my bun ate paint!!

[Ester Yeh]

My lionhead Nala likes to chew on the walls and molding and today she peeled off a big chunk of paint and ate it! i tried to get it away from her but she kept running away!  Is this something I should worry about?

[Cuddles_Momma]

Uh-oh! Is the paint old? I would wonder about lead paint…. Hmmm I would say to call the vet and see what they say.  Im sure its just a good scare! The things our buns get into…lol

[Gravehearted]

well is she eating & pooping normally today? If not – call the vet….

Otherwise – I’d encourage you to either line that area with a box or a board so she can’t reach the wall. You also could try bitter apple (which one of my bunnies liked to lick) or tabasco / hot sauce, but not sure you’d want either of the last 2 on your walls.

Anyone else have ideas to share?

[wendyzski]

You know what I find works on chewy-places?
Perfume!

I forgot where I read it, but I sprayed some stinky nasty old-lady perfume I got for a present somewhere on a place where my bun was chewing, and so won’t touch it now!  Not sure if it’s the smell, the taste, or both.

[Ester Yeh]

i tried that …didnt work…i used body spray and febreze…maybe i should try something different.

[BinkyBunny]

Sounds like the same problem one of our members Fujoe was having.

Fujoe said Ivory soap worked (rubbing it on the area)- but for her only for a short time, but you can try that and see if that works for your bunny.

Others have also tried hot sauce.

As far as the perfume goes, I think part of it has to do with the alcohol content, so check the ingredients and see that has been missing from the body spray.

Keep us updated on what ends up working for you.

[Ester Yeh]

hmm soap? do they try to eat that? it says "alcohol denat" on the body spray ingredients…first ingredient named.   If they dont like the smell of alcohol would it be okay to rub something like smirnoff…or some sort of liquor or rubbing alcohol on it? or is that way too strong? It’ll probly ruin my paint too.

[BinkyBunny]

She said she only used Ivory Soap, so I don’t know if others will work or ???.    When you put anything on as a deterrent, you want to watch carefully first and see if it actually works, and if you see your bunny just munching away regardless, then you would need to wipe off whatever you used, including soap, so that he doesn’t digest too much.  As I don’t doubt it could possibly cause an imbalance in a bunny’s digestive tract.

With perfume, it fades, so you don’t have as much to worry about.

Pure medicinal Alcohol by itself can evaporate very quickly and so I can’t imagine it would do much.   But you can try it!

Liquor – hmmm.  I have never tried it, and never asked a specialist about it, so at this time, I have no idea if it would work, or if there is any danger if the bunny was actually attracted to it.  If so, I can’t imagine that would be any good, especially since some liquors have yeast. So I really don’t know right now the answer to that.  I’ll have to ask around.    But I bet it would just end up making your place smell like a brewery as that smell can really linger!  

[Gravehearted]

I wouldn’t recommend liquor for sure. Rabbits seem to like it – my poor Niklaus almost attacked someone trying to get a glass of whisky :-O It isn’t good for them for sure!

[Ester Yeh]

wow.. i cant imagine how a rabbit can like liquor….

[BinkyBunny]

Posted By new_obsession on 09/27/2006 5:07 PM
wow.. i cant imagine how a rabbit can like liquor….

Oh yeah! Didn’t you know….there is a 24 step BAA (Bunny Alcohol Anonymous) program?

Okay…har har hardy har har.  Bad joke.

[Ester Yeh]

well i used a differnet body spray…same brand…(bath and body works) but diff smell…it SEEMS to be working…SO FAR….we’ll see how it goes…

[Lucy]

ok.. hi! I saw that people are talking about me! Hi new obsession. Here are some tips… I thought some of this stuff worked, but like for 3 days, and then fujoe was back to chewing. You can only use ivory soap- it’s really gentle or something. But anyway, nothing worked… the only thing that did work was stapleing cardboard to the base boards. I know, that sounds aweful, and it kind of is. We couldn’t stop fujoe, and this is the only thing working. He chews on the cardboad like crazy trying to get to the baseboard underneath, so it’s not the prettiest thing. But when it comes to the safety of your bunny, you have to sacrifice the integrity of your apartment. The only thing now is that he’ll go to the edge of a room- where the wall sticks out- and will chew above the cardboard. What a smart bunny to get to the paint! you should read all of the posts with my bunny- forum paint, plaster, oil based clay??? he loves to much all of that stuff good luck!

[Ester Yeh]

hmm..i cant do anything like stapling cardboard to the wall since the place im staying in is my aunt’s place while she’s in china…and im actually not suppose to have pets…

and how about to prevent them from digging up carpet? I had read that spraying perfume and such like that would work…probably wont work for long tho.  Do their noses get use to the smell?

[Ester Yeh]

i have a few patches of carpet completely ripped up…and i have absolutely no idea how to fix it without my aunt noticing. i was thinking of cutting up this extra piece of carpet she has and super gluing it down haha! thats what I did with a few pieces of carpet that had been scratched up..so there’s a tiny little spot thats all hard in the carpet from the super glue.

I had also blocked up my computer desk area so they would stop chewing on the wires..but one of my buns seems to be even more interested then ever now thats it blocked up and has managed to get in quite a few times! driving me crazy! haha!

[Lucy]

well, if you can’t staple the cardboard, then get some and just cover the baseboards, like use furniture as “staples.” If you aren’t supposed to have pets I reccomend you just covering up the problem…. I don’t know anything about the carpet.. sorry

[BinkyBunny]

I found tips on how to repair carpet – sort of along the same lines as you were actually thinking!

http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/carpetrepair.html

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