Won’t sleep

[Daniellejaade]

This has been happening for about a week now and to getting worse. Basically I have an indoor rabbit named Olly and he sleeps in my room and has done since he was old enough to bring him home from his breeder. He’s been completely fine, I think it was last month, someone suggestedletting him out late at night for a hop around so he didn’t wake up through the night.
But its getting worse, he’s now chewing everything and last night I was up around 8 times between 4am and 7am, I know that rabbits tend to get up at dawn, he’s just turned one and only really just started doing this in the past few weeks, I gradually take all his toys out as I’m getting up but if I take them all out at first he will just start chewing his wooden doors? I keep going to college tired and I’m getting behind with work ?, thanks if you can help

[Gina.Jenny]

Have you thought about sleeping wearing ear plugs? My bunnies act as early morning alarm clocks, and do not have a snooze button either!

[Bam]

Is there any way he could be free roam in your room or have a bigger enclosure? If your bun is healthy, and abosultely nothing you’ve written indicates that he isn’t, I’d say this is a sign of boredom. Like when a horse chews the fence or paces back and forth. With horses you try to add enrichment, like putting the hay somewhere so it takes a bit of cleverness + time for it to get to the hay and eat it. You try to add company, horses doen’t like being alone. You introduce new, unknown objects (like a huge ball) to the horse and try to exchange the new item for another often, you can rotate stuff. For a bun sth new can be a new cardboard house or a treat-ball, a paper-bag with cheap fleece-blankies in it that he can dig through, a cat-tunnel, small bunches of hay tied up with sisal string and hanging from the cage roof, toilet paper rolls stuffed with hay and in the middle something yummy that he’ll get to when he’s pulled out the hay etc. It doesn’t have to be a lot, just sth new that he can check out.

[Daniellejaade]

Olly has a huge pen with an upstairs in it made by my dad, it’s not a small cage at all, and he has a lot of toys, including a cardboard box, a ball and a roll around hay feeder, a chew tunnel and I give him toilet paper tubes filled with hay?
I can’t let him roam around my room all night as I have my Mac and tablet wires out and can’t afford for him to chew through the wires or hide them from him without him head butting things out the way, I can try and find him a new toy but I’m not sure it will help me as he usually just ignores his toys as it is ?

[Bam]

Well, I do see the problem with the cords and all, and it’s not about you not giving him a perfectly fine cage and lots of toys, but it is something. Something that makes him a bit frustrated so he wants to wake you to get some action going. Some of it is because he’s young. Younger creatures are more restless than adults.

I don’t think you are doing anything wrong. It’s just that this needs to be solved so you can get your sleep. Sleep is super-important esp in college when your brain needs to be extra sharp.
So I hope you don’t feel like I’m criticizing you. I’m absolutely not trying to do that, this is just a problem, and it needs solving.

How much time does he spend near people? I don’t mean in direct contact with people, just hearing people, seeing people? Bunnies doesn’t always have to actually interact with people, just as long as there are people (or other pets, but I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of other pets?) around, the bunny feels it has company.

Bunnies often like projects, like remodelling a card-board house (destroying it little by little).

[Daniellejaade]

He spends a fair bit of time out of his pen, he comes out every night and sits with me and hops around in our living room, he’s fine with my dad, not so great with my mum as she doesn’t like handling him.
He tried to go near our cat but she’s scared of him and runs away.
He has constant sound on as I keep the radio on for him all day when I’m not at home with him (I’m at college in England which is after school but before university, I’m 16 ), He also comes out when we have friends or family over and has a good hop around

[Bam]

It sounds like he has a great life =) I just assumed you were away at college and living in like a dorm-room!

Could you have his cage someplace else than in your bedroom and maybe have a play-pen for him in your room, so he could sleep somewhere where you won’t be bothered by him if he wakes up early? It doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with him, and he does have company and everything else a bun needs, so I’m leaning against the possibility that he thinks it’s fun to wake you up. It’s like a reward for him when you wake up. You know, like a puppy dog who can do mischief just to be told off, the scolding he gets is actually a kind of reward because it means he has managed to provoke a reaction. Which in turn makes him do more mischief – it’s like a classical example of trial and success.

When I’d just found my bunny Bam and I was a brand new bunny-owner, he’d thump in his cage in the middle of the night. I, wanting to be a good bunny-mummy, got up and fussed over him and gave him a treat. And of course, that was the worst thing I could’ve done. So I ended up putting his cage in the hallway. I could still hear him thump, sort of in my sleep, but I didn’t get up and he stopped thumping after like 2 nights of not getting rewarded for thumping. In my case he actually did get real rewards (piece of carrot), but to an animal, just making sth happen (waking a human) can be a reward too.

[Daniellejaade]

Thankyou so much I can try an not make a fuss and try and leave his toys in and see if he gives up instead of me getting up, if it carries on I could get a small rabbit pen and maybe put it in the hallway or in another room for him to sleep in and see how that works.
I’ve picked him up before when I’ve gotten up and he’s stayed quite for another hour but then starts again, but I’ll definitely try what you’ve suggested!

[Bam]

I wish you the best of luck with this! And I hope he’ll adjust to your daily rythm soon. Most buns do, but it can take them a while. Rabbits don’t have the innate need for 7-9 hours of continuous sleep like humans do. They sleep in little bouts. They “rest” a lot (periods of complete inactivity, but not actual sleep). Their normal activity peaks are at dusk and dawn though, so there’s no physiological “need” for him to be active in the middle of the night (they’re not nocturnal like hamsters that often run in their wheels during the night).

[Daniellejaade]

Thankyou, woke up at 7.30 this morning, so he is getting a bit later ?

[Bam]

Yay! A step in the right direction!

[Daniellejaade]

Hopefully will do the same tomorrow morning ?

[Author]

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