It took Bramble a while to realise that he could actually walk on the wooden floors, I have a big fleece type thing that lines his pen and it took him ages to step off it. He manages fine now that he has the hang of it but it took a while. he would put his front feet on the wood floor and they would slip which scared him and he went straight back on to the fleece, eventually he just tried putting all four feet on and realised that it was ok.

Pascal and Starsky have a giant cotton rug I bought at KMart. They can and will move about on the timber look vinyl but they are both big boys and I prefer not to put the stress of a slippery surface on their legs.

Kieko’s condo has textured vinyl flooring (along with hay mats and fleece blankies in places) and she has no problem. When we renovated the room the M&Ms would be in, we put down vinyl plank flooring for ease of cleaning. Marlee will not walk on the new flooring, and Moshi (who would occasionally brave a slow hop on it) now hates it too. I’m guessing, with my buns, its that the lops have so much thick fluffy fur on their feet (Kieko’s is thinner due to breed) that they just slide.

We ended up covering the floor in the M&Ms area with fleece, and putting down a line of cotton throw rugs leading to the carpeted hallway when its time for them to go to the common play area. Having seen them try to scamper to carpet or fleece floor and how legs go in every direction, I’m afraid they’d get hurt.

My advice – what Roberta said. Carpet/rug or fleece in the xpen and a large rug for him outside the xpen. If he learns to maneuver the laminate, great, if not then he still has carpet/fleece to play on.

Edit: If you get a rug with backing, make sure its safe for laminate floors (non-staining).

Mine don’t care and run like crazy on it, stopping and sliding then doing a binky after that lol

You can get rugs for cheap at walmart and such, I have one of those huge ones for $20 for my two. I also have used cardboard bridges, to get them to cross the “scary” kitchen floor (linoleum). My two cannot get traction on hard floors, so they have to have something on it or they will never run/binky.

I have a lion head and he never had a problem on the wood floors but he never had another option for the first 2 years that I had him. In fact when we moved my dad made him a 10×4 pen with that laminate wood because he was not allowed on soft flooring because he would pee. We have carpet now which gives him better traction so he runs more but the are is more open than our old place.

SP – you may get lucky — bunny see bunny do! Since my lops aren’t bonded with Kieko, they’ve never been presented with another bunny “challenge”.

Good luck. The closest I ever got to getting Stickers (rex) to trying linoleum was this: 

I have laminate. My bunnies don’t hate it but they have a lot of trouble stopping, which means they tend to crash if they run too quickly. I put an 8×6 foot natural fiber rug outside their cage, which they love to play on, particularly to do some tight cornering they can’t do on the laminate. They do run around on the laminate, and lay out on it (probably because it’s cooler than the rug), but I think the rug gives them an alternate that they can choose if they’re tired of/struggling with the laminate.

Boston who was our mini lop didn’t mind the linoleum. Pumpkin on the other hand wants nothing to do with it. She sits on the edge like Sticker. We actually ended up putting down a rug so that she could join us from the carpeted living room when we are in the kitchen. Sometime we can trick her onto the lino with a treat, but she usually freaks out and runs back to the carpet. If only the silly thing would brave it she would realize she has three more pretty rooms to roam around in. Rugs are my best advice!

You have to get him those slipper socks with the little traction dots on the bottom that they give you in the hospital… Lol!

But seriously, give them time, they’ll probably get the hang of it soon! Blankets/rugs in the meantime!

Posted By Silverpaws on 12/28/2014 3:17 PM
Update: luna has braved the lino! Merlin, my lop hasnt though so i fear JR is correct about lop feet. Il give it a few days and then invest! Thanks guys x

JR is absolutely correct. My bunny room is entirely laminate flooring. My two lops are very clumsy on it, but my mini Rex has never fallen. Eventually, the two lops learned to run on it as best they could. I did end up giving them a large swath of extra carpet I had but they don’t really prefer it. I think carpet will make your situation easier, but I can attest to their ability to learn to run on it with time.