabbit is able to get used to the recording of fireworks, they will have an easier time when they are hearing the actual thing. They’ll already have some experience and be used to the loud bangs and scary noises.