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Intelligience and Problem Solving in Rabbits

GrahamL

Wise Old Thumper
Has anyone else ever observed this? I'm interested to hear your situations and stories.

We've been seeing Biscuit grow obviously since he arrived here at 8 weeks old. At nearly 2 years old now, we've seen him change so much.

He's matured into a VERY smart young rabbit.

Recently, as in 1 - 2 months, we've seen him learning to problem solve an awful lot.

The current one is moving items, to create an environment that allows him to escape their night time pen. He does it during the day, even when free-range, and i believe it's because he's trying to work it out how to do it more efficiently.

He has a large cardboard box, which is a 'bolt hole' for them both, but its rarely used as that - it's in a corner, under a roof area to stop escapes.

However, he has recently worked out that he can nudge the box to a certain area, to attempt to get to that partial roof and then explore/escape further.

He pushes it, then gets ontop, looks up, periscopes, realises its not far enough, gets down, nudges it further, does the same, until its in a place where he can jump straight up on top of the roofing area.

I find it AMAZING to see the HUGE intelligience in a rabbit.

Ginger however, just sits and watches, and she's learning, little things, slowly, but she's learning, she has picked up little traits from Biscuit and its fascinating to me.

So go on, tell me your intelligience stories.
 
:love: Biscuit.

It's interesting you say Biscuit because in my experience, it's the females who seem more intelligent.

We had Moon who was VERY clever. Similar sort of thing actually. We have a barrier down the middle of our living room so they can stay up one end and not go up the other. She would try something to get through/over, and then, when that didn't work she would go back, stand at a distance and look, and then go and try something else. Then, when that didn't work she would do the same. I don't ever recall her trying the same thing twice. She never got over though :lol:

Sunny is another one who shows supreme intelligence, and hers goes further than looking for methods to escape, because once she has escaped, she sends a 'scout' forward on her behalf and only follows when it's safe. That makes me laugh a lot.

Autumn has a thing about escaping, but I'm not sure how intelligence related it is or just instinctual drive- he can problem solve to an extent, but not a great extent.

On the other end of the scale we have the Dopeys, who have decided today is a great day to start moulting. :roll:
 
My girl seems to be able to learn things quicker than my boy. When they were hutch bunnies I put steps next to the open hutch so they could get in and out easily, the girl did this straight away whereas the boy had to watch his wifeybun several times and he seemed to learn it in stages eg jumping on and off the first step whereas she just gets on with it and hopped straight up and into the hutch.

I have a metal gate on the inside of the run door to stop the bunnies rushing out when I go and check them after dark, my boy does not like waiting for me to get in (he has come to associate me with treats/food :lol:) so he tugs open the metal gate when he hears me put the key into the door
 
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:love: Biscuit.

It's interesting you say Biscuit because in my experience, it's the females who seem more intelligent.

We had Moon who was VERY clever. Similar sort of thing actually. We have a barrier down the middle of our living room so they can stay up one end and not go up the other. She would try something to get through/over, and then, when that didn't work she would go back, stand at a distance and look, and then go and try something else. Then, when that didn't work she would do the same. I don't ever recall her trying the same thing twice. She never got over though :lol:

Sunny is another one who shows supreme intelligence, and hers goes further than looking for methods to escape, because once she has escaped, she sends a 'scout' forward on her behalf and only follows when it's safe. That makes me laugh a lot.

Autumn has a thing about escaping, but I'm not sure how intelligence related it is or just instinctual drive- he can problem solve to an extent, but not a great extent.

On the other end of the scale we have the Dopeys, who have decided today is a great day to start moulting. :roll:

That's REALLY very interesting to me. It's definately Ginger who is the slower learner. She watches and learns over times, often failing in her primary attempts at anything.

My girl seems to be able to learn things quicker than my boy. When they were hutch bunnies I put steps next to the open hutch so they could get in and out easily, the girl did this straight away whereas the boy had to watch his wifeybun several times and he seemed to learn it in stages eg jumping on and off the first step whereas she just gets on with it and hopped straight up and into the hutch.

I have a metal gate on the inside of the run door to stop the bunnies rushing out when I go and check them after dark, my boy does not like waiting for me to get in (he has come to associate me with treats/food :lol:) so he tugs open the metal gate when he hears me put the key into the door

Interesting, as here it is DEFINATELY the other way round.

I can't get over how apparently intelligient he has become in the last few months.

It's like he's got bored of being just 'Biscuit' and wants to learn and experience new things - i dont know if it's something that would happen at this time of life for a bunny?

Ginger is definately not so bright, she's always very content with just being a bunny, she doesn't need much stimulation or things to do, is happy to just hop around and snuggle with Biccy but does love her tunnels :)
 
They both know the pellets jar opening noise, and other food associated ones.

