Rabbit driving me insane

[banana]

So a few weeks ago I upgraded my rabbit’s indoor pen to a bigger one. Now, during the day he doesn’t want to come out at all and just lays around inside it all day until around 9pm even though I leave the doors open. Then when its time for bed I put him away and he gets so pissed off that he grabs the cage door and starts biting it and rattling it with his teeth. I had some carabiner clips on the door to keep it shut (its a CC grid cage i made) and hes already broken two of them. Sometimes he’ll eventually stop rattling it after 20mins of me going back and forth with him as I try to sleep, but like last night, he started up again at 5 o’clock in the morning. I was so angry and not paying attention that I ended up somehow ripping off half of one of my toenails in an attempt to get him to stop since I had work in the morning. Fast forward to this morning and I accidentally slept in and missed an hour of work. This rabbit is driving me insane. When he had his dog cage enclosure he NEVER did this, im considering going back to his old way smaller cage if this keeps up because I do not know what to do and i am completely running out of patience with him. If you have suggestions I would appreciate it. I’m thinking of rubbing dog treats on the cage door to ward him off or maybe put lemon juice on it since he gets put off by non-rabbit foods extremely easy.

ps: he is neutered so its not a issue of him not being neutered 

[sarahthegemini]

Rabbits rest during the day and are active early morning and at night so altho he has his cage open all day, you’re shutting him in for bed when he’s most active. I don’t know why he wasn’t behaving that way when he had a smaller cage tho.

How about adding a pen around his cage so that he has more space during the night? You could also set up activities for him to occupy him whilst you sleep – hide pellets around his enclosure, give him sticks to chew on etc.

[Carolyn]

My bunny rattled on his xpen too at 5am and every time i turned off the lights to go to sleep. Even though I let him exercise for some hours.

Try draping a blanket over his cage, covering up anywhere he can see you (My Xpen is against the wall, so I only cover half, really, but to the floor). Once I did this he stopped ratling (Unless its a weekend and I sleep in, then at around 10-11am he’ll rattle because he’s hungry and I’m late in feeding him/letting him out)

I don’t know if itll help, but it helped me and my bun. And my bun’s not neutered. If he can’t see, he’s not interested in coming out.

Try getting him to come out before bedtime though. Bring out treats and try playing with him (Get him excited to run around, like mimic what a bunny does while playing) and try and get him pooped before you go to bed. Buns are active at night, but I’ve found that if I get my bun pooped, he’ll be content in his cage eating hay. Not 100% but it might help some nights and bring back sanity.

[Muj Mom N Bun]

I was thinking similar to Sarahthegemini in regards to instead of just downgrading back down to his dog crate, maybe you cld put the dog crate in the larger cube grid space? Is it large enough to do that? That way, he still has his old space/routine as well as the larger space during the daytime. Or maybe, can you try putting some paper or pieces of cardboard in between certain junctions of the grids so that maybe he will occupy himself with chewing them instead of pulling on the grids? ….Just, of course, as long as the grids are safely and securely mounted that he doesn’t end up getting too ambitious and pulling things down…Buns will be Buns but you do need to be able to get your sleep and get to work on time too. Hope things get better for y’all.

[Muj Mom N Bun]

And, when I first got Bun, covering her at night was a big help with the noise factor. It just calmed her down quite a lot…. I also forgot to add that sometimes when bunnies are given more space they become a bit bored within it, so it is more important than ever to rotate their toys and give them different things to chew on or play with to keep their curiosity going or else they will just veg out… (yes, some hours midday are their prime hours of sleep and are to be expected for them) but you want to try to avoid the boredom. I’ve even gone as far as just putting down an old open telephone book with a few pages folded into triangles and then a couple of discarded pieces of balled up packing paper…etc! Free bunny toys! Every morning I also change the position of the ottoman so that she has a different run space and she loves this!

[banana]

thank you for all the tips! I would love to give him more space for his cage so he would feel locked away at night but i live in a small condo and my room is pretty small. I knew that night was basically their prime hours but its strange ive never had an issue with it before; he was usually on my schedule and would come out during the day, play at night, then go to bed fine! I tried giving him food before bed to keep him busy, but once he finished it he would go back to biting the cage. Plus he doesnt really like to play with chew toys either (I have a cardboard box in his pen and he likes that but that all he likes in there lol). Also unfortunately the pen area isnt quite large enough to fit his old dog crate.

Im going to try covering him tonight to see if that works (he is against a wall so that works out perfectly, thank you!), i’m not sure why i never thought of that before ahahaha. I’ll try playing with him and pooping him out before bed as well to see if that helps too!

P.S: my bunny’s name is also Bun too! I get a lot of people telling me how uncreative I am because of it lol, but when i first found him I called him that as a placeholder and it ended up just fitting fine LOL

[Author]

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