bunny freak-out!

[Gilbert and Sullivan]

Gilbert (my male mini rex, 1 year old, neutered) freaked out in his cage today. He was not near his brother, Sullivan and they were not fighting. My boyfriend and I saw the whole thing happen (thankfully). I was watching tv and my boyfriend was stirring a pot of soup that he had walked into the living room with. Suddenly Gilbert stomped his foot and starting racing around his cage like crazy! Like, scary crazy. He was smashing into the side of the cage and litter was flying everywhere. Since we were luckily right there, we were able to stop Gilbert before he hurt himself. We took him out of his cage onto the living room floor and he raced and hid behind the tv for awhile then we got him out once he calmed down. Then he roamed around the living room for awhile, seemingly pretty normal, laying on the floor and stretching out. About a half hour later I took Gilbert and Sullivan onto the porch to groom/pet them a little. They both laid and relaxed even better than normal so I was feeling like things were better. Then I brought them back inside, they went into their cage on their own and laid down together. But then when Gilbert got down off their 2nd level and stood by the door, I moved near the cage and he kinda did a mini freak out again and raced around. If they have ever been disturbed by a noise or anything before they would normally just go into their wooden box/house to hide and feel protected. There are sometimes loud cars that go by our house that they are totally used to and don't even notice. So I guess my question is, what could possibly have freaked him out this much to be acting this way for so long, but on and off? Did he just hear something that our human ears can't hear? The only other sound we could think of was the sound of the spoon in the pot, but I feel like we have made lots of noise in the kitchen before that never bothered them (blender, etc) What can I do to make sure this doesn't happen again? I am glad we were home and worry that if he did this when we weren't home would he stop freaking out and slamming into the cage before he hurt himself? We have had them both since they were babies and they have NEVER gotten freaked out like this before, so I am a bit worried. I will be monitoring them for the rest of the night.

Any insight would be appreciated!

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Think about their room, has anything changed? Here are some things that will freak out my rabbits.

• Ceiling fans. They think they are birds, I'm sure! Clover hunkers down or flips out if we change the speed or anything.
• curtains/mini-blinds with the window open and the wind or breeze blowing them.
• New voices
• Opening the window blinds and something moving around outside
• Moving furniture, new furniture
• Certain television/dvd programs/movies. Bo actually loves some and I think it might be Tony who loves to watch Scooby Doo with Lexi.
• New smells. Perfume, air freshener, soup?

 

[Gilbert and Sullivan]

That's the weird thing. NOTHING changed. No ceiling fan, no new voices here, nothing out of the ordinary. We hadn't moved anything around in their cage either. I guess we could "test" the sound of the spoon in the pot to see if that was what set him off, but I really don't want to get him worked up again.

There was also an electric guitar that was playing very briefly on the tv show I was watching. It seems as though they are never bothered by anything on tv so that would seem strange to me, but it could be the guitar sound he was scared of? Maybe sounded like a scary bird? This has got me boggled!

 

[Bo B Bunny]

What about weather? storms coming? or anything like that?

 

[Gilbert and Sullivan]

No storms then either. We have had a lot of thunder storms lately and they don't even notice it really. We did have a storm earlier today, at like 1 pm. But the freak-out happened about 5/5:30 pm and totally out of the blue...

Thanks for the CSI help though! Maybe we'll crack this case eventually. haha

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Ok, I don't want to freak you out or anything, but will you do me a HUGE favor and go through and check ALL of your cords, plugs, light switches (feel to see if they are warm)....

I have a friend who had a rabbit do that same thing..... and they went to bed - woke up in the middle of the night to wild thumping and they found a cord smoking.... their bunny prevented a potentially deadly fire.

 

[Gilbert and Sullivan]

Another weird thing is that if it was a "scary sound" in a frequency that we humans could not hear, then why didn't both rabbits freak out? This is a mystery. I hope this doesn't happen again. ugh!

 

[Gilbert and Sullivan]

Oh my goodness. We will DEFINITELY do that. Thank you so much. That is why rabbits are the most amazing creatures alive.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Yep! and my friend has 3 bunnies - only the one reacted.

 

[Gilbert and Sullivan]

OK, all the lights and outlets and cords are cool. Plus we checked our smoke detector and it's got a fresh battery. We'll keep an eye out. Thank you again very much!

 

[mouse_chalk]

Wow... strange! I had a similar episode earlier with Mouse- Steve had walked to the shop, and I was sat watching TV. They'd not long come in from the garden, and I had them in their cages for a while as usual, just to make sure that they would eat their pellets as Chalk needs to gain weight atm...

Anyway, Mouse thumped. At first, I just thought it was a one-off, but then she kept on thumping, and jumped down from her ledgea and continued thumping, while looking directly at me the whole time... It was very windy outside, and when she was out there she had been jumping into my arms as I sat with them and basically begging for cuddles, but the wind had been there all afternoon, so it was strange for her to suddenly get scared then?

Either way, she's stopped now luckily, but it was odd! (I did joke that maybe she was confused as to why Steve had walked instead of driving like usual lol...)

Anyway, rambling now! I hope that Gilbert is ok, and I'm glad you checked all your wires and everything is safe.... I've heard of bunnies alerting to fire before... is it possible that there was a bit of smoke/burning smell from the kitchen with the cooking? You'd have to be pretty bad at cooking to burn soup LOL but I've heard of bunnies warning their owners of 'fire' and 'smoke' by doing that sort of thing....

:? Good luck!!

Jen xx