I clean Inca every day, I lift her up and check her botty, then put her down and give them dinner......Herbie now thinks that every time I pick up Inca that means they will get fed.

Inca nudges my feet when I am sitting at the PC as she knows that I will stop and clap her.
 
:love: Biscuit.

It's interesting you say Biscuit because in my experience, it's the females who seem more intelligent.

We had Moon who was VERY clever. Similar sort of thing actually. We have a barrier down the middle of our living room so they can stay up one end and not go up the other. She would try something to get through/over, and then, when that didn't work she would go back, stand at a distance and look, and then go and try something else. Then, when that didn't work she would do the same. I don't ever recall her trying the same thing twice. She never got over though :lol:

Sunny is another one who shows supreme intelligence, and hers goes further than looking for methods to escape, because once she has escaped, she sends a 'scout' forward on her behalf and only follows when it's safe. That makes me laugh a lot.

Autumn has a thing about escaping, but I'm not sure how intelligence related it is or just instinctual drive- he can problem solve to an extent, but not a great extent.

On the other end of the scale we have the Dopeys, who have decided today is a great day to start moulting. :roll:

Of course!!! ;)

Sooty and Oreo are the masterminds in my lot, you can sometimes see their brains ticking. Sooty also moves things to get to where she wants to be and also one day Mittens was stuck in a corner (im unsure if Sooty trapped her there in the first place) but somehow a plastic crate had got pushed and wedged and Mittens got trapped... I was about to release her then Sooty came alone and pushed her log tunnel out of the way and managed to release Mittens out of the side - hard to explain but amazing to watch - the other 2 Charlie and mittens just seem to sit back and watch!! :lol:
 
Buckley has a good memory for stuff he likes to destroy; good object permanence. For example; the integrated doormat in the living room. He chewed it so we covered it up. If he had lacked the ability to hold the memory of the door mat in his consciousness he would've left it alone. But no; he's very persistent in uncovering it and trying to dig through it again.
So, a bit of problem solving there. He's getting better at it too.

We've got him a teach and treat for his birthday, and he's picked it up very quickly. He looks at me like he thinks I'm the stupid one for thinking it would be an intellectually stimulating challenge for him...
 
Lola was an extremely intelligent rabbit, more intelligent than any rabbit I am yet to meet. She was so observant and again did everything in her power to make sure she was number 1. Not just to me and Jay but to the rest of my family. She knew things a bunny shouldn't know, she was just amazing.
 
Ada sometimes climbs up on to the kitchen bin - usually when I have moved it or put something on top of it - to see if it's now in a place that will allow her to get over the pen panels that keep her in the room (it has no door, and I use the bin to keep the panels pushed against the wall, flush with the lintel. But once up on the bin she finds that it's still too far from the doorway, and quickly gives up and jumps down again.

She is usually a great one for enthusiastically having a go :love: But the above shows that she knows her limits.

A couple of weeks ago I moved most of her food to a different part of the kitchen, and she now weaves around my feet when I'm there, and pays less attention to me when I'm in the old food area.
 
I definitely think that some rabbits are very intelligent, while others not so, and some might be intelligent, but we never see it because they are lazybuns :)

After every weekly clean Sharik re-arranges all the props in her room in order to minimise the chance of getting picked up and maximising the number of escapte routes, so that she is safe if she feels there is a trip to the vet in the air.

This arranging of stuff has gone on probabloy for months, after trial and error (she goes to the vets twice a month for grooming), and if I enter the room getting ready to pick her up for a trip to the vets, she instantly knows it, and it has become a lot harder to pick her up now with tunnels, boxes, litter trays, little wooden hourses and toys all placed carefully around the room - the latest is to push the wicker ball with a bell in it close to the door so when I open it, she isn't caught napping :lol::roll:

King is the escape artist in the house - I tried to block access to the corner space behind the armchair in over 10 different ways, but he got through them all - the last 2 I still haven't figured out how, but the spatial awareness and intelligence (and also persistence of course) of the little orange critter amazes me. Now, I have given up, so he has free access to his favourite hideout :roll:
 
Fantastic! (though tricky to deal with)

Remembered another one.
Ada has sometimes broken into bags of hay to scoff from them. I once found that she had pooed in one (oh dear) - but *only* in the type of hay that goes in her litter tray. She evidently has an association for the smell of that particular hay.
 
