To free range or not to free range?

[emm_renn]

For right now, I live with my parents until I save up a little money to look for an apartment.  My rabbit is only allowed in my room but her cage isn’t that big.  I don’t have enough room to make her a bigger cage so I have been considering free range.  She does have a knack for chewing ( I did get her fixed a few weeks ago).  I’ve bunny proofed so she can’t go under my dresser or my bed, but somehow she always finds something naughty to do.  But on the good side, she is potty trained.  How did you introduce your rabbit to be free range or at least confined to one room?

[Little Lion Head]

We got lucky with both of our current buns. Neither seem to be diggers or chewers. Honestly, they could both free-range the whole house if it wasn’t for the back of the couch. They like to jump up there and Pumpkin has fallen once and it freaks me out too much.

Our first bun, Boston could have NEVER been free-range without complete and serious bunny-proofing. She ruined basically everything we owned with her teeth and nails even though she was fixed.

I say bunny-proof as much as possible and give your bun lots of distractions and toys and cardboard, etc. The chewing might eventually go away, but it never really did with Boston.

[bestmom]

does free range mean total access to every room in the house? Pepper is allowed in our kitchen, living room, hallway, and the stairs (he likes running up and down them). But the bedrooms and bathroom doors are kept shut. Though you gotta watch because he’s sneaky and will run between your legs if you open one of the doors, then hide under one of the beds or dressers. His pen is in my 12 year old daughter’s room, so he is allowed in that room when she’s home. I could never trust pepper to go to every room, he has destroyed to much…my tennis shoes, alarm clock cord, 2 telephones wires, wires on a VCR (our last one we owned). We did buy wire covers and that seems to help. But we need to get some for the back of the computer, because he’s always hopping onto the computer desk. pepper likes the back of the couch too.

As for toys Pepper has shown no real interest in wood chew toys. He does like willow balls, but at $4 a ball i can’t afford to keep buying them. We did give him a paper towel tube filled with hay and he seems to like that (i need to refill it as he managed to get 90% of the hay out of it).

[Tana]

Our bunnies bonded more strongly with us once we allowed them more room… but we certainly lost a few things while learning what was actually bunny proof and what was not… especially when the room was new and she was feeling especially curious. She’d do things like hop up on the desk just to see if she could (and she hasn’t done it since) so maybe it’d be good to remove all fun things even temporarily so once she’s explored an area she finds it uninteresting.

[Deleted User]

My Henry has been free range pretty well since we got him – our issue was mostly his spraying us, nothing that a quick snip didn’t fix, LOL!
The chewing – we learned the hard way, DOH! Once he chewed something and as we replaced it, we knew to cover it over or put it out of his reach.
I can say now, almost 2 years later…. he is no where near as naughty as he once was. EXCEPT my cane bed – I’m sure he is determined to eat that till I’m sleeping on the floor, DAM bunny!

Henry sleeps under our bed and I’ve never had an issue with him not using his litter tray that is located out in the dining room, so I reckon that is a bonus for you too emm! For the chewing, only from my personal experience with Henry…. once he was fixated on something, nothing short of moving or covering it over stopped him. So stupid, sucker me… that’s what I did. And to try and distract him from taking up a new habit, I kept everything cardboard for him to chew on, and even scrunched up pieces of paper to throw at him (while I was in bed and didn’t want to get up yet, lol!) to stop him from chewing on my stuff and left them on the floor for him to play and chew.

I will tell you emm, there is nothing sweeter than a free range bunny waking you in the morning with whisker’s on your face, ha ha ha! But be warned, I left my remote control on the bed one night and when I woke up the next morning, I had no buttons left!

BUGGA!

[Little Lion Head]

Haha Andi I am picturing getting ready for bed, gather up your piles of paper to arm yourself for a naughty bunny!

When we went to the in-laws for Easter, our two stayed in the bedroom with us (no cage or pen) and Pumpkin figured out she could jump on the bed. It freaked me out so bad everytime it happened!!! I have never had a pet that had acccess to my room or that could do that! I’m not sure I could handle it on a regular basis!

bestmom–free roam is when they don’t have a cage or pen to be locked up in so they go pretty much anywhere (you allow them to).

[bestmom]

thanks, that’s what i figured. Pepper is not free range. He stays in his cage at night and then if everyone leaves the house i put both Sadie and pepper in their cages (once sadie went into my 16 year olds bedroom and chewed up all her make up brushes and make up!) But if anyone’s home they’re out of their cages in the main living areas with the rest of the family.

[Deleted User]

OMG! I have woken up with my pj’s chewed, my tissues demolished and I swear he ate a chunk of my hair??? After washing my hair and tying the front of my hair back, I had a bit, about 2 inches high stick up/out – I thought WTH??? HENRY!
Seriously, ha ha ha ha – this bunny is the worst pet I have ever owned! LOL! But do you think I can lock him away??? We had our carpet cleaned and we tried to lock him away for 2 hours – NOPE! We found him (when we realised he got out – good grief!) laying on the wet carpet under our bed. *SIGH*!

I do have boards up (that are so high cause Henry will ‘climb’ them and I catch my foot on them and have been known to trip and fall) to stop him from going into the lounge room and Blair’s bedroom. Otherwise he is free to go wherever he wants in our home – WHY??? Ha ha ha ha……..

He should be lucky it only scrunched up paper Justina, lol!

[JustineT]

Willow likes to cause some trouble and get chew happy but we just scold her every time she does. Eventually she has learned that it’s wrong… Of course, that doesn’t stop her from trying! She just responds a lot more guilty when we say no now!

We bunny proofed our house by covering the wires and everything but with Willow anyways, once she was used to the house, she stopped causing as much trouble. She normally only gets chewy when there’s something new… Or with shoes. She has a shoe obsession!

We leave her freely roaming during the day because we know she’s just napping or eating her hay. I think she mostly causes trouble now when she wants our attention. I personally think they’re a lot less troublesome when they have free range and spend the day without restrictions and reasons to rebel.

[Toni]

AndHenry… I have 2 remotes that are missing 1/2 of all buttons on each! The cable guy rolls his eyes at us whenever he comes to check our equipment.

I’ve learned it’s definitely a choice that is best made based on the bun rather than what you want. We’ve always free-ranged our buns (working up to whole house access) and it is amazing how different they all are in terms of how much trouble they get into. From experiences of my own as well as ones I’ve bunny-sat at times, I’ve had ones who compulsively carpet dug their whole lives … ones who chewed EVERYTHING, ones who would run up large flights of stairs/jump on beds, and ones who would NOT take a single step off of their rectangle of area carpet, ones who NEVER chewed a thing unless it was provided in their food bowls. Oh…….and one who actually ATE A WALL. Yes… a wall….. ate/dug right through the drywall down to the studs. Some can be distracted from destruction by providing enough things they are allowed to chew on……. others keep at the naughty behavior despite. Some are angels, some are devils, and everything in-between. Ultimately, we modify the living arrangement depending on the risk-levels and behavior of the bunny and increase/decrease bunny-proofing/gates/access limitations based on our ability to trust them with each new freedom we try and monitor closely until we know what to expect.

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