She’s a jumper . . . what to do?

[JackRabbit]

Our bunnies have play time in our long hallway, and we put a baby gate at on end to keep them from going into non-bunny proof areas. The lops do fine with the baby gate, but Kieko is a jumper and getting more brave by the day. Last night, I went downstairs to do laundry while she was out. Hubby went up to play with her and found her behind my son’s bed. Apparently she had jumped the gate, gone in our bedroom and pooped, then gone in my son’s room to explore. Even though her condo is in his room, the room is definitely not bunny proofed.

We cannot sit with her for hours while she’s out, but now can’t leave her alone even for a few minutes in case she jumps the gate again. She definitely needs her playtime though because she can be a bundle of energy — we normally try to put her in the hall alone at first because her bunny 500’s can get downright scary because she’s so fast!

We tried putting a 2nd gate above the 1st one a while back, but our walls aren’t perfectly even. Any ideas?

(Once we start bonding again, and hopefully get the three bonded this time, play time will move downstairs to our family room. Trying to keep it neutral territory until we start bonding.)

[Lucky Star]

Cardboard? I don’t know how good you are with tools and such but I have been tearing apart cardboard boxes to build walls for the rabbits. My rabbits (not sure if this is typical or not) won’t jump over the cardboard because they don’t know whats on the other side (it could be something scary!) but will find a way past baby gates because they can see what they want to get to.

My other suggestion is to look at things to keep cats off of counters. There is a device that has a motion sensor and sprays water whenever it can sense the animal there. This way, you won’t have to supervise her all the time but she will be taught to stay away from the baby gate. This is also good because it won’t damage your relationship as the bun can not tell that it is your fault that they are being hit with water.

[Stickerbunny]

You can attach small wood or plastic screws to the walls to give the 2nd baby gate a secure hold. Just screw them at an angle, get a baby gate with a thinnish edge (NIC cube one you make, or those plastic interlocking panels) and then you can “hang” the baby gate kinda like a picture, by just twisting the screw up and down (I have the plastic panels and they don’t hold to walls without something holding them, since they are meant to make a x-pen type setup not be a real baby gate).

Or, you can look into a taller baby gate. They sell them in various sizes and heights. Or you can make your own to-height baby gate with NIC cubes. I’ve also used the plastic doors off of one of those kids furniture setups that was about 4 1/2 ft tall and just taped the doors shut and set something heavy against it so the buns couldn’t knock it down. When they were done playing, I just stuck it in a closet. 

[JackRabbit]

The gate she jumped has opaque panels so she can’t see through it . We were using one of the plastic ones with all the holed but she was chewing on it and jerked it down one time because she could get her teeth on it. We were afraid she was going to hurt her teeth or pull it down on herself so we got the opaque one with no holes. She’s pretty strong and brave for a 3 lb bunny!

[Lucky Star]

Dang! Brave little bunny! Ok, think about the cat deterent sprayer and other than that, maybe building your own gate that is tall enough. NIC cubes can be built to fit anywhere, so you might want to start with those. Make sure to get the smaller grids so she can’t slip through them. My only problem with NIC cubes: they are light. My buns have managed to pick up their enclosure and move it so that they can escape (this is why I am trying to bunny-proof my bathroom, so that they can have the entire bathroom to romp in). You might want to find a way to weigh down the NIC cubes if you end up going with this.

[Stickerbunny]

How tall is it?

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