Welcome. First off, rabbits just don’t understand what they can and cannot do and when faced with the temptation, they just give in.

I think part of the problem is the indoor/outdoor situation. If it were me, I would bring them indoors full time and when not at home keep them in a pen.

When you are at home and let them out to roam, you are going to need to rabbit proof the areas that you allow them in and you don’t need to allow them in the whole house.

Much of this behavior is also age related – are they altered yet? Young rabbits do tend to be more prone to chewing and destruction at this age.

I would be concerned about the paint eating being a health hazard.

I agree about the paint eating being a health hazard.

I don’t necessarily agree with the rabbits not knowing what’s right and wrong/where to and not to go – they know…they just choose to do it anyways. Sarita was right about the temptation. They just have that look when you catch them underneath your bed when they know that the bedroom is the one room off limits…. or maybe that’s just my bun. They are not stupid animals.

I also agree with Sarita about the age-related thing. If they aren’t already fixed – I wouldn’t be surprised if after they are spayed/neutered they become less destructive.

Is there a way you can purchase a baby gate to block access to the area? Or surround it with an opened up xpen?

I don’t even want to know how much paint my buns have actually eaten. o_O It wasn’t intentional, of course. For some reason, buns just think paint and drywall are tasty. I really have to watch them to make sure they don’t find a new spot to start digging into.

Eating paint is obviously not something you want to encourage but I imagine it is not enough to be toxic since most paints are water based. It would take alot of paint eating for it to be toxic.

I really don’t think rabbits truly understand “right”, “wrong”, “good”, “bad”, these are human concepts – rabbits live by instinct and survival – you must change your behavior and your rabbit’s environment when your rabbit is “acting out”. That’s not to say they aren’t intelligent, they most certainly are or they would not have survived this long.

As an ex-painter for a living, I would say keep the bunnies away from the paint. If it’s toxic and can kill fetuses, it can kill your bunny.

My rabbit eats paint and baseboard too. I’ve been trying really hard to think of a genius way to protect the walls that won’t look atrocious. I have a ton of white coroplast and I was wishing there was a way I could attach it to the walls without nailing it in (though, nail holes will be easier to patch up when I move out than massive chew spots and missing paint). My other idea was to find something really heavy that she can’t just shove out of the way, and just line the walls with it, like cinder blocks for lack of a better idea, except that would look horrible. If I ever come up with a brilliant plan, I’ll report back.