My parents think Fluffy will wreck the room

[Deelove]

I believe some rabbits are ok. And you can be really vigilant with protecting things, with plastic etc.

But my quiet rabbit is really destructive. Carpets, lino, skirting boards, furniture, a suitcase, his kennel, wires, the back of the sofa, wallpaper have all been victims in his 9 years of life.

 

[Hc1]

My compromise was a shed. A lovely beautiful shed built just for the 2little darlings. They were both laid back and treated it well and then oldest rabbit died and 2 new rabbits were brought in to keep remaining bun company. The shed is well chewed in places as are quite a lot of my fences in the garden. They don't like to wee in their litter trays. They like to wee NEXT to them.(my fault as I have whole shed floor covered in hay).I'd dearly love to have them in doors but at the same time I'd rather have a shed trashed than my house.

 

[Hoppit!]

Pickles absolutely tortured my room. Bless him, his brother Ginger had just died so he was all alone out in the shed, so he became a house rabbit. He chewed and tore up my carpet, bit through cables (I kept big ones out of the way of course, but somehow he always got hold of my laptop and earphones!) gnawed my bedroom door, desk and bed, and when he got old he began to pee everywhere. Hay also CANNOT be contained! It will work its way out of your room and all over the house. I think hay has a secret mission to take over the world. Fluff too, when they're moulting, will be coming off in visible clouds and form an irremovable layer over your carpet.

Having said that I don't regret bringing him in for a minute, though I believe my mum still has nightmares about it. Do you have carpet or hard flooring in your bedroom?

 

[B&B Buns]

Hay also CANNOT be contained! It will work its way out of your room and all over the house. I think hay has a secret mission to take over the world.

Oh my god this made me do proper belly laughs and there are tears streaming down my face!! Brilliant and so true!!

 

[tulsi]

Having Frosty and Snowflake living in half my room was the best thing ever. As I now have eight rabbits it is more practical to have them outside. They had puppy panels to contain them and although they chewed the odd rug there was no damage to the house.

If I only had two I would defo have them indoors again.

 

[GabyEmilyB]

So was Benji! But not when it came to wires. :lol:

And Daisy, but she sure had a taste for wallpaper!

George is a bit odd....I think he does things to spite me sometimes!!!there are a few wires that he could get to if he really wanted to when he free ranges, but he doesn't....when he was on constant cage rest and I let him out for an hour, he let himself into my bedroom and chewed my iPhone wire and my hairdryer wire! It was a kinda 'have that mummy for shutting me away!' But now he's out and about again, he's not at all bothered! He doesn't chew anything apart from his Seagrass mat (touch wood) and I've bought him lots of nice toys.

He's laid back but he's still young...if you want a house bunny and you're prepared for possible destruction but can bunny proof, why not? As long as you're prepared and know what your getting into....just explain your case rationally and how much it means to you.

 

[Biscuit&lucylous_butlers]

Ours aren't too bad. If you get into the right frame of mind to safe guard everything first. Ours were free range 24/7

When we lived in our house in England it was properly bunny guarded (which you can do discretely) and nothing got destroyed. The only exception was if anyone stayed over and we forgot to warn them and they woke up to a dead phone and a chewed through charger wire........

..... However we are taking a bit of a 'gap year' in Germany and living in my cousins house. They have very kindly let the rabbits in their home to which shocked us as OCD doesn't even begin to describe them lol (but they know that no rabbits= no us) they now live in a big penned off area and have a few hours of free roaming each day,
It's a total nightmare!!! They have had wires and wallpaper and quilt covers the lot! We have some real awkward conversations coming up I feel :-/ it's all because the rooms not set up for them. It's easier to have a completely bunny proofed rooms rather than pen them off and let them
out sometimes

If you want to have rabbits inside you need to bunny proof everything you can't just bring them into your home. It can be done and it can be done tastefully. Do some research on rabbit behaviour and don't give them a chance to get bored. Chewing, digging, hiding and destroying is just rabbits being slightly bored rabbits. Can't blame them it's their nature.

 

[Barn Yard Bunnies]

:lol: Mr B has caused 100's if not a thousand pounds or so in damage. Have dozens of old threads on here just on the damage he has caused. To be fair he has no barriers anywhere but the list is enormous. He even chews mattresses.:lol:

 

[happybun]

Haven't seen a photo of Mr Bennett for ages...

 

[Barn Yard Bunnies]

Haven't seen a photo of Mr Bennett for ages...

Will have to get some. Favourite position, laying on his belly eating, or chewing bedroom furniture at an ungodly hour in the morning to get us up to feed him.:lol:

 

[Hesperus]

Ludo has a large section of my room.

He hasn't caused much damage to be honest. He's ripped a cm of carpet fibre up and there are a few bite marks on my desk legs. I've been sensible and built a barrier across the room and the decent furniture is kept behind that. All the cables have protectors on so he can't get to those.

