Rabbit housing

[Harri the Mini Lop]

Roughly six months ago, I adopted a now two-year-old mini-lop girl. Our original plan was to allow her to free roam during the day upstairs, and at night I would leave her in a very large cage. Once we adopted her, that plan did not work out as we had expected, so I had the idea to set up a large playpen where she would live in our rental house. We are planning on moving this summer, and we are completely changing how we care for her by letting her roam the basement, which we are hoping to have in our new house. It would be a good environment for her and I am very excited because the basement will also be my bedroom, so we will get to bond. We still have about five months to go, six months at the most. I am getting a little stressed because my poor girl definitely gets bored sometimes and wants to get out. She has escaped the playpen a few times, which we would have let happen until we discovered one night she liked tearing up the carpet. She chews on the playpen bars some nights, it has crossed my mind that she might be bored, but I put some bitter apple on the bars to see if it would work. It was only just now I realized that she more than likely won’t stop until we move. I love her and care for her as best I can, we have given her an endless amount of things for her to play with, and so far the only thing she has accepted was a cat tunnel and any house she can go into where it’s dark. I suppose I just wanted some input on what I can do for these next six months until my bun can have more freedom we can offer. 

[Wrinkle nose]

Maybe try some cardboard castles? Bunnies often like to do some construction on them, and it’s a good place for them to hang out, and also let’s them hop up and down

Can you let her out for a bit when you are around so she can get more exercise?

[Sirius&Luna]

How big is her current cage?

As wrinklenose says, most bunnies love cardboard. It doesn’t even have to be fancy, I just ask for free boxes from the grocery store and cut a couple of doors in them.

My bunnies also love their tunnels.

Willow and apple twigs are good enrichment, because they provide something to do as well as wearing down their teeth.

some buns love digging boxes – you can fill a large plastic box with sand or soil, or even shredded paper, for them to dig in.

A treat ball keeps lots of buns entertained.

If she’s smart, you can try to engage her mind by teaching her little tricks.

[Harri the Mini Lop]

We have given her multiple different cardboard boxes as makeshift houses.

My parents are very strict in the sense that they literally won’t let me take her out for even just a half an hour of exercise.

Her playpen is very spacious compared to how other rabbits live, it’s two dog-sized playpens connected.

She actually used to have a cardboard house…after a few months she sat on the top and we found it collapsed in the morning. We’re in the process of building her a wooden house so that her big bunny butt doesn’t break it (teehee) but i unfortunately need my dad to help me and he has been procrastinating a lot. We recently got her a tunnel for her birthday, she loves it.

I don’t give her any digging boxes because the last time i did, she mistook it as a litter box. To be fair, we had only just recently adopted her and we didn’t have the right litter box at the time, so it could easily change, but im worried with experimenting too much.

I have been getting more into training her, especially with a harness because then i will be able to safely let her explore outside.

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