Cage Biting at night

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Snowballbun

Snowballbun

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2010
Messages
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Location
, Michigan, USA
My bun has started to chew her cage at night which has been keeping me up! I don't think this is good for their teeth and I'm not sure how to stop it. She has things in her cage to chew on but I think she gets bored or just doesn't touch some of them. Should I spray the bars with bitter apple spray or something like that?
 
To me, this sounds like classic boredom behaviour.
How much exercise does she get a day? Rabbits should get at the very least, 3 hours exercise time out of their cage/hutch a day. Mine personally get at least 6 hours exercise time, and about 3-4 hours 'bonding' time with me. That still means they are spending 14 hours in their hutch though!!!! So I try to make it as interesting for them as possible.
Try rotating her toys- this will make them more interesting to her. Provide a wide range of toys too, even home-made ones, like empty toilet rolls stuffed with hay- she'll LOVE to chew on these! And they are free!!
How big is her cage? It should be at least 5ft by 3ft but the bigger the better really. Mine have a 11ft by 5ft hutch, with three levels (leaping up to, not ramps, so the floorspace is bigger).

Chewing the bars shouldn't be bad for your bun's teeth- it is possible that they might get caught and might snap, but I doubt it.

Apple tree wood/branches (baked in the oven for an hour to get rid of any bacteria) are wonderful gnawing blocks for the buns, and they go crazy for them!

How about trying some dried corn sticks? I don't generally buy the treat sticks you hang on the bars, because they aren't particularly great for the bun, but you can also buy dried corn-on-the-cobs that you hang from the bars, which my bunnies love!
What about trying something like that- giving her something interesting and yummy to chew on in the night?

Jen
 
She usually gets about 2 hours of exercise a night. Lately it has been hard because I have to sit and watch every second that she is in her pen. This is due to the fact that her litter box habits have gotten really bad, and she poops and pees all over now. The poops are okay, but I have to try and catch her if she pees on the carpet. I used to be able to leave her for a little while, when I went to go do other things.

Her cage is about 32 inches by 18 inches. She has one of the super pet cages. This is a rough estimate. I am not sure what kind of bigger cage I would get her? I know many of you make your own, but until I get my own place, I am not sure about the room. Also, I would really need some help if I put my own together since I'm not good at doing that :) She still does have enough room to stretch out, but I know sometimes she binkies and wants to run around more when I see her in there.

I will have to try more things like you said. My rabbit seems to get bored very easily. Any other suggestions for the things I have mentioned? :)
 
Putting your own cage together with NIC cubes is really not that hard. I am not handy at all and was not sure I could do it. Now mine isn't as fancy as some on here but it works. Can you attach an exercise pen area to her cage? One like this: http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2751767 Though NIC cubes would probably be cheaper and you can attach them to the cage with zip ties.

If her litter box habits are bad you can put a piece of plastic down and then a cheap piece of carpet. I get my carpet pieces from WalMart.

What is her litter box set up? I know with mine, the bedding in their cage could not be the same as the bedding in their litter box. If it was they couldn't tell the difference and would go everywhere. It wasn't until I changed their cage to carpet and just put litter in their litter box that they started using the litter box.

My rabbit use to do this. I use to put a blanket over her cage and it stopped her. However, if your rabbit eats the blanket, that wouldn't work. Mine did not eat the blanket. Eventually, I gave in and made her caged area larger and now we are all happier.
 
Now I know some had mentioned the NIC cubes had changed...that the holes are now bigger? Where do you have your rabbit setup?

Her cage is on top of my desk in my room. We built her a pen that is 4 feet x 6 ft out of shelving units from Lowe's. My boyfriend just zip-tied it together. However one time on one of her crazy sprees, she cleared over the top of it, which is 20 inches high. I see the pen you sent me the link to is higher than that. What if she jumped over it when I wasn't home...