Ooh yes, Boofa used to tidy. Whatever was around in her area she would move into a pile in the middle, no matter what it was or where she was. I don't know why :lol:
 
Gus knows that his pellets are kept in the kitchen cupboard so when he hears us

a) clearing plates from the living room
b) my girlfriend going to her handbag for a cigarette (she smokes hanging out of the kitchen window)

he knows one of us is kitchen bound, so he tries to subtly position himself in a hidey hole (that is not a direct line to the kitchen door)

this allows him to sprint for the kitchen door, last minute (without getting trampled on by us) and into the kitchen

at this point he 'digs' at the kitchen door repeatedly knowing that as it is on a 'push click' release and if he can get the door to ajar he drags it open from the side with his teeth.
Once inside (his favourite 'room in the house' he already has a hole on the bottom of the pellet bag and sits about muching

He also knows my girlfriend gives in too easily

:roll:and that if he repeatedly digs the cupboard door or jumps straight in the fridge and stubbornly refuses to budge even when pushed, he will get given a smidgen of greens leaf to tempt him back out of the kitchen
annoyingly he only just fits into the fridge and won't be picked up, so is tough to budge when he's feeling stubborn
 
I say my girl is the intelligent one, she is the most active certainly, but I huess it depends how you measure intelligence. faline does all the norty things like knocking food down, she knows how to use her own and the dogs treat ball and how to climb etc, molly just watches, and eats the rewards.

faline knows no very well. When they were outside she escaped twice and responded to me telling her off by running home, she knows when shes been bad, im sure.
 
charlie and honey(when they were together:roll:) would lift the dog pen to open it and escape.i caught them in the act once and they looked at me as if to say,'im not doing anything!':lol:
 
Gus knows that his pellets are kept in the kitchen cupboard so when he hears us

a) clearing plates from the living room
b) my girlfriend going to her handbag for a cigarette (she smokes hanging out of the kitchen window)

he knows one of us is kitchen bound, so he tries to subtly position himself in a hidey hole (that is not a direct line to the kitchen door)

this allows him to sprint for the kitchen door, last minute (without getting trampled on by us) and into the kitchen

at this point he 'digs' at the kitchen door repeatedly knowing that as it is on a 'push click' release and if he can get the door to ajar he drags it open from the side with his teeth.
Once inside (his favourite 'room in the house' he already has a hole on the bottom of the pellet bag and sits about muching

He also knows my girlfriend gives in too easily

:roll:and that if he repeatedly digs the cupboard door or jumps straight in the fridge and stubbornly refuses to budge even when pushed, he will get given a smidgen of greens leaf to tempt him back out of the kitchen
annoyingly he only just fits into the fridge and won't be picked up, so is tough to budge when he's feeling stubborn

You have one very clever bun there :lol:
 
They all know when I'm about to feed them, they all crowd round the respective baby gates and stare at me. Mini is very smart but I can't think of anything specific right now.
 
Strawbs could break himself out of prison if needed! he has figured out how to get over the fence onto next door now, it's a normal 6ft high one!
 
We've got him a teach and treat for his birthday, and he's picked it up very quickly. He looks at me like he thinks I'm the stupid one for thinking it would be an intellectually stimulating challenge for him...
I had the same thing with mine. I filled it up, put it on the floor and eagerly awaited some serious investigating. On the two level with the little cups sitting on top they solved it instantly, literally as soon as it touched the floor they'd each grabbed a cup. On the two levels where they slide things around it took a few seconds.
I still give it to them, but would love to find something that might require a bit of thought on their part - I've seen some dog ones with little drawers you have to pull out so might try those.

Oh, Eli also figured out that when you put the four little cup things on the top it's much easier to tip up/throw the whole thing than it is to take each cup off :roll:



I've definitely noticed a lot of problem solving like you've described Graham. I think rambo is the most "thoughtful" bun - you often see her looking at things for a long time and changing details before she goes for it. I'm sure she knows she has to get it right first time or I'll intervene.

Lola is very aware of danger and I'm pretty sure draws on different memories to avoid unpleasant situations. She always knows when we're trying to catch her - no matter what approach we try. She can resist any food if she thinks it means she'll be caught, whereas the other two take much higher risks. Her brain obviously works differently to the other two - thinking about the long term rather than the short.

Eli is very food oriented, sometimes this displays his stupidity, sometimes his intelligence. He'll happily hop in to a carrier knowing it means a vet trip if there's food in there, and doesn't worry until the door goes on. However, he picks up commands really quickly when food is the reward and at one point he was cycling through any tricks that had previously earned him a pellet. I had to stop giving him rewards for several weeks to get him to stop doing that.

When I put their shelf up I started giving them food in the mornings and afternoons up on the shelf. Within a few days they were sitting on the shelf waiting when I came in.

I think if anyone watched their rabbits carefully for a day they'd see quite high levels of thought. There's so much we don't really give a second thought to.
 
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