House Rabbit Community and Store
What are we about? Please read about our Forum Culture and check out the Rules.
The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.
Ok, Abbie is officially a distructive brat!! With all the toys I give them do you think she could destroy them??? NOOOOOOO she would much rather shred the carpeting in her cage! She had ripped out a whole big row of carpet just staring at me, i delay her “outside playtime” all of an hour and thats how she gets back at me… little booger!Now that shes out of her cage playing shes doing binkies everywhere running around like crazy
ugh… rabbits lol.. if she wasnt so cute!
i really dont think that shes trying to get back at you i think that she finds the carpet interesting and wants to dig in it(my dwarf digs in my carpet) i suggest get a kitty litter box and put some play sand in it unless she has one already.
omg! she would really make a mess then! She actually only does destructive things like that honestly in the late evenings when shes due to come out and play, otherwise she plays with her toys, eats her hay and food normally. If she doesnt have a nice night out she gets frisky so to speak haha. I weaved some carboard into the bars of the cage near where she was chewing up the carpet, perhaps that will keep her more busy lol
I don’t know what it is with rabbits and carpet, but I always buy my carpet assuming that it isn’t going to last very long! Definitely buy cheap carpeting
I have noticed with my bunnies that they are most tempted by the carpet when they can get a hold of a corner of the carpet or a loose thread – this is generally what gets them started on being interested in the carpet, and then once they fixate on that little piece they pull and twist and before you know it – you have lots of yarn and no more carpet! When I put carpet under an ex-pen, I always make sure that the edges of the carpet stay outside the cage, this seems to prevent them from becoming all that interested in it.
I had all but one corner zip tied to the floor so they couldnt lift it up, today however she discovered that corner haha. I too buy cheap carpets (bathroom rugs on sale) just makes more sense… actually these carpets have lasted us over 2 months which is pretty impressive for them i suppose haha
ya my bunny trys to dig on my pants leg but good luck with her
Abbie sounds like Layla. I don’t know how I managed to get a diva bunny but Layla is a bit of a detructo-diva (her new name). I walk in the door at about 5pm and if she’s not out of her cage by 5:01:01 then watch out. heaven forbid I should take off my shoes before walking over the carpet, or detour to the table to dump my bag because if I dared to do something that terrible she will start to shred the carpet in front of her X-pen door, and she does it while looking straight at me.
I decided to fill abox with shredded paper and sprinkle paper in there to keep her destructive behaviour under control while I’m home but not letting her out but she’s not happy with contained destruction, she wants something bigger, something more likely to cause her mummy to go crazy…she does it on purpose, I know she does! (as i rock back and forward in a corner muttering to myself)
yes they can be very destructive cant they! be glad it was the floor in her cage and not your TV wires!
Oh, bunnies and carpet…not a good mix!
Olivia vs. The Carpet: When I first adopted Olivia I suspected she had Pasteurella and she was quarantined away from my buns at my Mother’s house until her test results came back (she didn’t have it). For the 2 weeks she was at Mom’s we had her in a rabbit cage she could hop out of into a surrounding x-pen. When I gathered up her stuff to bring her home we noticed a huge, like 6 inch circle area of the corner of the carpet completely dug out and the carpet fibers all piled up in a neat little pile beside it, hiding under some newspapers. Mom’s 4 month old new carpet she just put in her basement! Mom was pretty happy to let Miss Olivia leave that day let me tell you
Just a note though, you have to be very cautious with carpet as some rabbits will eat some of the fibers which can create a terrible blockage. I don’t know of any bunnies this happened to but it is a risk everyone should be aware of.
Sorry I don’t remember what your cage looks like at all. I would absolutely get rid of the carpet no matter what. I would put a piece of linoleum or something no chewable in it and maybe a towel unless she would eat the towel. What’s your set up again?
we have a HUGE nic cage.. there is carpets on all levels except the floor. I actually sprayed the carpet with cologne where she was chewing and shes left it alone now
Hurray!
She wasnt ingesting it.. she was pulling the carpet out and making a nice pile on the floor lol… i have kept a close eye on her and if she keeps it up even after spraying it i will remove it all together.
Be careful with the perfume because I read in “Rabbits for Dummies” that perfume can be toxic. I know many people disagree but I wouldn’t want my rabbit to breathe in those fumes too much. I would try and find a better long term solution or else you’ll just have to send that little beauty to me!
lol at sending her to you, that little destructive booger is here to stay. The girls are sleeping on the floor now. Believe it or not Rain used to be a chewer but we did the perfume trick and shes no longer a chewer (with the exception of her toys obviously) If abbie doesnt catch on i will switch the carpets out but with so many levels the carpet being ziptied in place in the cage has given them the extra traction to help them with running/landing around various places in the cage.
Tucker does that too when mad. At first it was on the ACTUAL carpet..like on my floor around his pen. He’d want to come out and if I didn’t let him he’d start digging at it and pulling up all the strands. (He doesn’t ingest it either..just pulls it all up) Then I covered the floor with strips of carpet remnants and again he’d do it if he wanted out. He still has one piece of carpet left and he does it when he’s mad. He has toys and mats and stuff and normally he’ll dig in those instead of the carpet but when he’s mad I guess carpet is more fun. Atleast I assume it’s being mad becuase he does it right before giving me the stink eye. One thing though that helped him to not do it AS much and to atleast only do it when mad is adding more things that he could dig. I put a huge litter box down on the ground and he digs in the yesterday’s news and feline pine. I also put in some straw mats…he likes digging and nipping at those. I found with Tucker it’s more about nipping with teeth then digging so I had to find things that he could nip that were safe and less destructive.
I took the carpet that she was destroying out of the cage all together. I replaced it with a folded towel hopefully she will just leave it alone now. She is sleeping right now but the fact that her little chin smelled like cologne it of course concerned me… if i could smell it it had to be bothering her so when i gave her the meds for the day i also washed her little chin off and shes back to normal ![]()
