Rabbit biting wire cage….

[LillyBear]

My rabbit Lilly obcessively bites on her cage every single morning from 7ish-10ish.. and once we wake up she quiets down.. they share a bedroom with us.. their cage is big enough 4ftx8ft.. and they only do this when they want us to wake up and give them attention.. but we work until late and often don’t get to bed until 3am.. so being woken at 7am by a bunny rattling the cage is just plain annoying.. if I dont wake up and show her some attention she keeps getting louder and louder and LOUDER.  I know she just wants us to wake up.. but honestly!  Is there anything I can do to stop this behavior?  (The other rabbit could care less about us!)  Also before we go to bed at night once we are home she starts rattling again and we let them out to play for a while..and during the day we give them lots of love (though they can CARE LESS about us during the day!!!) but we can’t let them out in the day because our house has balconies and she almost fell down once… so that ended.  We have tried rotten apple spray but that didn’t work, purfume didn’t work, we are at a loss and very frustrated from being woken up for 3+hrs straight every morning!! 

[Cajunboi]

My two bunnies do that all the time… Ours do it because they want to be let out. Especially in the evening they will do it incessantly! I don’t think you will be able to stop it unless you let them out or just move them to another room… They will naturally chew and bite to try to escape… It’s their instinct.

Maybe someone else might be more help than me…

Good luck!

[RabbitPam]

Unfortunately I’ve been coping with the same problem for years and have no solution to get the wire chewing to stop. It’s their favorite way of communicating.

It made me decide to NOT share my bedroom with my bunny. If you have the option to move her, I’d urge you to set up the cage in another place in the house. For me, putting Sammy (and Spockie before her – same cage, same chew spots) in the room with the computer and main TV means that I spend my leisure time with her. I even do bills in here and eat because we are company for each other. Either she’s in her cage or out, but basically it’s selecting the room in the home with the most activity going on around her. That relieves boredom and isolation.

You might want to consider a different kind of habitat. You could add an Xpen with a cover next to her cage, with her door opening to it, so she has a wider space to play in. Put a diggy box in there so the morning urge to forage for breakfast is relieved.

Some people try a sheet over the cage at night to prolong sleep, but I’ve not tried that yet. Take care she can’t chew it.

[Beka27]

it sounds like the pen is definitely large enough, she just wants interaction. i don’t know if you will be able to stop this behavior. that is prime “bunny activity” time. some people have similar issues but even earlier, at 4-5am, i’m sure they’d love to be able to sleep in til 7! i would also suggest you try to figure an alternate location for her. you cannot help your schedule and neither can she. at least if she were in a different room, it would not be so bothersome to you. in this situation, i don’t think a sheet over the pen would work, since it’s later in the morning, she’ll be up at that time regardless.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I found that they sleep when you are away and come to life when your home-whether your sleeping or not.

Try leavng a light and a radio/tv on for them during the time you are out of the house. Then when you turn the lights off to sleep-they will too!

[MarkBun]

When do you usually feed them? They could have their clocks set for breakfast at 7 like mine. If I’m not there with pellets by 7:15, the wire rattling begins.

[KytKattin]

I used to have this problem with Nova. First, I decided to never give her attention when she did this. I figured that it’s just like a puppy whining (albeit maybe more annoying, and definitely more destructive) and having raised my fair share of dogs I was willing to go with that mindset at least in this instance. I then made sure that in the evening before I went to bed that she had plenty to stimulate her for the whole night. For her it takes a lot. First she gets 1-2 apple sticks (depending on size), I check that her diggy box has plenty of stuffing, and maybe compact it a little so she can toss it around, I take a papaya tablet and put it in a toilet paper roll, sometimes if I’m feeling generous I toss another in her diggy box, and last but also most important, I scatter her pellets all around her pen (in diggy box included). Her greens are still given in a bowl, but she might get an apple treat on a small stick thing that hangs. She also has a rattle and a phone book in the pen, just in case. Plus I make sure she has her body weight in hay. Next, because she was already in the habit of chewing on her cage, I had to discourage the behavior somehow. Now some people might not agree with this, and I completely understand if you’re one of them, but I discouraged her by using a spray bottle. It only took me 3 times the first day, and once the next day. While I would have rather chosen to simply ignore the behavior until it went away, my boyfriend needs his sleep as well so I opted for what I thought was the most efficient and ethical method.

[LillyBear]

Thanks for your replies everyone.. thankfully since we have built the bunny condo a few days ago and they are now in it she can’t bite all over the old xpen anymore.. NOW I can finally change the behavior. Since being in the condo she has tried various things to get attention from me (biting cage wires, biting floor, biting step, digging litter) and I have not paid attention to ANY of it. And she has stopped after a minute or so! Now I can finally sleep in the mornings!! Too bad my new job is starting on Monday where I’ll be waking up at 5am…

[mybunnymilo]

My bunny mylo does the exact same thing!same time every morning he does it because he wants me to let him out and get out of bed to play with him, haven’t found a way to stop him doing it so early

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