thinking of bringing my two in for the winter

Seriously considering it this year. Any tips for those with indoor bunnies and rented houses?

The monsters are 8 years old now and I don't know about them, but I don't think I can handle another winter of frozen waters, frozen locks and frozen fingers!

The big (ha!) issue is I have a tiny 1 bedroom house, my whole house is about 12ft wide. I guess an estate agent would class it as a "maisonette" really. The garden is bigger than the house.

They would have the tiny kitchen during the day (2 people bump into each other in the kitchen but there's a handy random worktop with space underneath where a dog crate could go, door always open of course) and then the living room too when we're home - the big sacrifice here we will be making is there is no heating in the kitchen and having the door open during the winter creates a howling cold blast through the rest of the house. I have some nice jumpers though.

The kitchen is small but I've seen what those two do during the day. They settle into their hutch or their fleece blanket and sleep for hours until they hear the back door open!

Overall it's not really practical but I think it might be best for my sanity for dealing with frozen locks at 7am in the dark.

Any advice??! Any tips on where to get the best bunny proofing as we will need to fence some areas off to protect wiring and the stairs, and put something around the kitchen cupboards to stop them chewing those. Looked into NIC cubes but they seem very expensive and few and far between these days.

Not much advice other than could you consider putting a cat flap into the internal kitchen door, to reduce the drafts through the rest of the house?

I wouldn't recommend it, to be honest. I ended up bringing two bunnies indoors to live, for health reasons, and I didn't have a spare room or a space they could have for their own. They effectively took over the house (even though some rooms were supposed to be off limits - you only had to leave a door open a couple of seconds for them to run in and chew through a cable).

I found they did a fair bit of damage, and they weren't anywhere near as destructive as some bunnies. But also, because they didn't have their own space, it was a nightmare if the doorbell rang etc, as I had to worry where they were all the time. In some ways it was lovely sharing my life with them indoors (and I missed them terribly when they were gone), but in other ways it was a lot of trouble. It felt like I lived in a rabbit hutch, rather than they lived in my house, a lot of the time!

If I had indoor bunnies again, they would have to have their own room.

heleni said:

Not much advice other than could you consider putting a cat flap into the internal kitchen door, to reduce the drafts through the rest of the house?

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Sadly not an option as we rent.

And thank you Sarah! Certainly food for thought. Especially as our front door opens straight into the living room. Although they've never shown signs of coming through the side gate when that's been open, they are wary of new places!

I forgot to say, the main thing they were obsessed about gnawing on were the doors. If a door was pushed to, rather than fully shut, they used to get quite angry about it and want to gnaw on it enough to get it open! Also, one of the bunnies destroyed a small area of carpet.

What were you thinking of putting in front of the kitchen cupboards? How would you manage to get stuff out if you've got something in front of them?

Sorry if this all sounds really negative!

SarahP said:

I forgot to say, the main thing they were obsessed about gnawing on were the doors. If a door was pushed to, rather than fully shut, they used to get quite angry about it and want to gnaw on it enough to get it open! Also, one of the bunnies destroyed a small area of carpet.

What were you thinking of putting in front of the kitchen cupboards? How would you manage to get stuff out if you've got something in front of them?

Sorry if this all sounds really negative!

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Negative is good! I didn't want lots of people saying "yeah go on do it", I need to hear every side of the coin haha!

I was planning on putting C&C/NIC cubes or play pen panels in front of the cabinets when we weren't home to protect those edges. This is probably the biggest concern really, trying to protect edges and yes the main doors are a concern too, although its only the kitchen door as we don't have any other doors downstairs!

Do it do it do it!! Beau has always been an indoor bunny, in 5 different rented places! The only damage he ever did to the fixtures and fittings was chewing a hole in the carpet. Having an indoor bun is so rewarding, we get to see him do all sorts of things that we wouldn't see if he was outdoors.

