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Rabbit decisions

Alicia

Mama Doe
In my animal behaviour lesson yesterday the teacher was talking about giving animals choices/decisions to make to keep their minds busy and stop them from becoming bored, she said that as animals are often fed at the same time, are allowed out to exercise at the same time every day they can become bored and giving them decisions to make and choices keeps their mind busy, and I was thinking about this for my rabbits and guinea-pigs. They have the same thing almost every day, the most changes they get are if its raining the guinea-pigs don't go in the run and the rabbits dont go out on the grass, but these really aren't very interesting and its probably worse for them because they are stuck in their hutch. They don't even have much in the way of toys (although I'm going to get them some more toys soon) so they must be pretty bored. What can I do to give them choices/decisions to make and make things a bit different for them?

Also my teacher was talking about variety in diets to keep things interesting for the animal, and I know I can't give the rabbits and guinea-pigs much of a change because it will upset their stomach but is there anything I can do to make things different for them?
 
Some will probably disagree but I think that is a bit of a human way to look at it. In the wild rabbits would eat pretty much the same food every day, and their routine would be similar also.
Providing an environment where they can display their natural behaviour is most important, which varies from animal to animal.
Rabbits, for example, need food to graze on, places to dig, to be with their own kind, as a few examples.
I doubt they get bored by being let out at similar times and just eating hay all day.
 
I think most animals like a routine to be honest, i get very disgruntled bunnies if i dare to be late with breakfast in the morning!

I tend to mix up their greens/veg every day - one day corriander for parsley etc and will swap their toys over, but thats about it really.
 
My Bun gets choice over when he goes out; we leave the backdoor open and let him decide lol
not when he is fed though, although he obviously has hay in his area that he can choose when he wants to eat!
he seems to follow a similar routine most days though of his own accord it would seem mostly - as he has free range of the house. When he wants to sleep in the middle of the day he takes himself off to his area to sleep....
 
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