escaping x-pen

[amygabrielle]

 Hi all,

I’m new here, but not a new bun owner.  I’ve had two previous house buns at separate times.  Our current bun, Marge, is about a year, fixed, and very very friendly and active.  We adopted her about two weeks ago.  She was found in a NYC park and her eye was infected and had to be removed.  Marge is absolutely wonderful with my two girls and loves to steal puzzle pieces.  

Anyways…  Marge is out all day long with me and the girls since I’m home all day.  With my previous buns, I always put them in their pens at night.  Marge HATES to be penned up at night.  She figured out how to jimmy the door open.  Every morning, I find her spread out asleep on the mat in front of her pen.  So my question is anyone else leave their buns out 24 hrs a day?  Anything to look out for?  If she’s out all the time, I’m thinking I could eventually do away with the pen.  The room Marge is in is bunny and kid proof  Oh, and she doesn’t dislike her pen.  She’ll sleep, eat and poo in there.  It just has to stay open… 

Thanks!

[Elrohwen]

Sounds like she’s made the decision to be free range on her own! Haha. Since you say her room is bunny proofed and she’s not destructive, I wouldn’t have any reason letting her have free range of the room. If she does start getting destructive, you can always find some other method of keeping her pen closed at night, but for now it sounds like she doesn’t need it.

[angelicvampyre]

Bugz did this he would rattle the cage all night and thump untill he opened it and when I went to put him back in it at night or if I had to go out then it would become a game of fine the bunny *grrrr*finally i just gave up and now his cage is always open (infact it is a NIC condo and I am thinking of removing the door as it just annoys me!) So my guys have a room “cage” yeah I have to vacum every day but outside of that if’s fine

[MooBunnay]

Hahaha how cute! Marge has declared herself a free-range bunny! Thank you for taking her in, it sounds like she has a fantastic home.

I don’t see a problem with free-range, however, its hard to tell with a bunny you have only had for two weeks what kind of bad bunny habits they may have. What I would mainly be concerned about is if she chews electrical cords because she could really hurt herself. So if you are going to let her be free-range, I think it is great for her to have more time to run around, but definitely limit it to a couple rooms, or make sure that wherever she is going to be that you bunny proof anything that may be dangerous to her.

[angelicvampyre]

MooBunnay I think some bunnies need to be free and others are fine. Anya was fine when we went home for the week in the smaller cage, Bugz had real issues, I would open the cage and he would be out like a flash where Anya was happy to stay in there. It might have something to do with Bugz early life he was kept in a cage not much bigger then a cage carry box and when I first let him out he had issues hopping as his legs where not use to the action and had no strengh.

Maybe see if you can extend the pen in some way to give her more room maybe even a foot or two will make her feel better and slowly increase it to a distance that you are happy with.

[Beka27]

The main concern is bunny-proofing. You know buns, so you know that what we look at and consider “proofed”… they see it as a challenge… lol. Also if the kids and buns are sharing the same space you have to be super, super diligent about having everything picked up. Not sure how old your girls are, but I have a 6 year old and it’s a constant endeavor to teach him to pick up every last toy.

But if your space is really, truly bun-proof and there’s nothing in there that she can cause damage to w/out supervision, you can certainly try. I think it’s good to limit it to a single room tho, at least at night. Some people do have buns that are free-range thru out the house (or main living area), but I feel better knowing that I know where my buns are. If for any reason we had to evacuate the house in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t be a guessing game as to where they were.

[angelicvampyre]

Beka this is one of the reasons i wanted them to sleep in their cage,all indoor cages at my house are on wheels so that if i have to get out in a hurry i can just wheel the birds out the front door, nice idea untill I worked out that the condo i made the rabbits does not FIT out my front door! Note to self next time you make a cage make it outside the room that you want it in!

[amygabrielle]

Thanks everyone. She stays in one room. There’s only one cord and it’s in tubing and it’s in an area that’s hardwood flooring. Marge won’t leave the carpets. My bedroom is attached to the room Marge is in, so any kind of loud noise she makes, I hear. But so far, she seems to run and binky like crazy around 11pm and then crashes out on the mat out front of her cage for the rest of the night.

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