he keeps chewing wires !!!

[jakep]

ok so i have had baxter for about 5 months  and he is forever chewing wires the phone wires extension cors and hes gone through about 3 sets of my headphones.

he also is a humper he likes to try and mount my arm all the time. and is there anyway to keep his poos in the litter box he will pee in it but alot of poos dont seem to get in there.

baxter is a 8 month old mini lop and isnt neutered yet if that makes any difference to hi behavior. but other than that hes a funny playful rabbit and has never shown any aggresion to anyone or anything lol hes awsome!!

[jerseygirl]

Posted By jake on 01/12/2009 8:05 PM

baxter is a 8 month old mini lop and isnt neutered yet if that makes any difference to hi behavior.

That makes all the difference!!!!!!!  Do you plan to get him neutered?  This helps enormously with litter habits and should stop the humping.

Do you have the cords covered with anything?  You can buy tubing to cover them.  Best to get them out the way as much as possible too.  Put other items in front of the cords etc.  Hopefully he’ll get bored with them.  Also, you can try give him alternative things to chew.  Old phone books, apple sticks,  even sisal rope I think.

 

[jakep]

i am going to get him neautered within the next year probably  but is there any way to stop his frequent pooing on the floor. i also have moved them out of the way but i havent put anything on them but anything that gets within his reach seems irrisistable  to him i have gave him chew toys but he just doesnt like them or something because he rarely touches them.

[jerseygirl]

Oh I know about that! My rabbit won’t play with many of the alternatives I’ve offered! Best to cover them so he won’t get eletrocuted. When he approaches the cords to chew, clap your hands loudly or say “No!”. You have to do it as they are doing the unwanted behaviour for this to have any impact. They don’t understand punishment.

It’s pretty common for them to get the peeing spot on but not the pooing. You may need to restrict his area until his litter habits improve. Keep sweeping up the droppings and put them in the litter box til he get’s the idea. I put my bunnies hay in one end of her box so she’ll eat it and poo at the same time. If you have the hay elsewhere in Baxters area, does he tend to mainly poo there?
Also, lots of scattered poop is a territorial behaviour, his way of saying this space is mine!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Actually all three behaviors will be helped *dramatically* by neutering. But I understand having to wait.

For your cords, you can cover them with hard plastic, or block off where the cords are using Nic cubes. Headphones are best kept on the fridge or a similar high peice of furtniture they cant get to. My bunny got in my purse to snack on my headphones !!

Humping will decrease or stop from neutering. In the mean time, buy him a stuffed animal (doesn’t have to be a nice one, you could just go to the kids section in walmart and spend five dollars) about the size of him, could be bunny but a dog or kitty or….will do! He can show his affection to the stuffed animal instead of your arms/legs/guests.

As long as he’s not peeing out of bounds-thats fantastic. the best way to improve litter box habits (which will come with neutering too of course) is to limit how much room he has (they feel a stronger need to mark if they have more room) and to pick up the poops and put them back in his litterbox, instead of vacumming or throwing them out

Welcome BTW!!! We’d love to see pics of the little boy!

[Beka27]

welcome here! they’ve covered everything very well!

having a house bunny is really all about setting your home up so the buns needs are accounted for. bunny-proofing is important b/c it will guarantee that your guy will be safe, even if you’re not right there watching over him. there is a page in the bunny info section that addresses bun-proofing.

neutering will correct or lessen many of these bad behaviors. at 8 months old, he is right in the middle of puberty and he is frustrated. i would encourage you to get him altered sooner rather than later. the longer you wait, some of these bad behaviors can set in and they might not go away, even after neutering. it’s recommended that they are altered before one year old to prevent this.

[MarkBun]

Wires are often referred to as bunny crack. They can’t control themselves with them. And it’s a survival instinct. A rabbit will chew away anything that might snare them or trip them up when they need to run away from predators.

[Balefulregards]

Oh yes. Coco is a world class chewer. we lost ipod cords, headphones, camera chargers, cell phone chargers….and eventually the digital tv cable she pulled out of the wall to chew through.

Our lesson – If you don’t want to lose it – move it or cover it in non-chewable plastic tubing.

It wasn’t the easy things for Coco – she pretty much avoided the black tubing on the regular cords ( like my computer) but I had to get hardcore creative for the digital wall cord – which had to be covered by the regular cord protector and THEN covered again by industrial plumbing tubing – as she was chewing through the black plastic. Finally, she simply couldn’t chew the tube as her mouth couldn’t grip it.

But Yes – He will chew. He is a root clearer by nature. That would have been his JOB in the warren.

Toys never interested Coco either – If it didn’t seem forbidden, she didn’t want to chew it.

And Spaying helped her too – not entirely ( I say as I found a chewed t shirt yesterday…) but again – it was my fault for leaving it down for her to nibble

[bunnytowne]

Have you offered him cardboard boxes or phone books to chew?   They usually enjoy those better than the storebought toys.    A willow ball and willow tunnel from BB is enjoyed by most bunnies as well…

[megrat7]

For any and all chewing this is what I have found works best… get yourself some WHITE DOVE SOAP. The bar kind, mix it with water in a spray bottle and anywhere you see chewing going on, spray it down! Works better than Bitter Yuck or other products out there. My little one HATES the smell and won’t even try after that, Ive been through 2 sets of computer cords/parts til I figured it out. Its cheap and easy to reapply. Good luck with that!

[bitterepiphany]

we use foam pipe insulation on all of the cords we can’t keep out of her reach. (the cord for the heat/ac unit is permanent, so we sealed the cord protector on that…and then ihave another couple laying around the hosue that we slide on laptop cords and video-game controllers.

She could probably get into them if we didn’t check them periodically, but we do and she’s never seemed interested in chewing them after the first day, i think they taste bad and they also are big for her to get her teeth into.

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