Carpet chewing

[Olliesmom]

I started fostering the sweetest little foster bunny three weeks ago. He’s about 10-12 months old and he’s very active and playful. I’ve already fallen in love with him and I plan on adopting him from the house rabbit society as soon as I can. However, there are a few behavioral issues I could really use some help with. The first one is him chewing the carpet. Luckily he’s not much of a baseboard bunny, but he does love pulling up the strands of carpet. This concerns me bacause if he invests too many fibers im afraid he’ll get an impaction. I’ve tried multiple things- at first shouting “no” worked, but then he realized he wasn’t going to get hurt so he continued. Then I tried spraying him with water. Now he just sits there, waits for me to stop, and then either hops away or continues chewing. I’ve tried putting tiles down in problem areas, which works, but then he just finds some other place to chew. It’s not like it’s just where the carpet meets the wall, either, sometimes it’s the middle of the floor! Even tried putting a grass mat in one problem area. He loves to work on that and at first I thought- problem solved! Nope. No sooner is he munching on the grass mat than I hear the tell tale rip of carpet and have to chase him down to pull carpet fibers out of his mouth. And it’s not like I can just douse my whole carpet in vinegar, so idk what to do. He seems to mostly ignore all his chew toys in favor of the carpet. This really concerns me both for his health, and because I’m in college and I’m moving into a rental apartment for school next year and I’m gonna want my deposit back! Ollie is already like my baby and I don’t wanna give him back to the shelter or just dump him in a park like his previous owners apparently did. But this really makes it tough when I have to interrupt my work for online classes to chase him away from the carpet. I want to be able to give him some freedom this fall when I’m in classes for a long time, but I can’t do that at this rate. If anyone has any ideas, let me know please!

[SeeShmemilyPlay]

The cheapest way to help the issue is to cover the carpet he has access to with tarp. It’s very cheap from Harbor Freight, and I just duct tape the pieces together. If you want it to look nicer, it’s a bit more expensive but I used to just buy rugs (non shaggy ones) from Walmart and cover their favorite chewing spots.

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