Chewing on xpen bars -- recently adopted rabbit

Hello!

I recently adopted a 3 year old female rabbit (lionhead mix) from a local shelter. My senior rabbit that I owned for almost 11 years recently had to be put to sleep about a month ago, and I had always known I would adopt after he passed away. He was also a lionhead, so I have a soft spot for them.

I have named her Rosemary, and she is spayed and very sassy! I've been calling her Spicegirl as a nickname.

Her background from what the shelter told me is that she was brought to them by her original owners who no longer wanted her. They had almost no info about her personality, but that she was already spayed. The shelter said they checked to confirm and did find a scar and tattoo showing that she was spayed.

They adopted her out to a family who tried bonding her to their current rabbit, but it did not work out, and the family called the shelter and said they gave Rosemary to their hairdresser after 30 days or so of having her--the shelter then called this hairdresser, and she said she wanted to return Rosemary as she was being very cage aggressive and lunging at her/her kids. Shelter took her back and she has been with them again for awhile, while they tried to find the right home for her.

So I am well aware the poor girl has recently been bounced around a ton and I do not know what her life was like with the families she was with--I know they had a large crate for her as her "cage" but do not know if she got a lot of time out of it or not and what the kids were like with her.

I brought her home and she has been doing really well, I've had no aggression from her except that she gets extremely excited at feeding/pellet time at night and will grunt and try to grab the bowl from me when I put it down. Even that I will not call aggression. We have no kids, it is just me and my husband.

She is free-range in a large spare room all to herself. She is never confined in her crate that I have set up, it is just to hold her litterbox and food bowl and to have a safe space for her to go to if needed.

I do have a couple xpens going around the room perimeter and blocking off the baseboards and hallway door so she cannot come out of the main door (or chew on the door lol, as she had shown a tendency to chew the closet doors in the room)--we have a puppy and to be safe she is not allowed out of the spare room right now. I do keep the main door open so she can see us and I can easily go in and out during the day to sit in the room with her.

However, even with the whole room to run around in (I've got a ton of toys/boxes/tunnels set up for her that she does love) she is curious as all get out and will sit and chew on the xpen bars sometimes as if she is upset she cannot come out and have the run of everything else. She doesn't do it a TON, it's just for a minute every once in awhile as far as I can see, but I do know chewing bars can cause teeth issues if it goes on too long.

Is there a way to discourage this behavior at all? She is doing great having a large space, I think her aggression was because she felt the need to be territorial over a small space in her past homes. She binkies a ton, and she tolerates small amounts of pets so far--I just sit on the floor and let her come to me when she wants attention for a few minutes, and then she will hop away when she's done with me lol. Often when I first leave the room is when I will turn around and see her gnawing the bars like she wants to follow me and see where I'm going. Sometimes I will hear her doing it when I'm in my office working, but once again, doesn't seem to last long.

Or should I not worry if she is only doing it a little bit every once in awhile?

Sorry for the long post and background info! I'm just excited to have her and give her a chance at a happy, comfortable life.

--Janessa

Hopefully she will settle down, it sounds like she has a great space yoi are also doing the right thing by letting her come to you. you could try giving her some rabbit safe sticks to chew on, and she should have plenty of hay to eat. Hopefully that will distract her!

I'd suggest trying to find her a friend as soon as you can - rabbits are such social creatures, and it might not be so much that she wants to get out as that she is seeking companionship. It sounds like she has a great set up with lots of enrichment, though doing things like scatter feeding instead of using bowls and hiding treat foods all over the place for her to search out can help too. Maybe have a chat with the shelter she came from and ask them to keep an eye out for a suitable male friend?

How wonderful that you accepted this girl into your life.
She may be bored, yet it is also possible she just likes to chew and she needs some rabbit safe sticks.
I am sorry you lost your 11 year old lionhead . You surely gave him excellent care.

dollyanna said:

I'd suggest trying to find her a friend as soon as you can - rabbits are such social creatures, and it might not be so much that she wants to get out as that she is seeking companionship.

Click to expand...

I agree. https://rabbitwelfare.co.uk/rabbit-care-advice/behaviour/rabbit-companionship/

Thank you all for advice so far

I do plan on bonding her in near future---I will say that the state shelter I got her from would only adopt her out as a single bun for now due to the mess of bonding she went through at the first place they had adopted her out to. I don't know the specifics but they only said it really did not go well. The lady at the shelter did say it could just very well be the family did not go about it the right way, but to be on the safe side, she was adopting Rosemary out as a single rabbit for now.

There is a rabbit specific adoption group I want to go through for adopting my next rabbit, and they will help with bonding. However, they will not adopt out to me while my puppy is not neutered, even though he is only 3 months and cannot be neutered yet. Their policy is they cannot adopt out to any homes with un-neutered pets, even if it is a puppy (which sounds kind of silly to me, but I also understand they have their policies in place and I won't argue with them or push back). They said as soon as he is neutered, my application will be good to go and they will look into a good fit for us. But it will be a few months.

Rosemary is doing really well in terms of her personality---she is very happy to come over for pets on her own terms and I have taken up on the free-feeding idea just because she is so excited about food I think it's good for her to forage around for it rather than risk having the whole bowl go flying whenever I try to put it down lol.

For the pen, I purchased a clip on hay feeder to put at the spot she mainly chews on and am waiting for it to come in, to see if that helps give her something else to go for at that area. It is literally just one spot she seems to go for. I am trying to get her to eat more hay anyways, so I think having another spot for her to graze will be good for her. It's funny, because my first rabbit, Honey, adored hay and would eat a ton of it, but Rosemary seems to be more finicky about it, so I'm trying to work more into her diet. She loves her fresh veggies in the morning and nightly pellets of course, but I definitely feel like she could be eating more hay.