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Forum BEHAVIOR Behaviour Change at Bedtime

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    • Misx0
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        Charlee, has decided to refuse to go near her cage at bedtime. I don’t know what to do.

        This started about 2 days ago, usually her routine is pellets(in a food ball, which she loooves) in her cage; she’ll meet me at the door when she hears the food ball/pellets and I put it in her cage(she follows me to the cage, shaking her head at this point) and then I go get her greens and put them on her second level in her cage, and lock her in. It was super easy, I rarely had to call her she would come on her own 98% of the time. This has worked since I got her last March.

        For the last 2 days, she refuses to come near the cage or meet me at the door, last night she refused to come out from under the bed at all. She pretty much ignored me and acted like I’m not trying to give her food-which she loves. I tried shaking the food ball to make sure she knew it was food ball time, nothing. I tried giving her a piece of green under the bed, ignored it. The first night, she was sitting in the open then kind of thumped when i set the food ball in her cage and ran under the bed and refused to come out-this resulted in my boyfriend moving the bed so I could pick her up and put the now extremely pissed off bunny in the cage(she Hatesss being picked up, but I needed to go to sleep). Last night, she was already under the bed when I came in the room to get the food ball and would not come out when I called her. I brought the food ball back in now with pellets in it and she again ignored it, tried greens-nothing. I even tried giving her a piece of banana-which she loves(she can not get enough of treats) and she completely ignored that and refused to eat it(at this point I was concerned because she never ignores a treat) I was tired and the bed is really heavy so I decided to let her win, I went to bed with her out(figuring she would hop in there at some point, hopefully before my boyfriend went to bed-which she did).

        Then while in her cage last night, she refused to eat her pellets and her greens and hardly touched her hay-this has never happened before(the first night she cleaned up the pellets and greens and ate hay) and she has had some illnesses in the past few months and it has never affected her appetite. She also drank less water then normal last night. Now this morning before I let her out I heard her nibbling on some greens and I seen her drink some water(yay). Since letting her out she has picked at her pellets and most of the remaining greens as well as some hay. She is also hopping around and exploring, she is not hiding.

        I don’t know what do to, or what happened. She is spayed, she is not showing signs of GI stasis again or her respiratory thing-she seems to be in perfect health. She is still moulting, it feels like she hasn’t stopped moulting since September but I think she took a break around November-December. I just don’t know. Maybe she is just catching on to the fact that her favorite foods mean she is going to be locked in her cage so she’s just being stubborn(or really smart), or maybe there is another issue?

        I’d love some suggestions I’m outta ideas…unless I try apple tonight instead of banana to lure her out of hiding…


      • Sarita
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          Is she free roam all day and just caged at night? Is that the regular routine?


        • Misx0
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            Yeah, I let her out during the day and she is caged at night.


          • Sarita
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              Is it possible to allow her free range all the time? By the way, she’s gorgeous.

              I think she is just comfortable – I find my free range rabbit Bobby hardly ever comes when I call – he comes eventually though. He is out 24/7 free range.


            • Kokaneeandkahlua
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                Sounds like being out is more rewarding then the treat she gets when she goes to bed. OR going to bed is more punishing than the treat is rewarding. (I’m not talking spanking-punishment just operant conditioning)

                Sooo what you did is correct, she can’t learn that if she goes under the bed she gets to stay out, or it will just get worse. Unless like Sarita suggested she could be free range all the time, then you don’t have an issue.

                If she can’t stay out all the time, What I would do is remove both the indicators that it’s bed time (the treat ball, the time etc) by changing up the routine-not changing to a different routine, but abolishing a routine for a while.

                So if she’s now out from 5pm to 9pm and she starts hiding at 845, let her out until 7, put her to bed, then let her back out and put her to bed at 930. Then do the same, maybe with three times(6, 7, 10) that she has to go ‘to bed’ the next day. If she cannot predict bed time she cannot fuss and hide prior to you getting her for bed. And give her treats after she’s in bed, not before; that’s making bed more fun, instead of rewarding fun time; your reward was coming prior to the stuff she doesn’t want-bed time.
                On top of that you’ll technically be counterconditioning ‘bed time’; She’s being put back to bed, but it’s not necessarily until the next day at five pm, it may only be one hour. So it’s becoming counter conditioned-rather than a 18 hour time out, it’s maybe a one hour time out with more out time later. Making something that she takes as a bummer, into a smaller bummer


              • Misx0
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                  Thanks for your replies!

                  I can’t leave her out all night, her cage is in the bedroom and she tends to jump on my face while I’m sleeping…which ends up scaring both of us

                  Switching up out/in time is a good idea, I might try that if I have any more trouble with bedtime.

                  I also got thinking and thought that maybe something stressed her out. She hasn’t had as much attention as usual the last couple days because of school, so I spent the whole day with her today and she seemed alot better at bed time-pretty much back to normal. So maybe that was the reason? This type of thing is why I really want to get her a little bun-roommate but I have to wait atleast a year til I graduate before I can afford it.

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              Forum BEHAVIOR Behaviour Change at Bedtime