Bunny Box Subscription Services

Toys are a means for bunnies to express their essential rabbitness (chew! dig! toss! forage!) without hurting themselves or demolishing your house. But the same old toys get boring. How to find a steady stream of fun for buns?  One option is letting someone else do the searching for you: buy a rabbit goodies subscription.

I don’t know about you, but I was amazed to discover that rabbit-specific subscription services even exist. When did this happen? Not only is it a thing,  there are several of them, based in various countries. The three services I found that ship to my home warren in the U.S. are

• binxbox
• Bunnies That Lunch
• Happy Bunny Club

binxbox is the only one headquartered in the U.S.  The other two are UK-based, but will ship here. (There are additional services, such as Canada’s BunBox, that won’t.)

Unsure of which to choose, I consulted Moraea and Finnegan. Their recommendation was to try all three — for the sake of science. So we did.

All three companies delivered well-stocked packages that included toys of various types as well as yummy treats. Each service had things they did particularly well. As a bonus, each one does something to benefit bunnies in need. Below I’ll give a detailed description of my experience with each one, along with a short video of Finnegan and Moraea’s reaction to them.

binxbox

This service charges a flat rate per box, avoiding the un-fun surprise of hidden shipping charges that don’t appear until checkout. I also liked the option to just order a single box, removing the need to start a subscription. You can give it a try without feeling committed.

But the best thing about my binxbox was the 2nd cutting timothy hay that they stuffed loose into the box, like packing material. What a genius move! It was immediately accessible when the package opened, allowing its bewhiskered recipients to dig right in. As you can see in the video, my bunnies were enthralled by it, even though they get timothy hay all the time.

When you buy, they allow you to choose whether you want herbs and treats included. I suppose if you say no, you’ll just get a selection of toys, some consumable and others not. The treats they sent in my box were dried pineapple — quite rich! So if your bun is watching his weight you might want to forego the edibles. (True confession: I ate the dried pineapple myself!) I also loved the little menu card included in the box that described each item.

Rabbit Rating: 5/5

Subscriber Satisfaction: 4.5/5 (I took a half point off for the relatively hi-sugar munchies)

Bunny Benefaction: binxbox volunteers for and donates to local rabbit rescues in Rhode Island .

Bunnies That Lunch

Of the two UK services, Bunnies That Lunch had faster delivery to the US. The box it comes in is pretty adorable, too. I give them the best-in-class award for design. They also took the trouble to choose a theme for their box (in this case it was “Carnival”) and managed to find a great selection of appropriate items to include, even a food bowl.

All the stuff they sent was pretty healthy and everything (except the food bowl) actually got chewed on. The toy I opened in the video was a “Mango Taco” (really a piece of burlap stuffed with hay and a couple bits of dried mango)

This box also contained some French hay that was amazingly fine and fancy, pretty much what you’d expect from French cuisine for rabbits. The buns clearly could tell the difference. They polished it off in no time flat!

Rabbit Rating: 5/5

Subscriber Satisfaction: 5/5

Bunny Benefaction: Bunnies That Lunch also donates “a huge haul” to a selected rabbit rescue each month.

Happy Bunny Club

Though I ordered it on the same day as my Bunnies That Lunch box, Happy Bunny Club’s package arrived at least a week later, which is disappointing because it was more expensive.

But I was impressed that both their boxes came with two very healthy-looking types of dried forage that I really felt good about feeding to my guys as snacks or in puzzle toys. The bag of cookies, not so wholesome, got squirreled away to use for training or special occasions. The chew toys they picked were pretty good, but the wooden toys got poor reviews for being too shiny and slippery to get a tooth grip on. They got ignored.

A little letter to their subscribers included in the box is sealed with a cute little rabbit stamp. It provides a list of the items inside, and a newsy note from their team. 

Rabbit Rating: 4/5

Subscriber Satisfaction: 3/5 (demerits for slow shipping and poor renewal handling)

Bunny Benefaction: Happy Bunny Club donates a box to a rescue or shelter each month. The above mentioned letter includes a description of the recipient organization.

