what to give a chewer?

[Ali925]

I’ve tried towels and fleece blankets…  I know I can give him a sea grass mat, which is obviously safe for chewing, but is there anything else I can put over a wood floor in my bun’s pen?  He’s still young (12 weeks) so maybe his chewing will get better with age..  I had tried fleece as per someone’s recommendation, and he was doing well, until a few days ago I came home from work and he’d chewed a decent piece out of the fleece.  I don’t know that he ingested it, he might have just chewed and spit it out…but I didn’t see any pieces lying around either.   

So I removed it, but when he jumps on things they slide on the floor and he slides too, when trying to run.  He’s pretty small so he doesn’t have the weight to maneuver the floor as well as my 4lb bunny(…and she has blankets down) and I guess I’m just worrying to much that he might hurt himself, but also that he might hesitate running around as much.

Any suggestions?  Or just keep him on the wood?  I’m planning to get some grass mats this weekend, hopefully I can get a couple big pieces.  Oh and in case you’re wondering, he does have things to chew on…and does chew on, he might have just been in the mood to tear something up (I don’t normally see him chew the blanket)

Thanks!

[Sarita]

Do you have a phone book he can tear up? Sounds like he just needs an activity.

[Ali925]

Actually no, no phone book. He has some willow toys (basket and ball) that I know he chews on…and some cardboard. What I think happened was I had given him a cuddle cup and he was used to pulling and digging at it…and at first, his teeth weren’t quite good at chewing anything off of it. But I noticed earlier this week that he was getting very small fuzzies pulled off of it..no big pieces or anything too dangerous…but I didn’t want him ingesting any of that. I know he liked sitting inside it and “fighting” with the sides of it, pulling it towards him, etc… so when I removed it I guess took away some of his fun activity. The next day was when he chewed the fleece. And now I know his teeth are getting stronger and he’ll be able to tear up more if he wants to.

We don’t have newspapers or phone books…we’re very electronically based for most things…so I don’t have those things lying around either…

[Sarita]

LOL – I know what you mean about the phone books :~) The next time you get one since they always seem to come whether or not you want them save them for your rabbits.

[RabbitPam]

You can call the Yellow Pages and ask to have phone books delivered. If it’s only once a year, it used to be free so I think it probably still is. You can usually ask for more than you immediate town, so you could have one for you and one for the next county for your bunny.

[Beka27]

Can you get a scrap pf linoleum to fit his space? I would definitely want to cover the wood floors with something water-proof, just in case of accidents or if water spills.

[Ali925]

Yeah we don’t have phone books, newspapers, or even a landline. Just cell phones! and 3 computers…. (for 2 of us..haha) My husband is a bit of a techy, so it’s very important to have lots of computers!

Anyhow, I can look into the phone book thing…But as much as I’ve seen it suggested, I always wondered is it ok for them to ingest?? Especially with the yellow colored pages?

I know I’m always worrying until I hear from someone else that they do it. I just have a feeling there would be more than shredding…

Linoleum is a good idea too…we can also look into that. Thankfully he hasnt had any pee accidents since the first couple weeks he was home..and that was only on towels…and his water is in his cage (connected to the pen). But still that’s a good idea…

[Elrohwen]

Phonebooks are safe to ingest. Otto eats them and is fine 😛 They’re a great toy!

Ask your friends and neighbors if they get phonebooks and would give you one.

[mocha200]

do you have a old rug that you could set down for him? or does he chew carpet?

[Ali925]

He’d probably chew the carpet..but no I don’t have one. Everything is wood! I thought about carpet pieces too…

He’s actually not a huge chewer, I am just afraid what he might do when I’m gone all day if he decides to go to town on something. My other bun likes to chew too, but I know she’s not eating it. With him being young, I don’t trust him as much..

Thanks though…

[Nibbles_NZ]

My bun does that. He has a ton of chew toys and a willow basket and still tears up my carpet. He is destructive…as I have heard some buns can be. I am making him a diggy box. I am also going to try the cardboard house maze thing. I think they just need some stimulation. Maybe you could try something like too. Cardboard is great for them to be destructive with. Also, the willow grass balls look cool too. I would just try to focus his attention on something else. Activities more so than toys. Toys get boring after a while.

[Nibbles_NZ]

Also shredded newpaper in the diggy box would be great!

[Beka27]

Posted By Ali925 on 04/23/2010 02:48 PM
Yeah we don’t have phone books, newspapers, or even a landline. Just cell phones! and 3 computers…. (for 2 of us..haha) My husband is a bit of a techy, so it’s very important to have lots of computers!

Anyhow, I can look into the phone book thing…But as much as I’ve seen it suggested, I always wondered is it ok for them to ingest?? Especially with the yellow colored pages?

I know I’m always worrying until I hear from someone else that they do it. I just have a feeling there would be more than shredding…

Linoleum is a good idea too…we can also look into that. Thankfully he hasnt had any pee accidents since the first couple weeks he was home..and that was only on towels…and his water is in his cage (connected to the pen). But still that’s a good idea…

 

I think they use soy ink now, so nibbling the phone book is okay, but not eating huge amounts of it.  Remove the glossy covers before giving to the buns.