Other than that most of the damage has been to his things.

I'd say the biggest problem is hay- it does tread around the house and stick on clothes.

ETA: He's never touched the wallpaper or the skirting boards and my bookcases are all intact! Perhaps I'm lucky.

 

[joeybun]

I had the same problem with my mum last year when I wanted to bring joey inside. However I got passed that because he was 8, and we where forecast a really bad winter. He was going in my bedroom so if he made a mess, my mum wasn't bothered :lol: the issue was hay getting everywhere, my bedroom is in the loft and hay worked it's way down 2 flights of stairs!! :shock: other than hay, the only mess he would make was peeing on the dogs bed when I let him have run of the room.
My 2 current buns however had to be contained unless I could watch they're every move (and even then extra measures had to be take to protect wires and tv remotes! :lol: I lined the pen with lino so had no issues with distruction whilst in their pen. The problem then was noise. I was woken early every morning to them having mad hours (sometimes I had to resort to food to quieten them down! :roll::lol
I did love having them inside though. I got to spend a lot more time with them and felt I had a stronger bond with each of them, especially Joey who had lived outside all of his life and got to spend his last 3 months inside being spoilt rotten
I hope you get to bring Fluffy inside, I don't think you (and hopefully your parents) will regret it, even if he does cause a bit of damge :lol:

 

[KatP]

I must be really lucky as after her spay my bun came inside and took so long to recover that it wasn't possible to put her back out as it was winter. We now have a very happy house bun who has full run of the living room and hallway for about 18 hours a day, even if we go out. She has never chewed anything but then we do keep all wires away from her and has luckily only chewed a mat and a rug we have put down to protect the carpet. She was really easy to litter train and is currently being hand fed tea as I sit on the sofa typing this.

My previous house rabbit ate everything in his sight, my sofa, coffee table, wallpaper, carpet, cables (ate through barrier to get to these) and made a huge hole in the door to be able to escape to the kitchen!!!

Think it just depends on the bunny and how much time you spend with them to try and train them into ways which work for you.

 

[Fluffs]

I had the same problem with my mum last year when I wanted to bring joey inside. However I got passed that because he was 8, and we where forecast a really bad winter. He was going in my bedroom so if he made a mess, my mum wasn't bothered :lol: the issue was hay getting everywhere, my bedroom is in the loft and hay worked it's way down 2 flights of stairs!! :shock: other than hay, the only mess he would make was peeing on the dogs bed when I let him have run of the room.
My 2 current buns however had to be contained unless I could watch they're every move (and even then extra measures had to be take to protect wires and tv remotes! :lol: I lined the pen with lino so had no issues with distruction whilst in their pen. The problem then was noise. I was woken early every morning to them having mad hours (sometimes I had to resort to food to quieten them down! :roll::lol
I did love having them inside though. I got to spend a lot more time with them and felt I had a stronger bond with each of them, especially Joey who had lived outside all of his life and got to spend his last 3 months inside being spoilt rotten
I hope you get to bring Fluffy inside, I don't think you (and hopefully your parents) will regret it, even if he does cause a bit of damge :lol:

My situation is almost exactly the same as yours!
Fluffy is about 6 now so I really want to bring him in, as the bonding failed so he will be alone all winter

My bedroom will be in the loft, but I think my parents are worried about the smell. I've told them I'll clean out his litter tray every day but to no avail. To be fair to them they have been lenient in getting a shed, ect. but I'm just really not happy about 2 single buns in the winter months when I won't always be there.

And I would definitely have a lino floor/ pen but I don't think I'll be able to convince them anyway

Thank you for all your replies

ETA: And I don't think hay will be much of a problem, as he is a grass/forage bun so the only hay will be that in his litter tray.

 

[SarahP]

Hay also CANNOT be contained! It will work its way out of your room and all over the house. I think hay has a secret mission to take over the world.

So true! Sometimes I feel I live in a barn (caged house piggies).

 

[Britannia]

My two (bless 'em) have left teeth marks in every skirting board and dug the carpet thread bare in every corner. Wires have been snipped and you could say we have no one to blame but ourselves but Kizzy has managed to bite through headphone leads whilst my partner was wearing them. Hay is everywhere.

My other half has reached his limit but I was pleasantly surprised that his answer has not been to evict the buns but to go bunny-proof mad! Next month the carpets will be ripped out and the flooring replaced with the same grade wood effect lino they use in shopping centres and the wooden skirting is being replaced by aluminium skirting that has built in cable conduits.

It's going to be a battle of wits between Kizzy and my other half, the jury is out on who will win and it's going to be a really lean Xmas, we'll be lucky to afford turkey burgers for Xmas dinner

Personally I love having free range indoor buns but I wouldn't recommend it to others. My house, so if I can live with it, that's my choice. Luckily just need to twitch her nose in my other-halfs direction and he is putty in her paws. But it's a really 'big ask' for most parents.