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Carpet chewing

BethanieLauren

BethanieLauren

Young Bun
Marmite chews the carpet, everytime I let her out. She pulls up little bits of it and sits there munching it.

How do I get her to stop before she ends up eating too much carpet fibre and hurting her health? :(
 
One of mine used to do this all the time. Every time he did it I clapped my hands really loudly and shouted no! Coz he's quite timid this worked, but therefore may not work for you. Alternatively get rid of the carpet! by the sounds of it, it will soon be bare anyway!
 
Thats what I was doing, clapping and yelling no, and it worked the first couple of times! But now she's just started ignoring me!

I'm thinking of moving her to a different room when I let her out, if she doesn't stop
 
Rabbits don't tend to listen :lol: although you can teach them tricks you can't really 'tame' a rabbit to do what you want. What I said about bunny proofing on your thread yesterday might be a good idea :thumb: You can pick up carpet squares rather cheap to protect yours, or stick some old jumpers/blankets/towels down for her to dig and take her mind off pulling up the carpet.
 
What sort of material would be safe for her? I don't want to put down anything that she's going to eat that'll potentially hurt her.
 
BethanieLauren said:
What sort of material would be safe for her? I don't want to put down anything that she's going to eat that'll potentially hurt her.
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Blankets, towels, old jumpers are fine. Obviously watch to see if she's eating it but I know mine just dig them. Leo is in a carpeted room and while he doesn't dig the carpet, he digs the towels he has :) He doesn't eat them but will pick them up and carry them or throw them about. You'll just have to learn which signs are chewing and which are just from their claws from digging :)

I have blankets from asda, just normal bath towels and old jumpers that are the thick kind, not woolly or thin so the threads would come out as I imagine that is when it would get dangerous. You could get a storage box or dog bed and fill them for her to dig :) or a few smaller tubs/storage boxes/cat litter trays and put them where she tends to dig and chew more :) Wilkos are very good for storage boxes, washing up bowls and dog beds :)
 
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I think she's chewing, as she digs, nibbles the carpet, then stares at me and chews :shock:
I'll go upstairs and get some towels and dig out some blankets now and see if she's any better

Thank you!
 
BethanieLauren said:
I think she's chewing, as she digs, nibbles the carpet, then stares at me and chews :shock:
I'll go upstairs and get some towels and dig out some blankets now and see if she's any better

Thank you!
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She might just be ripping it up then. Apparently it's fun :roll: :lol: but yeah, I put a litter tray full of towels for Leo but he is just far to big for it so I just lay them out on the floor for him :) his litter tray is a 32L storage box so I couldn't use that. If you don't get a storage box or whatever then making a big pile is usually fun for them to sit on etc and they're easy to wash if they get peed on or anything :D
 
I haven't got a storage box, but I laid towels on the ground and made a pile for her but she STILL prefers to kick them out the way and rip my carpet to shreds :shock:

I feel bad, cause she's desperate to come out and play some more but its too cold outside at the moment and if I let her out in here she'll just rip the carpet, and I'm worried that she's eating it too!

Also she came up to me and sniffed me, nuzzled me, and then bit me :shock: was that her playing/grooming, or what?

Thanks
 
BethanieLauren said:
I haven't got a storage box, but I laid towels on the ground and made a pile for her but she STILL prefers to kick them out the way and rip my carpet to shreds :shock:

I feel bad, cause she's desperate to come out and play some more but its too cold outside at the moment and if I let her out in here she'll just rip the carpet, and I'm worried that she's eating it too!

Also she came up to me and sniffed me, nuzzled me, and then bit me :shock: was that her playing/grooming, or what?

Thanks
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You might have been in her way :lol: Poppy does this to me too only digs my legs at the same time, I move and then she just sits there! :roll::lol:

Might be an idea to get a storage box then, or box, cat litter tray or something to put them in and get something heavy (wooden arch, 2 bricks) so she can't move them out of the way. For my outdoor buns I use bricks to keep their litter tray in place otherwise it would be upside down :roll:

Another thing you could do is get an phone book :) (the yellow pages) obviously watch in case she isn't eating it, but when its open in the middle it's fun to dig and make a mess :thumb::lol:
 
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Aly&Poppy<3 said:
You might have been in her way :lol: Poppy does this to me too only digs my legs at the same time, I move and then she just sits there! :roll::lol:

Might be an idea to get a storage box then, or box, cat litter tray or something to put them in so she can't move them out of the way. For my outdoor buns I use bricks to keep their litter tray in place otherwise it would be upside down :roll:
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That's a definite and likely possibility, because my old rabbit used to bite when I was sat in his way!

I'll look into getting a storage box, but till then I think I'll relocate her playtime to the hallway, since there's no carpet there for her to rip, and it's a bigger space for her to explore and play, anyway.
 
I'm not sure if your bun is spayed/neutered but my girl would obsessively rip up the carpet every time she was out of the cage. No amount of clapping/saying no/moving her would stop her from doing it and it was all the carpet, not just one place. It was like a compulsive obsession with her which was impossible to stop, other than confining her to her cage which I hated. Once I had her spayed it literally stopped completely overnight.

She rarely if ever chews the carpet now. Mind you, she quickly found other naughty habbits to replace the chewing obsession lol.
 
She's only 11weeks, I think thats too young for spaying? But if I can't get her to stop, I'll definitely look into getting that done! Thank you ^_^
 
Truffle started to do this not long before she was spayed too! Spaying helped. But didn't stop it.
We then used a combination of a chew stop spray and clapping, and after a few weeks they seemed to get the message. The spray only worked for a short time though - maybe an hour - so if they started up again we'd have to reapply.

They hardly ever chew the carpet now though :)
 
I'm getting some spray next weekend, and when I clap it stops her for a second, but she just moves to a new place and starts again >< She really isn't getting the message!

I'll try combining the spray and clapping, and if that doesn't work I'll see about getting her spayed.
 
I'm sure more knowledgeable people will be along with the stats, but would you consider spaying her anyway? Aside from it probably being more pleasant not to have to live with the hormones all the time, as I understand it, there's a high chance of her developing uterine cancer at a young age if not spayed.
 
I haven't thought about it yet hehe, I only got her Saturday so I haven't considered the long term events, but yes, I think she probably will end up being spayed. Although I'll admit, I've heard stories of bunnies passing on during operations and that worries me slightly
 
I've given in with fluffy she digs the carpet in the corners, I just leave her to it now.

I'm going to get some carpet tiles to put down just to stop further damage
 
BethanieLauren said:
I haven't thought about it yet hehe, I only got her Saturday so I haven't considered the long term events, but yes, I think she probably will end up being spayed. Although I'll admit, I've heard stories of bunnies passing on during operations and that worries me slightly
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If she isn't spayed then it is very likely that she will get cancer, uterine cancer which affects more than 80% of female rabbits by the age of 5 but I think the percentage has risen some what. If you have a competent vet and they know what they're doing then there should be no problem. I had Lola spayed at 6 months and she was fine and Poppy was spayed at 4 years old and fine too, she's been under GA a few times now for dental and things and has been okay.
 
Hey! My bunny actually does exactly the same thing! He is a 7 month old dwarf rabbit (neutered) and has always loved to sit there ripping up tufts of the carpet and eating them. The weird thing though is that he actually likes the taste and eats the carpet. I know its not good for their digestive systems since it can cause blockages but he still hasn't stopped. One thing thats helped is putting a tissue box filled with hay in the room. He likes to throw that around. However, he eats cardboard too so I had to change it to wood. What also kind of works is a cat scratching post with cardboard boards. Link for cardboard cat post:
https://aquaro.ssl-01.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=222
 
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