As far as linoleum, even perfectly trained buns will often times have pee accidents if they become sick.  A loss of litterbox habits is sometimes the first sign that something might be wrong.  So protective flooring really is a preventative measure. 

Bowls of water can easily tip over… but water bottles ARE NOT fool-proof either.  Some time ago, I refilled their water bottle after thoroughly cleaning their pen.  I leave the room and awhile later I hear *drip, drip, drip*… I had screwed the cap on crooked and about half the bottle of water was soaking into the carpeting!!!   It took several towels and a full day of air drying…  If that had happened on hardwood floors, I can imagine it might have been much worse!  Now I hang the bottle INSIDE the pen and over the litterbox… so if it leaks, at least it leaks onto their litter and not the carpet!

[rosalie68]

all of my buns have chewed carpet and blankets and rugs that i have put in their pens. linoleum works pretty good for us as long as the edges are longer than the pen so they cant grab the edges to start chewing it up. its also so much easier to clean it up. some of my buns pee over the side of the litter box. that wood will soak it up and start to get smelly pretty fast. good luck

[BinkyBunny]

Posted By Ali925 on 04/23/2010 02:48 PM
Yeah we don’t have phone books, newspapers, or even a landline. Just cell phones! and 3 computers…. (for 2 of us..haha) My husband is a bit of a techy, so it’s very important to have lots of computers!

I hear ya!  We are a cell phone and skype phone only place!  Though our business BB skype line has been kooky lately. Now we have some strange English lady canned voice as our answering message.  (we have been promised that all of our skype headaches will be gone with the next  Skype update….we’ll see)    Anyway…Four computers and everything done electronically – not much paper.

However, we still get (and can request or pick-up) phonebooks.  We get several of them a year.   The phone books we get are perfectly fine and they chew on them every single night.   It’s been a habit for my bunnies as long as I can remember. You can also call your local yellow pages distributor to confirm the ink they use. 

I don’t know what it is about phone books but it seems to be enticing.  You can also encourage chewing by putting it near an entrance or exit of their pen, hidey house or play structure.   It then becomes a mission of destruction when placed in a pathway. 

[Deleted User]

My rabbits love to dig up large flattened cardboard pieces I put down for their flooring. I get boxes from stores that throw them out.

[Andi]

I’ve used cardboard as well, they love shreding it and when it’s icky you can toss it out.
I use lino and corogated plastic sheets for my pen floorings, the levels get carpet (sometimes cardboard). I do find Both carpet and lino get chewed up pretty good with soem bunnies though. I had to put metal edging around the lino of one pen to stop it from getting destroyed.

I have also bought large cheap mats with rubber backing from WalMart for when I put a temporary pen on the carpet, the rubber stops any accidental leaks/stains on my carpet.

[Ali925]

Thanks everyone for your tips! Of course since posting this he hasn’t been tearing up much at all… I will probably shred some newspaper and make some diggy boxes for both of my buns (they’re big on digging…) But again due to my paperless house, I’ll have to get some newspaper from my parents, since they still get one… I will look into getting some phonebooks, but I’m not sure I’d be able to request one if I don’t use the phone company. I’ll figure something out. For the time being they’re doing fine. I wish I had unlimited willow…nothing makes them happier than to chew on that!

[LizzieKnittyBun]

Paper towel and toilet tissue rolls! Every time we use them up, we give the cardboard tubes to the bunnies, and they LOVE them. And by the time they eat one up, we usually have another one to give them, lol.

Also, cardboard is the way to go. Boxes, tubes, you name it. If you order things online (which you probably do, if you’re a techy!) then just save the delivery boxes and give them to your buns! Or cut holes in them so they burrow and eat them from the inside out.

If you don’t have a lot of cardboard lying around, the UPS store sells cardboard containers of all shapes and sizes. When Remy was little, I got him a long cardboard tube from UPS and he used to run through it, which was pretty funny since it was about six feet long. The scrabbling of tiny bunny nails scooting through a six foot-long tube is very giggle-making, and Remy loved it. He also loved to chew it and dig on it!

We also have an Oxbow Timothy “Bungalow” for our two babies. It’s like a cave made out of timothy hay that they can hop into and eventually eat. The best thing about this is that the timothy is really good for them, so they can eat it up without worrying you. You can get one for about $16 on Amazon.

My buns are chewers too… phew!

[Ali925]

We have the oxbow timothy bungalow as well as another timothy basket turned upside down (he uses it to stand and periscope to try and see Oreo and what we’re doing, it’s hilarious..).. We also give cardboard and tp rolls… It seems like he had one bad chewing session with the one fleece blanket and since I took it out he hasn’t done anything like that to the other fleece in his pen. But thanks again for the input!

Oh and just a side story..we had gotten Oreo the bungalow when she was younger, and she loved it so much she had eaten a whole through the back of it! She would go in it and try to get out through her homemade back door…hahaha. And she even tried going in from the outside…lol Before she destructed it to that point, she would flip it over and stand on it…not sure how, since it was rounded on top, but she figured it out! This was before we were able to let her run free in her pen all day too…I think she was bored/too much energy to be stuck in a cage. It was funny anyhow and we realized when we got Blu that we had to get him one too (since hers had to be thrown out, or what was left of it…)

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