The only thing that would make me think twice here is the limited space. We have quite a spacious lounge and I'm still forever falling over him, as he's determined to be where you are! Also if they are going to be in the kitchen, they might get upset by cooking smells. Beau is ok on the whole but hates me cooking mince or lamb. Are you veggie though? In which case it wouldn't be so much of an issue I imagine.

As for the cold, could you not have them in the lounge with the door shut when you are home? Bring their litter tray through?

For bunny proofing, I would say a couple of cheap rugs from somewhere like quidco, plus we use NIC cubes I'm afraid! I didn't think they were too expensive for how useful they are, we got 21 for about £25 from B&Q but that's about 4 years ago now. We also use those hamster pens from Pets at home, they're red, blue and yellow, they're not very tall, but they're great for stopping buns going behind things or underneath things.

eta: what flooring do you have in the kitchen? have you tried the buns on it? Because Beau won't go on lino. He lives in our kitchen, but our cupboards are safe as he won't cross the lino!

Lib_n_bunny said:

Do it do it do it!! Beau has always been an indoor bunny, in 5 different rented places! The only damage he ever did to the fixtures and fittings was chewing a hole in the carpet. Having an indoor bun is so rewarding, we get to see him do all sorts of things that we wouldn't see if he was outdoors.

The only thing that would make me think twice here is the limited space. We have quite a spacious lounge and I'm still forever falling over him, as he's determined to be where you are! Also if they are going to be in the kitchen, they might get upset by cooking smells. Beau is ok on the whole but hates me cooking mince or lamb. Are you veggie though? In which case it wouldn't be so much of an issue I imagine.

As for the cold, could you not have them in the lounge with the door shut when you are home? Bring their litter tray through?

For bunny proofing, I would say a couple of cheap rugs from somewhere like quidco, plus we use NIC cubes I'm afraid! I didn't think they were too expensive for how useful they are, we got 21 for about £25 from B&Q but that's about 4 years ago now. We also use those hamster pens from Pets at home, they're red, blue and yellow, they're not very tall, but they're great for stopping buns going behind things or underneath things.

eta: what flooring do you have in the kitchen? have you tried the buns on it? Because Beau won't go on lino. He lives in our kitchen, but our cupboards are safe as he won't cross the lino!

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haha!

Yes they would be underfoot but we already have to watch where we walk due to the amount of **** we have laying around (which will of course be squirreled away and tidied up!).

With cooking smells, that when they'll have access to the living room as well as the kitchen so they can get away from all that and sit with me while the hubby cooks (I don't do no cooking, a man's place is in front of the hob, ha!).

I was definitely going to get cheap rugs/carpet tiles. Already have one ancient rug anyway which they can do whatever they want to.

The buns are getting more confident on the slippy tiled kitchen floor (they come into the kitchen for breakfast every morning, but they have a fleece blanket to sit on) but I would put carpet tiles and their fleece blankets down for them - take up the tiles when we're cooking. I already use carpet tiles in their run outside anyway. They don't chew the carpet tiles or the blankets. They haven't chewed their hutch either, a few nibbles here and there, but for a 3 year old hutch is in pretty good nick haha!

That's just made me think of something else. We ended up having to put bunny blankets down everywhere, so they'd feel more comfortable on the lino, and their feet wouldn't get sore on the carpet. I'll try and find some photos, so you'll see what I mean!

Hallway:
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Kitchen:


You can see why I felt like I lived in a bunny hutch rather than a house!

Awww... I do miss them though!

SarahP said:

That's just made me think of something else. We ended up having to put bunny blankets down everywhere, so they'd feel more comfortable on the lino, and their feet wouldn't get sore on the carpet. I'll try and find some photos, so you'll see what I mean!

Hallway:

[/URL]

Kitchen:

You can see why I felt like I lived in a bunny hutch rather than a house!

Awww... I do miss them though!

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my hubby is being cautious about it. hasn't said no as secretly he'd love to be able to sit on the sofa with them and play his playstation haha.

