peacepuffin
New Kit
Hiya,
I would like to gets some ideas/opinions on how to go about solving a behaviour problem that has developed with my female in the last month.
I have a bonded pair of house rabbits, both adopted. My male is around 2 years old and my female is around 4 and they are both neutered. They have had about a year of peaceful bliss together. My female, Lola, has always been quite calm and subdued, preferring to stay in the bedroom where their hutch is (a rose cottage from Pets at Home). They have about an hour of time out in the morning before my partner and I go to work and about 6 hours after we come home. On days off they are allowed out during the day but usually choose to stay inside. They were both perfectly litter trained. They have all sorts of tunnels, dig boxes with hay, cardboard and newspaper to shred and countless toys.
Now all seemed perfect until the female started to shed and seemed to lose interest in food. It was quite hot so I thought it may be that but I decided to giver her a health check and found the area around her genitals was hard. She was rushed straight to the vets. They trimmed what fur they could but the skin otherwise looked healthy and everything else checked out fine. I had to spend the evening soaking some hardened poo from flaps on either side (lovely) which they said is common for large lops to get. I don't normally subject them to being held as they don't care for it and much prefer to be stroked on the head.
From this moment Lola was a changed bunny. At first it seemed for the better, venturing out into the living room a lot more and binkying about. Great! Except very quickly she seemed to develop some anger issues. Flinging her litter trays around, trying to get under the protective rug to pluck carpet fibers. I thought this might be caused by boredom so I filled some boxes with hay and newspaper for her to destroy which she does, bought her a big plastic storage box with a hole cut out for her to have a dark dig spot. I had to empty one of their normal trays and add only newspaper since she primarily dug in this one and was flinging all the litter everywhere. Just yesterday she discovered the poor cats litter box and took to excavating that as well. I've now taken the drastic measure of removing the litter trays they were once using and putting the storage tray with the hole for them to use. Not sure if this was a good idea but she would not stop digging out the litter in the hutch. She would dig it out while I was at work and end up peeing on it and the base of the hutch.
Please if you have any thoughts or suggestions for Lola (now nicknamed The Destroyer)
Thank you for reading,
Anna
I would like to gets some ideas/opinions on how to go about solving a behaviour problem that has developed with my female in the last month.
I have a bonded pair of house rabbits, both adopted. My male is around 2 years old and my female is around 4 and they are both neutered. They have had about a year of peaceful bliss together. My female, Lola, has always been quite calm and subdued, preferring to stay in the bedroom where their hutch is (a rose cottage from Pets at Home). They have about an hour of time out in the morning before my partner and I go to work and about 6 hours after we come home. On days off they are allowed out during the day but usually choose to stay inside. They were both perfectly litter trained. They have all sorts of tunnels, dig boxes with hay, cardboard and newspaper to shred and countless toys.
Now all seemed perfect until the female started to shed and seemed to lose interest in food. It was quite hot so I thought it may be that but I decided to giver her a health check and found the area around her genitals was hard. She was rushed straight to the vets. They trimmed what fur they could but the skin otherwise looked healthy and everything else checked out fine. I had to spend the evening soaking some hardened poo from flaps on either side (lovely) which they said is common for large lops to get. I don't normally subject them to being held as they don't care for it and much prefer to be stroked on the head.
From this moment Lola was a changed bunny. At first it seemed for the better, venturing out into the living room a lot more and binkying about. Great! Except very quickly she seemed to develop some anger issues. Flinging her litter trays around, trying to get under the protective rug to pluck carpet fibers. I thought this might be caused by boredom so I filled some boxes with hay and newspaper for her to destroy which she does, bought her a big plastic storage box with a hole cut out for her to have a dark dig spot. I had to empty one of their normal trays and add only newspaper since she primarily dug in this one and was flinging all the litter everywhere. Just yesterday she discovered the poor cats litter box and took to excavating that as well. I've now taken the drastic measure of removing the litter trays they were once using and putting the storage tray with the hole for them to use. Not sure if this was a good idea but she would not stop digging out the litter in the hutch. She would dig it out while I was at work and end up peeing on it and the base of the hutch.
Please if you have any thoughts or suggestions for Lola (now nicknamed The Destroyer)
Thank you for reading,
Anna