I'm trying to figure out what I could do? Unless I move furniture around or get rid of the desk in my room to make more room?

The space that I have in my room is that the pen runs right next to my bed and my closet...so I have to take it down at night and to get into my closet. I want her to have the best setup.

If you used cheap carpet, would you still recommend cleaning it up with carpet cleaner, vinegar, etc.?
 
The NIC cubes do have some bigger holes but some panels are the same size. I think they made the bigger holes for the back of the shelves. The NIC panels are originally for building a shelving unit. If you want to put a top on your cage, the bigger holed panels would be good for the top. You wouldn't want to use the panels with the bigger holes for the sides of the NIC cage because your rabbit could get her head stuck.

I have my rabbits set up in the basement on the floor.

It sounds like your bun is a jumper. I would probably put a top on using the NIC panels so she can't jump out when you are not home.

Is there a spot in your room where you could put her cage on the floor and then attach some NIC panels as a run with a top on it? May be if you post a picture of your room we will have a better idea.

I clean my cheap carpet with vinegar and carpet cleaner. In the winter I use a rag and clean any spots. In the summer I will sometimes spray the whole carpet and then take it outside and hose it off and let it air dry outside. I have also used the carpet cleaner on them. They hold up pretty good. They just are very pretty.

Does snowball have a litter box when she is out running around? I have always had my cages on the floor so I would litter train the rabbit in their cage and then when I let them out to run around, they would run back to their cage to go the bathroom. But it sounds like Snowball doesn't have access to her cage when she is out. May be if you can't give her a bigger cage, getting her litter trained so she can spend more time out of her cage will help.

My rabbits run 1600 sq feet of my house which is 3 floors. I let them out when I am not home. It took a long time to litter train them but it is so worth it. If you could post some pictures that would be great. We may be able to give you better advice that way.
 
It sounds to me like she needs more room. 32"x18" is really very small. My newest bun was quite a digger and chewer at her old home, where she only got a cage that size. not that she has her old cage plus a pen attached, she never ever digs and isn't destructive.

In you other post I recommended that her cage be put on the floor, and now I recommend you put it on the floor and add a pen around the opening. You can make the pen out of NIC panels (you van get the small sized grids from Bed Bath & Beyond for $14) or get a puppy exercise pen. If she has more room to move around in I doubt she'll continue with her bar chewing behavior.
 
Here are some pics of my room and the setup I have right now:

pen.jpg



This is my pen.


room3.jpg



The other part of my room. Yes I know I have a lot of perfumes lol.




room1.jpg


This is where her cage is right now. At the bottom of the picture is the pen.

I would definitely have to do some rearranging or get rid of something so I don't know if this is possible? Of course I want the best for my bun. If I built something with a cage attached to a pen, would I let her have free roam of that all the time, or make her go in her cage when I'm not home during the day?

Hmmm I've heard about the NIC panels for making a cage, but I didn't think about it for making a pen. Would this be something easy to take up and down, or would it more than likely need to stay up? As I mentioned, the shelving units attached together right now I keep having to take up and down (it is annoying) but right by my closet...unless I find another space.

It is also annoying because my parents are limiting me on things (I am 25 years old) but it's time for me to move out soon. I just got a teaching job this past year so I'm saving up some money. My parents at first didn't want me to get a rabbit and I did anyways because I've always wanted a rabbit and I saw Snowball and I knew it was meant to be and they were mad, but my mom loves it to death now. She always talks to it and says, "It's grandma!" lol and gives her treats.

For the NIC cages, how many do you usually buy and do you connect them with zipties? I wonder if I could incorporate the 4x6 ft pen that I already have.

I don't really want to put my bun in the basement because it's not finished and so it's colder and damp. When I get my own place, I eventually want to let my buns run around when I am home and then have a bigger area to have their cage. Possibly home made. I am wondering if I should buy a bigger cage right now. I know they have these ones on rollers. Then again you have the issue with if you want to put it on the floor though.

