Grounding themselves?

Sorry I've not been active on providing advice etc lately.

I come begging for help though.

Phoebe appears to be grounding herself like a naughty teenager.
I changed the room around (every item apart from water and litter tray moved).
Since then she's living in the bedroom. Not coming out of the room at all [emoji20]

Physically she's fine, eating, drinking etc all normally. She's even moving about the room as she normally would (in the evening before dinner she lays on her marble slab etc).

She's funny with the stairs so we're not sure if she's decided that living up there is best because she doesn't have to deal with the stairs, if she's decided that she likes the new layout, if she's throwing a strop over the new lay out etc.

Any ideas?

ETA Daphne the stress head is acting completely normally.

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I think it's difficult to identify the exact reason for this. However, it does seem as though it's connected to you changing things around. Although whether that is because she approves or disapproves is difficult to determine. It would seem a coincidence if she just suddenly decided about the stairs issue at the same time. She could of course get used to it in time and revert to normal behaviour. So does Daphne just leave her up there by herself?

Omi said:

I think it's difficult to identify the exact reason for this. However, it does seem as though it's connected to you changing things around. Although whether that is because she approves or disapproves is difficult to determine. It would seem a coincidence if she just suddenly decided about the stairs issue at the same time. She could of course get used to it in time and revert to normal behaviour. So does Daphne just leave her up there by herself?

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Now that you mention it. Daphne spends a fair amount of time up there but will come down to remind us of dinner, breakfast and follow us down in the AM as normal.
Phoebe won't even come out of the room and has become a bit territorial of a particular corner.

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daphnephoebe said:

Now that you mention it. Daphne spends a fair amount of time up there but will come down to remind us of dinner, breakfast and follow us down in the AM as normal.
Phoebe won't even come out of the room and has become a bit territorial of a particular corner.

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It's odd isn't it As long as she's otherwise OK I don't think I'd be concerned, but I would be interested in observing her behaviour and trying to work out why why she's doing it.

Omi said:

It's odd isn't it As long as she's otherwise OK I don't think I'd be concerned, but I would be interested in observing her behaviour and trying to work out why why she's doing it.

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Once I've finished my digging in the garden I'm going to bring them both outside. Will see what she does with the stairs.

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None of my bunnies had ever minded things being changed around, and some positively seemed to like it. But Boots, my bridge house bunny, hated having things changed (I only did it once) or even moved round whilst we were cleaning. His demeanour would change and he would look very sad. And he wouldn’t want to move around, and he scanned terribly. So I quickly changed everything back and cleaning was done whilst someone else cuddled him. His eyesight and hearing was poor so I think that affected things.

Zoobec said:

None of my bunnies had ever minded things being changed around, and some positively seemed to like it. But Boots, my bridge house bunny, hated having things changed (I only did it once) or even moved round whilst we were cleaning. His demeanour would change and he would look very sad. And he wouldn’t want to move around, and he scanned terribly. So I quickly changed everything back and cleaning was done whilst someone else cuddled him. His eyesight and hearing was poor so I think that affected things.

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Thanks.
I'm not sure if she's unhappy. She's using her dig box etc which is a new development.

I may put it back to how it was next week if she's still odd.

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I don’t know if this helps.
Bit my only experience with something similar is with Truffle. When he was a baby for the first year or so his “hutch” was in the living room and he spent most of his time in that room roaming around and occasionally venturing into the kitchen especially if I was making food for us or the pets.

Then when we bonded him to Luther while they were away we moved the hutch into the kitchen so it was a bit more neutral and easier for me to clean than hay on carpet.
Neither buns hardly would come into the living room despite it previously being Truffles home ground. They only come in to nose about or eat the cardboard castle but that’s it.

So maybe moving stuff has brought a strop on? Hopefully it will pass soon and at least all other behaviour is normal.

Hope it gets back to normal soon x


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If you pick them up and put them down a little outside their comfort zone, this can help build their confidence. Every day a few centimetres more. But always letting them go straight back in if they want
It's worked well for me in the past.

Aww bless my beautiful little Phoebe, I wonder what is going on in her mind

Thanks for all the replies.
Sorry - I didn't get any notifications.

So I carried them both into the garden on Sunday. Both had fun and chilled out downstairs once done.
Phoebe then took herself very clumsily up the stairs and stayed upstairs ago.

Then this morning Phoebe came down for breakfast so instead of making her go back to her room to eat we fed them in the front room. She's gone back upstairs since but she did at least venture down of her own accord so maybe it is just a strop about the room being changed.

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