Moving to a place with staircase and floating hallway – How to make it bunny safe/friendly??

[frenchfried]

I’m moving to a bigger place and basically stressed out because I’m worrying about how to manage my two bunns and stairs with a floating hallway.  As you can see, it will have spaces easy for them to slip through on the rail guard.  

I’m in a carpeted one room apartment right now that’s single story that was easy to bunny proof.  In the new place they will be living mostly downstairs on stone flooring (with rugs everywhere to prevent arthritis and foot/joint problems)  and have access to an enclosed back yard but one of my bunns wants to be with me ALL the time (maybe even more than his sister who he adores) and follows me through the apartment I have now; it will kill him to be totally separated from me if I’m upstairs.  He’s the one who gets upset/mad at me if I’m away from home too long.  <3<3<3

My goal is to allow them to climb the stairs under supervision but somehow enclose the side guards.  One side of the stairway follows the curve against the wall.  

I know he’ll be curious and want to climb up and his sister will want to copy him.  The stairs lead up to a floating hallway (with the same rails with spaces on the sides) – falling from there is a 15 foot drop down to stone flooring.  

Needless to say, I think if an accident happened and somebunny got fatally injured, I would seriously DIE inside and have to be in therapy for the rest of my life!  

There are a couple of SIMILAR photos of what the place would have that I pulled off the internet; the rails would be wood and very similar looking and spaced as the photos with a space where somebunny could hop out to their death.  (>.<)

Anyone with stair advice?  Or understand bunny psychology/behavior while climbing stairs?

THANK YOU FOR ANY ADVICE!  

[frenchfried]

Here are the pics, I realized they didn’t upload so am posting urls.  (Can we use html here?  That way the pics would just pop up.)

http://photos1.zillowstatic.com/p_c/ISapl2ruvkjwur0000000000.jpg

http://stairs4u.com/glossary/images/rake-railing-for-stairs.jpg

[Q8bunny]

Solution: https://www.amazon.co.uk/PHP-Baby-4600-Bannister-Plastic/dp/B0000E2DIE

I also have a friend who bought a heavier weight fabric in a gorgeous pattern, and threaded it through the railings to prevent her toddler from popping through. Worked a charm.

[frenchfried]

Awesome!!  I have never seen this see through plastic guard before; have you tried it?  We thank you so much!

[Q8bunny]

Not personally, since we live in a flat, but friends with crawly babies swear by it.

[Vienna Blue in France]

Q8 – “crawly babies” – lol

FF – How exciting to move to a bigger place !!
My only thought (if it were my bun) is that she would find a tie and chew on it and she would chew on the plastic edges too… but I think the idea is great.

The heavy weight fabric (or heavy mesh somethingorother?) is a cunning plan too !! It would block a bit of light if it’s only half way up the railings but wouldn’t look constantly dusty in the sunlight which I would be afraid the seethrough plastic may do…

Photos please !!

[Azerane]

Wow, what a lovely home

The barrier is a great idea as suggested. Stairs are another thing to be careful of. Bunnies can go up very easily, but they can sometimes have trouble coming back down again, especially if they are slippery. I think yours are carpeted so you might be ok with that though. The thing to be careful of is that they don’t get spooked or scared by something when they’re on their way down. It may even be worth having a baby gate at the top of the stairs so that they can’t go down unless supervised. This would mean you would need to have an additional litter box upstairs, and you would have the issue that they could still climb up the stairs and go down again once they reach the gate (unless you had baby gates both top and bottom) so that stair climbing was supervised only.

[Vienna Blue in France]

Az – I agree, nice house !! but I think they were photos nicked off the net to show us in theory what theirs will look like

[Azerane]

Lol, you’re right, re-reading the post they’re an example. Oh well, my comment still stands

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