Getting Bunny Back In Cage

[KayS]

Hello all, I’m a new bunny mom who is trying to learn on the fly. I adopted my bunny Coffee from a family about 2 weeks ago and so far she’s adapting wonderfully to her new home. She binkied for the first time a couple days ago while playing outside her cage!

She has a cage that she is free to go in and out of, which she does quite frequently, as long as we’re home. If we’re not home she has to be in her cage, and at night during sleep hours she has to be in her cage. Our main problem is actually getting her back into her cage at bedtime. I don’t want to pick her up and place her in there since she doesn’t like being picked up and I want her cage to be her own space. Every night we have to remove all toys, boxes, hiding places, and rugs from her play area and confine her to directly in front of her cage just to get her to consider going in! Even then she climbs on us and avoids going in for quite some time.

This bedtime ritual is starting to wear us out. So what do you all do when you need your bun to go in their cage?

[JK]

A really good way to entice them is with a bedtime treat.  I used to always give Edson a treat  to get him back in his cage.  A sprig of mint or parsley or something like that.  Now he’s free roam but I still give him a treat when I turn out the lights in his room around 10PM.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

That’s the best advice!! Feed her her daily salad or treats at that time, she’ll soon get into the routine and be excited to go back in her cage!

[KayS]

Hey guys! Thanks for the idea!

Last night we had the worst night yet. I brought out her salad for bedtime and I hand fed her some and then I let her come over to eat it herself outside the cage. Things were going well! But when I tried to get her to follow it into her cage, she deemed herself too smart to be tricked into that!

Unfortunately she’s always been like this. She doesn’t follow treats in or out of her cage if she wasn’t already planning to head that way. Very independent bunny. So we ended up doing the same dance as the last 2 nights. I was just about to pick her up and put her in when she decided she’d had enough of my silliness and hopped in on her own. But she wasn’t happy about it.

Our plan for now is to just keep trying. We don’t want the cage to be a punishment, but perhaps an expected ending at the same time every night. With veggies! I suppose if it doesn’t pan out in a couple weeks we’ll explore the option of getting her a more permanent play area so she doesn’t have to go in the cage every evening.

[JK]

Mmmm. I think I would give her more of a treat than her salad at bedtime.  I give Edson his salad around 5-6pm and a real treat at 10PM.  Also you need to give it to her inside the cage not outside.  She does sound like a little smarty pants though. Are you sure you can’t set up an xpen that attaches to her cage now?  It makes a tremendous difference.  Just sounds like she hates being cooped up and needs more space.

[KayS]

She certainly does hate being cooped up! Who wouldn’t.

For tonight we’ve made a makeshift X-pen out of our NICs around her cage. We’ll see how that goes. She wasn’t fond of us closing her in even to that, but I still believe its better than closing her in just the cage. We got thumped at for building the pen, but she got a raisin when it was all done.

I’m curious how we’ll find her in the morning.

[Sage Cat]

My buns have the same set up – in their pen when I’m gone & at night.
At night All I have to do is put a big handful of “fresh” hay in their basket – they come running!

[Ana]

Another idea is that you gave her too much freedom too soon– like she never got used to her cage as a special place of her own. Not sure how to remedy this, as decreasing her playtime and area seems unfair…

[hooty22]

Felony is awesome about going into his cage. It’s basic learning. He loves raisins, so when it’s time to go to his cage I say “Bedtime Felony”, stand next to his cage and shake the raisin bag. After running a couple of laps around my feet, he jumps into his cage and presses his face against the top and I give him a few raisins… Works like a charm, you just have to be consistent and give him a treat he LOVES.

[MooBunnay]

I would say that being consistent with a raisin or other treat is a great idea. I also agree with furbaby – it sounds like your bunny doesn’t really understand that the cage is her home. How big is her cage? If you provide her a cage that is large enough that she can get exercise in it, have a nice big area to hop around in, and also have an area for a shelf that she can hop up onto. Once she begins to enjoy her cage as her home, she will be happy to go back in at bedtime!

[Lightchick]

I actually have the same problem with Lizzy! She knows and loves her pen & hutch, but she’d much rather be running around getting into trouble! At home, I basically have to remove all escape routes and annoy/chase her back and forth until she gets tired of my silliness and goes home. She’s not very food-oriented so treats have been of minimal help in bribing her. Of course, once she does deign to go home, she DEMANDS a treat, even though she’s run me in circles for 10 minutes!

It’s even worse now that we’re in a hotel and she has 2 beds to hide under! I had to chase her around for 15 minutes this morning, and finally resorted to spraying her with a water-bottle every time she went under the bed…she was a very wet bun by the end! (But she put up with being settled on my lap so I could dry her off, which was a first! And very CUTE! Maybe she’ll be a lap bunny someday!)

I have her trained that a kissy-noise means a treat, and if she feels like a treat, she’ll come running when she hears it (if she doesn’t feel like a treat, or suspects some duplicity on my part, she ignores me). But if I try to connect the treat/kissy noise to the pen, she gives me a look like, “whatdaya think I’m DUMB!” and takes off for the other side of the room.

Sigh.

[Author]

Messages