Burrowing!

Very natural behaviour however I was surprised to find my bunny had tried to burrow out of her run today whilst we were at work. She has made a great go of it and only the tarpaulin on to shield her from the rain has kept her in!

Is this common and any suggestions of how to stop her from wanting to do this? I'm worried now she'll get out & we'll loose her. We adopted her about a month ago.

There is no way to stop them doing it so you have to keep them safe. Maybe put the run on concrete. If that's not an option put mesh on the floor (like chicken wire, something like that), with the edges outside the run, so that if she digs she can't get very far. You can then give her a digging tray so she can dig, and it is safe.

Is she spayed? If not, spaying when she is of age should help, but won't quell the want to dig completely.

Daisy all but stopped digging after her spay

Hi,my two rabbits burrowed for quite a while when we first rescued them. I think they were just not sure of the new environment. I think they need to feel safe from predators and this is a nature instinct to burrow. I would just make sure that they have a hidey hole place to run to especially during the day. The local cats are often in my garden despite it being surround by a 6ft fence. They may be getting scared by cats during the day and are trying to hide.
Once mine got a bigger hutch with a hiding space they stopped doing it. I also gave my rabbits a cat litter tray with clean soil in and they love it.

Our rabbit definitely loves to dig! She showed no signs of it for the first month that we had her, then one day we got back from work to discover that she had made a crazy warren. It ran from the middle of her run (attached to hutch) to the middle of the bottom layer of her hutch, turned 90 degrees, then went about a foot forward, ending in a chamber. Reckon it must have been around 7 feet long :shock: Luckily she dug entirely under the hutch/run - otherwise she could easily have escaped. We have now dug about a foot down into the ground, laid mesh that extends to outside of the hutch/run and then re-turfed the area (a job that was done that same evening in thunder and lightning - not a fun day :lol.

We felt that we didn't want to stop her from being able to dig as it is natural behaviour that is good for keeping her nails short, and gives her something to do during the day. That said, because she is still able to (and does!) dig, we end up re-filling the holes on a regular basis, and a large area of her run has become a muddy mess. We are going to be upgrading her house to a shed with attached run, and I would definitely consider using paving slabs rather than mesh under the grass when we do so. That way the run is safer from predators and will be a lot easier to keep clean. (We would still give her big trays/pots of grass that she could dig in of course).

As far as spaying is concerned, we had the little one spayed two weeks ago, so far she is still digging, but I'm really hoping the urge dies down soon! Fingers crossed

Hi All, thanks for sharing your stories and for the advice. Not sure why I was so shocked as it is natural after all but just wasn' t expecting it!! We could put the hutch/run onto paving slabs, I had thought the grass would be good for her for snacking during the day but its more of a muddy mess now :shock:!! The hole she burrowed goes under our shed, not sure whether to leave it for her and secure the area around the edge of the run. We will go tomorrow and get a bunny warren from Pets at Home, was thinking about it anyway. Also she isn't speyed, we are seriously thinking about this as we enjoy having her in the house in the evening however she is prone to weeing in corners (although not so much now) but she does seem to like to wee on my DH :shock::lol:!!!!!!

A bit of an update - we got up this morning to find she has pulled out some of her hair and mixed it in with her hay.....is this normal or does it sound like a phantom pregnancy? Do you think this is connected to the burrowing? She seems to be eating a lot more the past couple of days.

Our bun did exactly the same thing prior to being spayed. She never had a phantom pregnancy, but did pull her fur and mix with her bedding (hay) over a period of weeks. This continued up until she was spayed, and whilst we would clean out her bedding area thoroughly, we always put the fur back in with the new hay, to try and discourage her from pulling more.

It is likely that this is simply normal nesting behaviour, and won't develop into a phantom pregnancy. How does she seem otherwise? If she starts to get aggressive/territorial, then this may be a sign of this. Also, I believe that rabbits going through a phantom pregnancy will show a lot of the physical symptoms that an expectant rabbit will show (e.g. swollen mammary glands) so this could be a way to tell if there is anything else going on ...although hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong here!

I don't think that this in itself is anything to worry about (as I said, my bun showed exactly the same behaviours), although you could always take her for a check up at the vets if you are still concerned.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Wigs, that helps a lot. Good tip re keeping the fur in with the bedding.