He was concerned about house noises, but I pointed out they seem to cope with all the screaming kids, low-flying aeroplanes, boy racers and things like noisy suitcases being dragged along the path next to the garden, barking dogs, arguing squirrels, next door's baby screaming her little head off, it's not exactly peaceful in my garden!!

The bunnies have a very large collection of fleece blankets, enough to cover my downstairs flooring twice over :lol:

Don't worry about noises, they'll get used to them (although I do shut them in a different room if I'm going to use the blender!). I really like having house rabbits, although these are my only ones so I can't compare to other individual buns. We haven't had much of a chewing problem, and since they were neutered no weeing on the sofa problem either. We do use a throw with a tarpaulin under it on the leather sofa as they used to very much like digging on there but actually they haven't done that for a couple of months.
Ours can hear when we're coming downstairs or opening the front door and they lie in wait for us when we open the living room door. There has been a bit of carpet chewing, and they do really want to get behind the sofas, so perhaps if they had free access there might be chewing there too. Don't leave candles out where they can get to them either, ours have discovered a liking for them and I'm sure that can't be good for them!

Mine are indoors, I wouldn't have it any other way... But they have ruined a lot of things.

I don't know where I lie on this really.

I intended to have my Benji as an outdoor bun, but I got him in December and I felt so mean about keeping him outside when he was used to a warm pet shop, I managed to persuade my Dad to let me keep him inside. He caused a lot of damage to begin with, he bit through two phone lines, tv aerials, headphone wires, lamps, anything he could find even if we tried to hide them. He also chewed a lot, especially the door. And the carpet in that room is a complete mess as well from when he had an upset stomach and occasional accidents. It will need re-carpetting eventually.

However, I absolutely loved having him inside with me. When I came home from work I'd walk in and see him spread out across the floor or curled up asleep by the radiator. He was such a character, he'd always be jumping up on the sofa to lie with us or to try and steal our food. He generally stuck to one room, and I found that after being litter trained, he never pooped in any room except the room with his litter tray. He was allowed free reign over our three rooms downstairs, but he preferred the room where all of his stuff was, and he would always go back to that room. I loved having an indoor bun, I just keep mine outdoors because I saw how happy they are being able to run around and eat everything.

Plus rabbits do actually deal a lot better with the cold than they do with heat, although we'll see how I feel about this next winter.. Who knows, they could end up coming inside again.

I agree about them dealing with cold just fine, but it's entirely stressful on me, so yes a bit selfish here haha!

That and their age, they'll be 9 next July(ish, rescues so don't know their exact birth date). They coped fine through the last two harsh winters, but it was very stressful trying to keep everything defrosted and falling over on ice on the patio. Their hutch and run was so well wrapped up it would take at least 5 minutes to unwrap it all to get to them. I hardly see them in the winter it feels like as its too cold for me to sit out with them and they do love their nose rubs! They are very people friendly bunnies.

We were thinking of buying a house this year you see, in an ideal world we would have done all that and this debate wouldn't be happening as I would have more space and just go for it!

My other worry is that foxes have appeared in the area. Had no sight or sound of them for 3 years until the last few months, being woken up by yowling and my hubby saw one on the path a short way away on his walk back from work - in daylight. Had something pee all over a towel when we had the heatwave and I had a damp towel over the top of their run. I was hoping it was a cat, but it could also have been fox, it STANK.

If I could fit my six indoors I would do it. Its just soooooooo much handier in the cold wet dark evenings ... I would highly recommend puppy pens to keep them away from stuff (eg the front door, and skirting boards). Hope you find a nice relaxing way to have them indoors. :wave:

I do think a lot depends on the individual rabbit.

This is our second rented property with Louie and we are very lucky as he doesn't chew anything apart from wires, which we now fence off with puppy pens.

He certainly hasn't taken over as he doesn't have a bed area, just sleeps behind the settee.

I love having a house rabbit