Is my bunny bored?

[Nicole]

Hi! I just recently adopted a one-year-old (approx.) lop/lionhead mix and it seems like hes bored… I feel like I’ve bought so many toys for him and he doesn’t play with any of them. I’ve also given him things to chew on but even those get old quickly. I let him out to run around in the morning and evening during his active times but he doesn’t seem to run around too much. Sometimes he will run for a short burst but then he won’t again for the rest of the time he’s out. I feel like hes not getting enough exercise and when I close him back into his cage he suddenly wants to run around but there isn’t enough space and nothing to occupy him. I feel bad when he suddenly gets energy and he’s in the cage so I try to let him out when he’s like that but it’s like he doesn’t want to run around out of the cage. I’m just confused and I want to know if there’s something I should be doing differently for him.

[Sirius&Luna]

Hi, and congrats on your new bun

Bunnies are sociable animals, so it’s important to spend lots of time with them. How much time do you spend with him daily? If you’re unable to spend a decent amount of time with him, it might be worth considering getting a friend. Obviously, getting a second bunny and bonding them is a long, time consuming and expensive process, but if your bunny is only getting a couple of hours interaction from you a day, that’s really not enough and he will be bored, and eventually destructive. Bonded bunnies don’t really play together, but you’ll often find them exploring as a pair, and lounging around together.

Toys – most bunnies don’t pay much attention to toys unless they’re edible ones – willow or apple twigs, grass mats, hay houses, cardboard tubes filled with hay, willow balls, are all popular chewable toys. My bunnies show no interest in any toy that can’t be chewed 

Hide houses and cardboard boxes are also ‘toys’ that my bunnies use. I cut a couple of entrances into old cardboard boxes, and they run through them, jump on top of them, sleep on top of them, and hide in them. You can move them around and add new ones for a change of scene.

Digging boxes are also popular – you could fill it with soil or sand, or shredded paper or plastic balls for a less messy option.

How big is his cage? His cage should really be big enough that he can run around in it if he wants to. Pet shop cages generally aren’t big enough. An easy way to extend a pet shop cage is to buy an x-pen, and attach it to the front of the permanently open cage as a ‘front yard’.

[Tay]

He may just not be comfortable in the space out of his cage enough to run around like crazy just yet. My bun Charlie is and has always been the same (except when she was teeny tiny and full of energy). I was always concerned about her, but she’s just incredibly lazy. Every once in a while she’ll run around like a maniac, but more often than not she just lays around. She has her own room with plenty of space and gets free range of upstairs when I’m here and still will just lay around.

As far as toys go, I’ve had the most luck with wooden rattle type things, rings she can toss, the apple sticks, etc. Like was said above – anything that can be chewed. She also used to love when I’d stuff toilet paper rolls with hay. She’d throw them around the room, and bonus it got her to eat hay.

I have a bunch of toys (which it sounds like you do too), but I know she doesn’t play with most of them, so I’ve started leaving like 7 or 8 out and I put the rest in the closet and rotate them every few days so she has new things to do.

One thing I do for Charlie when I leave is scatter a few pellets throughout the room so she has something to ‘forage’ for. I’ve always done it and I can hear her running around and finding all of the pellets when I walk out.

Good luck! You could spend a million dollars on toys for him and he’ll probably still not want to play with them they’re stubborn sometimes!

[Nicole]

Hi! I’m surprised someone got back to me so quickly – thank you!

In the mornings he gets a minimum of 1 hour out of the cage depending on when my first class is (i’m a college student). If my first class is later in the day he gets more time until I have to leave. At night he usually gets a good 3-4 hours maybe more if I’m home all night. During the day whenever I’m home in between classes he has the choice to come out of the cage but he’s usually asleep. Whiskey was found with 2 other bunnies that he didn’t get along with… otherwise I would’ve considered getting them together.

After posting this I actually got a grass mat for him and he went crazy on it! But now I’m worried because he seems to be eating the mat instead of his timothy hay. He still eats some but I can tell its less than before he had the mat. I don’t know if I should take it away from him so hes forced to eat the hay… but then I’m worried he’ll go back to trying to eat the towels he has in his cage. The digging box was a thought of mine but I was worried he would mistake it for a litter box.

His cage is 4′ 8″ long, 2′ 4″ wide, and 2′ 4″ tall. I made his cage from wire storage cube pieces so I could give him more space than a starter cage would provide. I currently have a pen attached to it but it can’t be constantly open if I’m not home to supervise him because he managed to escape before. I found him on the windowsill just enjoying the view of the backyard haha! Thankfully he didn’t get into anything dangerous, but there are wires outside of the penned in area that I don’t want him to chew on. Because of this, he has to be inside the cage when I’m not home.

[Nicole]

Hi! Thanks for your reply!

Whenever I buy him a new toy, he’ll be interested at first but after 5-10 minutes he doesn’t care about it anymore and he won’t touch it again. I can’t just keep getting something new for him to use for such a short time… my new plan is to rotate them like you said and maybe he’ll think they’re new toys all over again. I tried putting hay in a toilet paper roll and he ran past it, kicked it with his back legs and it went flying across the cage and the hay went everywhere! The best part – he didn’t eat the hay or the toiler paper roll afterwards.

The pellet idea sounds really good! I might try to do that with his lettuce too! I was thinking of doing that with treats but it’ll be even better if I can just use his own food and it’ll be better for him. Thanks for the idea!

At least now I know I’m not the only one buying toys that go unused… I’ve been looking up a bunch of DIY cardboard ideas so I’m gonna try some of those too! At least if he doesn’t care for them I won’t have wasted money.

[kurottabun]

I find that cardboard boxes are really the most useful and practical/inexpensive when it comes to DIY-ing! My bun doesn’t like playing with toys too (including toilet paper rolls with or without hay in it). He just moves it out of the way when he wants to pass rather than play with it LOL.

You can do so many amazing things with cardboard boxes. Tunnels, mazes, platforms etc. When Kurotta started to chew on and dig in an empty cardboard box, I put some hay in it and now he just goes inside to hide, dig and munch on the hay occasionally. A cardboard box wouldn’t be able to fly across the cage too? Then again it depends on how big and strong your bun is as well.

You didn’t mention on whether he is litter trained or not. If he is, he would have most likely associated that place with peeing/pooping and therefore would not treat a digging box as his litter box.

[Author]

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