Fear of Commitment

Signing up for a subscription to anything always makes me nervous. It’s too easy to end up with a lot of stuff you didn’t really want or use — plus a lot of charges on your credit card! Fortunately, both Bunnies that Lunch and binxbox provide a one-time-only alternative so you can sample their wares and decide if you want more. Still, I signed up for a subscription to all three, just to see how it would work.

With binxbox, I was very pleased: the company obligingly sent me a notice three days before shipping my second order so I could cancel if I wanted to, which I did. So kudos to binxbox! And to make it even easier for their subscribers, they only ship boxes on the first of the month. So it’s easy to anticipate when it’s about to ship and be able to cancel in advance, even without the email reminder. To reward them for their great business practices, I ordered a second, non-subscription box afterwards.

Both of the other services allow you to cancel whenever you want also, but they were far less helpful about managing my subscription. Bunnies that Lunch’s renewal warning arrived the same day as their message informing me that the the second box was purchased — and both hit my inbox before I even woke up that morning. Happy Bunny Club confirmed my second month’s purchase without any preceding alert whatsoever, and before I even received my first shipment.  This did not make me a very happy bunny.

Comparing Cost

Here’s a breakdown of the options I found when I signed up for these services, along with their costs.

I didn’t want to sign up for the multi-month packages offered by the UK services, but if you know you want to subscribe for at least the term stated, they’re a good option because you’ll get some cost savings. Both services automatically renew their multi-month subscriptions unless you cancel — so if you don’t want another 3, 6 or 12 months make sure you do it before renewal time!

According to Happy Bunny Club, they won’t refund any box you already paid for. Since you pay for the entire shebang up front, that means you won’t get any money back even if you cancel after the first box. You will, however, receive all the boxes you paid for. Bunnies That Lunch isn’t as clear on their site about what happens if you cancel a multi-month subscription, but it’s likely to work the same way.

Happy Bunny Club is clearly the most expensive of the three, at least if you live in the U.S., due to the exchange rate and higher shipping costs. In my opinion, the offerings between the three services are similar enough that if you are concerned about the cost, going with the least expensive one is your best bet. The advantage of trying the other services is that they have access to products that you might not otherwise find in this country, like that amazing French hay from Bunnies that Lunch.

Should You Subscribe?

I only got two boxes from each service,  just to try them out. It seems like such an extravagance to commit to a longer-term subscription and if you’re on a tight budget I wouldn’t recommend it.  You can keep your bun regularly entertained with home made toys such as these puzzle toys or this cardboard box tunnel, at far lower cost.

On the other hand, if you find yourself regularly spending a chunk of money on rabbit tchotchkes anyway, as I do, letting someone else pick them out for you for a while is a great way to discover new items and suppliers. 

I also think a limited subscription, like the 3- or 6-month Bunnies That Lunch boxes, would make a great gift for any rabbit owner. Getting them as a gift is particularly nice because you don’t feel like your money was wasted if you get some stuff your buns reject.

It might be a particularly nice idea for a new rabbit parent as a way of helping them get acquainted with their recently adopted family member and get into the habit of providing enrichment regularly.

I hesitate recommending the latter for one reason: These packages don’t come with warnings about the richness of some of the items they contain. A novice guardian might not be able to tell the healthy, free-feed items from the “only in small amounts” ones.

Take the enormous bunny biscuits that arrived in one of my Happy Bunny Club boxes.  If I do give these to my buns, I will be careful to limit the amount they get, either by handing out whole cookies on very rare occasions, or by cutting them into very small bites and using them as training treats.

The Fluffy Tail of This Blog Post

Finnegan, Moraea, and I had such a good time experimenting with these subscription services! I’m tempted to try it again the next time I’m looking for new things to interest the long-eared lads. And I’ll be keeping it in mind as a gift idea for fellow rabbit aficionados as well.

Subscribe graphic in featured image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay