I made a training mistake, tips on fixing it?

[Stickerbunny]

My buns have always nibbled on carpet, usually a “no” or a spritz with the water bottle fixes it for a few hours, or until they think I am not looking. However, a few weeks ago they just would not stop, so I figured they were hungry and went to feed them. Biiiiig mistake. Now, they think if they just eat carpet non-stop no matter what I do to make them stop, they will get pellets. And they love their pellets. So, of course now 24/7 they are trying to destroy my carpet in any area they can get their teeth on.

I’ve tried correcting them, redirecting them, spray bottle, covering up the tastiest carpet spots, confining them for a few days to let it blow over, standing over them and physically lifting them away from the spot whenever they went after it. Nothing is working. And it’s driving me nuts!  If I don’t 1) keep pellets down or 2) do nothing all day but every 30 seconds to 1 minute physically lift them away from the area (for them to just go to another spot once I put them down) they are eating my carpet.

They have tons of hay (which they love), they get their salad every day, which they devour and they get about 1/2 cup of pellets each night (4 and 6 pound bunnies, but they get a lot of veggies so I try to not give them too many pellets). They aren’t starving. And they have vine balls, wood chews, cardboard, a phone book, the teething ring tossing things and a cat condo for toys. The only other toy they like is willow balls, but those things last like one hour with them and they are $5 a piece, so can’t afford them to always be around. I keep willow sticks for them most the time, but they eat those quickly too.

I hate keeping them locked up, but this is a rental and there are already 5-6 bald spots on my carpet from this. And I don’t want them to get a blockage from the carpet fibers either. Ideas? It isn’t just one area of carpet either, it’s ANY area of carpet. And I have tested it, if they have pellets available they don’t do it. But, the second they run out, they start. The brats are trying to train me and get carpet protection oxbow out of me. They even give me a stare sometimes when they do it  “Gimme the pellets or the carpet gets it.”  It would be funny if it wasn’t so annoying.

[Kayota]

I feel you, I accidentally taught Mako to open the gate and now if I leave the room that’s the first thing she does. Sigh… And she keeps chewing on the cabinets.

[Stickerbunny]

Posted By Kayota on 10/16/2013 01:09 AM

I feel you, I accidentally taught Mako to open the gate and now if I leave the room that’s the first thing she does. Sigh… And she keeps chewing on the cabinets.

Heh. Why is it always the thing we don’t want them to learn that they catch onto the quickest? I would love if a single act could teach them something I WANT them to do, but it’s like pulling teeth getting the good behavior to become a habit with them.

[Dwarf Sparrow]

Oi, that stinks. Is there any way to cover the carpet? I don’t know how big your apartment/house is, but it might be worth the cost of buying tiles or a floating wood floor to put down to protect the carpet. If you can, I’d probably keep it covered for (at least) a few weeks to try to reset the habit/training.

[bunnybundtcake]

 dear stickerbunny,

        i have a new zeland white buns named pierre. he also likes to chew on things like the wall molding and carpet corners. i have curbed this behavior by sprinkling cinnamon on any areas that he has started to chew on. yes cinnamon ! bunnies despise the smell of cinnamon and it is a very healthy and helpful training tool. wherever you sprinkle the cinnamon, the rabbit won’t go back to bother with that spot. i know it is dark in color but it is also vaccumed up very easily as well. you can test my solution by putting some on your hand and let your buns smell it. your bunny will immediately turn away from your hand. please let me know how you made out with my solution. this allows pierre to roam freely in the livingroom and not destroy anything. he is also potty trained to his cage. as you vaccum the cinnamon areas, resprinkle the cinnamon and you will see a major improvement in destructable chewing. good luck

[jerseygirl]

That’s interesting about cinnamon!

Stickerbunny, could you forego the pellets for a couple of days? See if it breaks the cycle?

Did this increase in carpet chewing coincide around the time you had to air con and flooding problem?

[Stickerbunny]

Started a little after it. They had run out of hay for a few hours, so they got chewy and I went and fed them pellets to make up for the lack of hay until boyfriend got home with it and … yeah. They took that as a “Oh, doing that gets us what we want, ok!” *frown* Dumb move on my part, but I felt bad for them being out of hay.

I can’t skip the pellets since they aren’t caged, if I do they would start eating the walls and baseboards. And I can’t cage Powder, cause he has panic attacks and last time I caged him, he jumped into the roof of the cage and landed on his spine HARD. Soon as the doors close he runs around, climbing/jumping/chewing the bars and panting until the door opens again (been that way since we brought him home from the humane society, no idea what his background was). Too risky to save some carpet. He means more than the money it takes to recarpet the room, even if he’s being a brat at the moment. o.O

Interesting about cinnamon. I have some in the house, might try it. Though, that’ll mean my bird will be glued to the floor, but he’s less destructive than the bunnies. lol

[jerseygirl]

Started a little after it. They had run out of hay for a few hours, so they got chewy and I went and fed them pellets to make up for the lack of hay until boyfriend got home with it and … yeah. They took that as a “Oh, doing that gets us what we want, ok!” *frown* Dumb move on my part, but I felt bad for them being out of hay.

Oh okay. I had thought maybe a bit of stress hormone still in the system from the time you had to move them.
Mmm…

Cardboard is popular at my place. Could you put large sheets around and redirect them to those? Or fix some seagrass mats to board with cable ties.

At the moment here, a popular hardware chain store sells these seagrass door mats for $1 !
(Pic shows multiple been sewn together)

A couple of my buns have enjoyed chewing them. They’re quite open weave so you can roll them and stuff them with hay with bits poking out.

[Author]

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