Have you tried putting treats or pellets on the shelf above them? I think I remember reading somewhere that their depth perception isn’t necessarily so great, so they prefer to figure out how high something is by jumping up onto it, instead of guessing how far down it is. So maybe start them on the bottom and sprinkle some pellets or other favourite food on the 2nd level?

When I was teaching Noelle to do stairs, I just put her little front feet on to the next stair to show her how high it was then gave her little bum a push. Once she got the idea she did the rest herself and came down just fine. So maybe something like that, if you can position them so they have their back feet on the current level and their front feet touching the next level, they can get an idea for the height – and get a good smell of whatever yummies are up there waiting for them!

There’s only one shelf in my bunny cage and it’s not very high up (like, 3/4 of the height of a cube panel), so neither of mine had issues with it, especially once there were pellets up there!

Do you have a picture of the condo? That might be helpful as well

Wow, that is MASSIVE!!  Right now I’ve only got a 3x2x2 for Owen.  It seems so small!  Yet I know it’s huge in comparison to the pet store cages, so he’s not doing too bad.  I don’t think jumping down should be an issue for larger buns, but it might take awhile to find their footing to make the jump.  Food is always a good incentive to go anywhere!

I told my brother once when he was watching Steve for a weekend that Steve generally doesn’t go up on any of the levels.  So, my brother decided he was going to teach Steve to jump up.  He put his veggies up on another level, and now steve jumps all over his cage.  I started with ramps but steve didn’t like those much.  I did use phone books a lot to help him for a while until he got bigger and more confident.

Wow that is a big bunny castle! I bet if you give it a couple of days and help them alittle with the jump down, they will know it’s not that far of a jump.

They’ll get the hang of it eventually.. it just may take some time. Entice them with treats on the levels they are not using. Rabbits have really poor depth perception, so it takes them a while to trust jumping up and down. Once they figure it out for themselves and do it a couple of times they will realize that it’s safe.

If they don’t eventually get the concept (maybe some buns just don’t?) you could always try putting in ramps.

LOL Glad they’ve got it now!! I had ramps in the begining but once they mastered that I took them out to give them more room. That’s one great condo-good job!

Looks like a little extra encouragement to jump worked! The layout does look wonderful…. but are cube panels made with the 3 inch grids? If so,  I do have to caution anyone though who used the 3″ grids instead of the 1″ grids. They are not recommended as a bunny can put their head through the holes and cause injury and/or panic. It may not seem like that would be possible, but their heads are skinnier than they actually look and they are able to squeeze their heads through some pretty small spaces when they are determined.

You did such a great job building it, I hate to be a party pooper, but this is the second one I have seen with the larger spaced grids and I want to make sure people are aware of the dangers.

Oh wow…hey LillyBear can I commission you to come build one like that for MY bunnies? 0_0 Wow! What a cool habitat!

On a side note to this topic…K&K, so do you think that bunnies necessarily NEED ramps to go from one level to another? I notice that Pip is making a lot of noise as she launches herself up to her sleeping shelf, but she still comes down by the ramp (which is sagging so bad now, she tends to knock it loose from the shelf) and I think I should just lose the ramp…especially since she’s chewed it so bad.