I have a climber..

[Nashida]

Hello, I’m a bit new to the forum (though I have been lurking) and was looking for suggestions.

 I’m a fairly new bunny-mom, I’ve had my current bun Bandit for just over a month. We live together in a high-rise apartment in China (I’m working abroad here for the better part of a year and felt a furry friend would help me adjust to being away from my family).

It’s been a steep learning curve as I had never owned a bun before, but we’ve come a long way together. And she really has done wonders for me.

We’ve come across one small problem: Bandit loves heights. She’s grown enough that a good enough hop gets her pretty much wherever she wants to be. Her favorite place used to be on the windowsill (it’s low, only 18″ off the ground) but now she’s discovered she can get to the top of my low entertainment center (also 18″), and today she went from there to the top of the TV before she realized how high up she was and needed rescuing. I ended up having to pick her up, which she did not like one bit as she was already 3 feet off the ground at this point and managed to give me a few good scratches on my chest and one on my hand (the hand one drew blood, but not much). She usually tolerates being picked up, but it’s only for a moment and while I’m sitting on the floor. I think the height really scared her because she was quick to come back and lick at my hand after she was safely on the ground.

I already limit her outside time to 3 hours a day, and her cage is actually a rolling puppy pen I found that is large enough for her litter box, her food dish, a few toys, and water. She’s able to stretch out the full length of her body in there. I had thought of giving her the run of that room during the day, but now I’m worried she’ll try that again when I’m not home to watch her and she’ll fall, and I’ll come home from work to a broken bunny.

So what I’m asking is, if any of you had climber bunnies, what did you do to cater to that urge? Could I get a cat tree and hope she chooses that to climb? Replacing the entertainment center isn’t much of an option because 1) it’s expensive and 2) it came with the apartment and my contract doesn’t allow me to remove any of the furniture placed there by the landlord unless there’s a huge fault. I don’t think “bunny can climb to the top” counts.

Thanks so much!

[LBJ10]

Wooly loves the back of the couch. He will be in my lap and he will climb up there from there. He usually looks around for a little bit and then looks to my shoulder for a way back down. Otherwise, he doesn’t really climb on much anymore. He was a little spider-bun when he was a baby. I suppose it is just something they outgrow. How old is your bunny?

[Nashida]

I’m not entirely sure how old Bandit is. I got her from a flower and bird market here in the city, and many of these markets also sell rabbits, hamsters, mice, fish, and turtles, pretty much any small animal you can think of. She was little when I first got her, she easily fit and stretched out in the teeny cage they sent me home with.

I got her back at the end of January. This was taken a week later, you can see how she could barely reach the drawer handle. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?…mp;theater

[Deleted User]

I wouldn’t suggest a cat tree since its designed for the flexibility of a cat. Do you have any cardboard boxes perchance? Maybe you can duck tape a bunch of boxes together to make a sort of climbing structure for your bun? LongHairMike has a great one done that he did for his foster buns.

[Nashida]

She actually has one that I created as a hidey hole of sorts. It’s stuffed with paper, has two holes to get in and out, and sometimes I put hay or fresh veggies inside it. She’s used it before as a sort of step stool to get where she shouldn’t go, so it’s since moved under my desk where she’ll go there to chew/dig/whatever but still be with Mom as she works.

My job gets shipments of stuff every so often, I bet if I asked I could get a bunch of them to take home and do just that.

[LBJ10]

LongHairMike also had a pic of some little tikes slides that were modified for bunnies to play on. I think the slide part was covered in indoor/outdoor carpet so it could be used as a ramp to get up. The top is boxed in, so the bun can’t really get anywhere from there.

[Michele823]

My bunnies were rescue bunnies and even though they were adults they had to learn they could jump and this ended with my male bunny getting up on top of something he was too sacred to get down from all the time and he hated being picked up so I would grab a pillow or even another box and hold it so he could jump onto that and then back to the ground so I didn’t have to pick him up and it taught him how to get down as well, although it sounds like your little bun gets up pretty high so maybe making a ramp you can move around in case she needs help getting down that way you don’t have to pick her up directly.

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