Enough stimulation?

Since reading around on here im concerned my bunny doesnt have enough stuff to do. he has a rather bare run area for most of the time, he has cardboard tubes and balls and a hideyhole or 2. when he goes out on the grass run he has a little hut and a playtube and a chewyball thing. Ive given him all sorts of hay and a couple of toys in his hutch, and he gets the odd treat food and veggies stuffed in tubes. Yet i look at the runs for the bunnies on here and they have tunnels and mats and all sorts of toys. The one time i tried to get him a tunnel it was a cloth type thing and he started chewing it so i had to take it out.

Should i be providing more toys? does he need more places to hide? I just went to go give him some snuggles and he's flopped in the shade munching on a cardboard tube of hay. I feel a bit like the mum that wont give her kids a games console! So ive had a look about at more toys and things, but im not sure whether i should get more thow about toys (he seems to prefer throwing a bowl or litter tray about than his toy balls) or tunnels, or more chew things? Are the chew things a treat because anything wooden/cardboard/vaguely edible is destroyed pretty quick. are there ceramic tunnels i could get that are safe? like water pipe stuff if i can get big enough? im hoping he'll have a friend soon which might keep him entertained a bit more. :?

As you've said getting him a friend is the best possible way of keeping him entertained but in the meantime it sounds like you are doing all the right stuff. Have you tried filling cardboord tubes with hay? Hiding treats in treat balls or even putting his pellets in a plastic bottle with a hole in the side so he has to work for them?

I got my bunnies loads of toys, and all they play with is their tunnel http://www.petsathome.com/find/category-is-6+small+pets/breed-is-rabbit/product-is-19222 !!

There's currently lots of bits they've stripped off all over their run and it's getting smaller by the day! Having said that, they have had it for more than a week now, so it's the longest lasting thing they've had so far.

I'd say they don't need to have loads of different toys as long as they ones they have they like. Mine are happy with anything that can be chewed :shock:

goodness! i think a hay based tunnel would last all of a day! He is one of those bunnies that just chews EVERYTHING :lol: He has so far eaten holes in the fencing, we've now had to make it double thickness and patch it higher so he cant eat through, and theres barely any of the appletree branch left. I might try hay based toys, at least he's getting his fibre when he eats them then. At least he keeps his teeth lovely.

As for hay in tubes, thats what i do with his treat hay at the moment, he gets a carboard tube stuffed full. Took me ages to get a hay he likes enough to eat it. I cant get him to eat pellets atm, trying to tempt him with the SS stuff, but its still there the next day, none eaten. He has tonnes of hay of different sorts to munch, and he gets through a lot of grass and veggies. The vet said he was looking lovely and heathy anyway, so ive not been pushing too much. Has anyone tried inventive ways to give veggies? He just gets them left in his bowl at the moment. For example, tonight he only has a bit of savoy cabbage, 2 carrot tops and half a tomato (he's been eating the edible weeds from the garden today instead). Not sure how i could make those more interesting to eat.

I bought Bella millions of toys when we first got her. I spent a fortune. She couldn't care less about them, except for her treat ball.


Currently her toy of choice is a cardboard wrapper from a pot of hummous :roll::roll::roll: She's been playing with it for days.:shock::lol::lol:

Ellasyn said:

Has anyone tried inventive ways to give veggies? He just gets them left in his bowl at the moment. For example, tonight he only has a bit of savoy cabbage, 2 carrot tops and half a tomato (he's been eating the edible weeds from the garden today instead). Not sure how i could make those more interesting to eat.

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Get a wire hanging basket and hang from a hook placed in easy reach of him but not touching the floor (this is what I use instead of a hay rack as my 3 buns would make light work of emptying those tiny things) fill with hay (doesn't have to be the good stuff) and bury the veggies and weeds in there so he has to kinda forage about for it and hopefully eat a little of the not so good hay whilst he's at it. This can also be done in any other places that you have hay if you normally cover the floor of his hutch with it or if he has a box or hidey hole to sit - not his litter tray though.

Oooh thanks, ill have a look for one now. He has his hay in the bed half of the hutch, and in a tube, litter tray is megazorb. Found some of the metal hanging things online, ordering one to see what he thinks.