House Bunny ALWAYS CHEWING!

Hello! :wave:

Newbie here- first time poster. We've had our rabbit, Gerald, for 6 years. He's a Netherland dwarf cross. He's a house bunny and he has the run of our spare room. We'd love to give him the freedom of the house (our last rabbit, Bella, used to have free reign of downstairs) BUT he's a CHEWER. And I mean he chews everything. We've given him chew toys, blocks, everything we can think of to try and get him to break the habit. We've tried watching him like a hawk whilst he's downstairs but, to be honest, it's such a pain in the a*se to keep an eye on him constantly...plus, he's devious- it only takes a nanosecond for him to chew through a cable and we're worried in case he chews through something electrical and gives himself a fatal shock!

He gets fed plenty, if anything- he's a little bit chubby. He's been 'done', which we were told would sort the chewing issue (it didn't).

As I said, he has the run of our spare bedroom which we've chew-proofed as best we can, but the issue there is that he doesn't get as much company as we're downstairs in the evenings and he's upstairs on his own (or with the cat). I just get conscious that he's a bit lonely. We do sometimes have him on the sofa with us where we can keep an eye on him, but he gets bored and squirmy.

Has anyone else had this problem? How can we remedy this chewing?! Our last bunny never did this and could happily bounce around wherever she wanted!

How much hay does he eat? I find that if they have plenty of nice hay they tend to be busy most of the time eating that.

Not fool proof though so I bunnyproof everything I can. The cables are all encased with trunking. Smudge has started nibbling the woodwork recently so I use those Playstix log things to curve round the doors and corners.

I love the Playstix idea, we'll be using that one at our house.

Doughnut is an indoor bunny, downstairs and is a chewer rather than a digger. She loves chewing the corners of my lining paper, every corner has nibbles out of it.

I now use plastic corners and have just blue tacked them on so she can't nibble, I use cable tidies and also perspex where I don't want her to go, like behind the sofa! The perspex doesn't notice at all since it's clear. There is now nothing she can destroy as she's not interested in the skirting or sofa so she free ranges during the day in my lounge/dining room.

I also have the perspex behind her litter trays so that if she tiddles up high it isn't on the lining paper.

She does love to tear bits of her cardboard castle ceiling every so often but doesn't eat it.

She also loves apple sticks so I give her one of those sometimes to distract her.

Have you considered getting him a bunny friend? He might just be bored/lonely

catherine09 said:

Have you considered getting him a bunny friend? He might just be bored/lonely

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Ha! :lol: I have been tempted, but I don't think he has the temperament for 'friends'. He's a little bit grumpy. We love him because he's an old curmudgeon, like us! Plus I've heard it can be quite problematic introducing new rabbits into the fold?

Thanks for all the suggestions! I think that better bunnyproofing may be the way to go. I'm just a lazy owner!

If he chews carpets we solved that problem by buying cheap blankets and covering the floor.

Other than that, lots of apple branches.