• Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.

Alternative set ups

Isabel

Warren Veteran
I've been thinking recently that the set up I have is perhaps not the best for me and the buns.

Currently they have a 48" dog crate which they are shut in at night and free run of whole of my living room for the rest of the time.
This is obviousely good as they get loads of space to run around.

BUT they love the wall paper, I constantly have hay all over the floor and I've got wooden boards all over the room protecting various wires. Plus the giant dog crate is really over bearing in my front room. If it was my place then a) I wouldn't worry so much and b) I'd be nibbling the magnolia woodchip off myself.

So I'm seriousely considering getting a slightly smaller cage for them but with a pen which they would have permanant access to but I could fold away when I wanted to. and then obviousely when I'm in, which is quite a lot when I'm at uni, they can have run of the living room again. However I've also been thinking if I did get a pen would they even need a cage? Would something like the room with a view on bunny basics be ok?

Sorry for the long post but I've got all these things wizzing round my head and none of them seem like the ideal solution. The best solution for me would be to move to our own house with open plan completely bunnyproofed ground floor but that can't happen yet.
 
Beau is living in the living room free range at the moment and he doesnt have a cage as a base or anything :D He has a bit of vetbed in the corner with his litter tray and toys and stuff and some boxes down the side of the sofa incase he ever wants to hide but he doesnt even go in them, he spends most of his time laying right in the middle of the room :lol: If they are going to have permenant access to the pen then I dont think they really need a crate just something to hide in :D
 
Have you got any cubby holes? An under stairs cupboard? Somewhere you can put a cat flap to an empty shed/garage? A corridor you could redecorate? How big are they, one of the 4' 3 storey cages would triple their floor space without using up any more of yours...
 
I dont think you'd need a cage and a pen. They just need a 'base' to retreat to if they want it. Besides a cage IN a pen would take up most of the pen's space. The alternative would be a smaller cage with a pen attached (but I'm not sure how this would be less overbearing).

Muppet has an indoor cage which is always open. He has free range of the dining room (all 8ft square of it...!) when I'm out or at night because there are no wires and, luckily for him/me, he doesnt eat the furniture :D There are bits of hay but it's not really that bad. He has a hay pile to nibble at in his cage and just bits trail out.

As far as I can tell, there's no decent bunny housing which provides them with enough space that DOESNT look overbearing!! Bunnies and interior design dont really mix ;)

For wallpaper eating bunnies, I wonder if perspex panels screwed to the walls would help? Wouldnt look toooooo intrusive. But maybe not something you'd want to bother with for a rented house.
 
Thanks for all your suggestions. I must admit I thought I'd get shouted at ;) maybe I should.
Tamsin, the only corridor I have doesn't have any natural light in it and has every room coming off it so I fon't think it would be practical long term but is somthing I've thought of as there are absolutely no wires there.

I still don't know what to do maybe I could just convince them not to eat wallpaper anymore...or strip it all off and hope the agents don't notice :D

Forgot to add Barney is the biggest he is a Dwarf lop and loves to flop about. There really does seem to be a lack of sensible in door rabbit housing. It kind of feels wrong to put them in a cage at all.
 
How big is your house? I'm amazed at how little I miss my living room, now it's a 'guinea pig room' - my study here is in the tiny hallway - I removed one of the kitchen doors so I'm not boxed in. We have a futon, TV and tiny dining table in my front big bedroom, which my son sleeps in on a high sleeper (tons of junk underneath) and I have my boudoir in the small bedroom at the back of the house.

Originally I had guinea pig cages everywhere, but the mess did my head in as I like a home to look like a home, not a stable, so now all the hay and sacks of food and cages are in one room, and the rest of the house looks fine. Could you just rearrange your living space so the bunnies have run of either a bedroom or the living room permanently?
 
How big is your house? I'm amazed at how little I miss my living room, now it's a 'guinea pig room' - my study here is in the tiny hallway - I removed one of the kitchen doors so I'm not boxed in. We have a futon, TV and tiny dining table in my front big bedroom, which my son sleeps in on a high sleeper (tons of junk underneath) and I have my boudoir in the small bedroom at the back of the house.

Originally I had guinea pig cages everywhere, but the mess did my head in as I like a home to look like a home, not a stable, so now all the hay and sacks of food and cages are in one room, and the rest of the house looks fine. Could you just rearrange your living space so the bunnies have run of either a bedroom or the living room permanently?

I would but we are in a one bedroom flat and although we have a living room and dining room its a rather strange layout so neither room could practically be a rabbit room...although the living room pretty much is at the moment. I hate my flat!
 
That looks sweet :D One thing I would worry about if I had that inside a pen would be bunnies going to the top and jumping over the pen. Only mentioning it because my Scarlett drags her covered litter tray to the side of the run and gets on top in an attempt to jump out of the run when I have the lid up :lol:
 
OMG houdini scarlet! Yes thats a good point, Barney probably would do that. Perhaps that and just get rid of all the wallpaper? Then they could just run around.
 
Yep and im sure she has it all planed out before I even get in the run :roll: :lol: To be honest I was really suprised at how my lot have been living free range, I was expecting a right mess everyday but they have all been good (except Scarlett :roll: ) Beau is the only one inside at the moment and he just stays in the living room, when I get home I open the living room door so he can have a proper run around the hallway and kitchen but he doesnt really bother :D He seems happy enough in there :D He uses his litter tray and doesnt seem too bothered about chewing furniture so its just making sure cables are bunny proofed and out the way and keeping the door shut so Smirnoff cant get in :lol:

We dont have wallpaper, we used to but when Smirnoff was a kitten she used to try climbing up the walls and it was getting scratched so my dad just took the paper off and painted them :lol:
 
How have you managed to bunny proof your wires? My tv has to have massive boards put infront when I'm not in.
 
Our telly is on like a unit thing and the dvd player and ps2 are inside the unit which has like glass doors, and its kind of at an angle in the corner if you know what I mean so most of the wires are behind there and the buns cant get back there :D Our phone cable wires that go into the hallway have those wire protector tube things, im sure we got them in woolworths :D
 
oh yeah, ours used to be like that then we got given a posh telly but the unit it stands on is completely open and apparently very appealing to bunnys
 
oh yeah, ours used to be like that then we got given a posh telly but the unit it stands on is completely open and apparently very appealing to bunnys

Yeh my mum wanted to get a telly stand like that and I was like no the bunnies will go nuts with that :lol:
 
.. I constantly have hay all over the floor and I've got wooden boards all over the room protecting various wires. Plus the giant dog crate is really over bearing in my front room...
We have a spare bedroom for the rabbits now, but in my small old house I had a dresser bureau, like a chest of drawers, in the hallway that had the back wood panel taken off and the face of the drawers glued to the front, but the drawers themselves removed so the buns could go into the back and have a nice fun enclosure, only having to step up about 3" onto the base of the cabinet. The dresser was placed away from the wall, just enough so they could get thru to the back, and it looked like a regular piece of furniture in the foyer. I’ve never had a rabbit cage inside the house lol
I still have that old dresser in their bedroom now for a hidey place. As far as tracking hay around, I always have used a raised rack, just a basket hung from the inside of the chest of drawers, and no hay in the litter or as bedding, so if they don’t walk on or lay on it, less it tracked around. As far as protecting your wires-have you seen those curly cords that look like old fashioned telephone cords? You can wrap them easily around your wires and they really work. It must be hard to catch them getting at the wallpaper, I have no answer for that, especially if its Humphrey doing it :)
 
Back
Top