Yes, Snowball does have a litter box in her pen as well. Before she would use it all the time and leave poops every once in a while, but now she is going all over the place. I would say she does more than half of her duties in the litter box, but it seems worse in her pen than in her cage.....although she keeps peeing on her towel in the cage now. She used to be pretty close to perfect I swear :) I was so happy that she had learned so quickly.

I caught her peeing in her pen the other night, put her in her litter box and I sopped it up with tissue and put it in her litter box as someone suggested.




 
Her pen looks lovely and big!! That is fantastic for her exercise time.
Her cage looks very small, however, so I am not surprised that she is bored at night.

Is there any way you can put her cage on the floor and attach it to her pen, and give her run of the pen at night? I think that would definately help the biting of the bars. Add a few silent toys in there (perhaps some toilet roll holders stuffed with hay/tasty treats/a ball without a bell inside etc.) and she'll be uber happy! :D

NIC panels are great- they should be very easy to sort of...fold and place against a wall when you don't want to use it (an NIC run I mean, not cage).

ETS- yes, you can just buy the panels and attach them with zipties in any shape/size you like- that's why they are so fantastic. Make sure you don't get the 'new' NIC panels, because apparently the holes are bigger, and slightly dangerous to the buns.

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=40299&forum_id=93


Jen
 
Well I'm glad her exercise pen is big enough :) What do you think if I put her cage on the floor at night and then put it back up during the day while we are not home?

Believe it or not they had smaller cages at the pet store and this was the biggest one.

Also, I would have to get some kind of top?

And, right now I just have an upside down table cloth which she is already starting to chew! So something maybe like you said carpet wise.
 
Yeah the pen looks fabulous:D! I bet she loves running and binkying in it! From the pic it looks a good 8ft long!!! At least!

Hmm...the 'roof' part might be an issue, as you wouldn't be supervising her.
I love the idea of putting the cage down there at night, and bringing it back up in the day when you aren't there. She'll get loads of exercise, and buns are most active in dusk and dawn anyway, while we are sleeping, so she can get her daily exercise in then! Plus all her exercise when you get back home.

To be honest, if she REALLY wanted to get over the pen, she could, but I doubt she'd be desperate to. Has she tried before? If she really is a jumper, then perhaps a light plastic board of some kind, lightly secured on top (in case of emergencies ;) ) ?

I'm shocked at how small some of the cages in shops are. Yours doesn't look tooo bad as long as she gets loads of exercise time out of it, which she obviously does, and the size of her pen certainly makes up for it.
It's good that you are looking for something bigger though :).
Shops advocate small cages by selling them. They are saying to the consumer 'this cage is right for a rabbit', by selling it as a rabbit cage.
I would go with NIC panels- really great. You can make them double storey, as long as you want, any odd shape you want to fit your room and around things etc. and relatively easy to construct and maintain.

Jen :)
 
I agree with Jen that putting her down there at night in the run sounds like a great idea. That would give her an extra 8 hours or so to burn off some of that energy.

I would give her some more things to chew too. May be then she will leave the sheet alone. You can use boxes, I would use smaller ones so she can't get on top and jump out. You can stick some hay in the boxes. I give mine phone books to shred. Paper towel or toilet paper rolls are also good. You can stick hay in those too.

You can also try to put hay in her litter box to help get her to go in there.

I have a NIC run that I fold but it doesn't fold real nice. I have to put something against it or it falls over. I have also attached NIC panels to the run you posted. I just attached it with zip ties.
 
Did you make the pen that your bunny is in? Or, did you buy it somewhere? Because I just bought one for my bunny not too long ago, and I think it might be too small. I'd like to see if I can find a bigger one somewhere.
 
Yes, we put the pen together ourselves. The ones I looked at that were pre-made I thought were too small. I just went to Lowe's and bought shelving racks. They have different sizes (lengths and heights). The people at Lowe's will cut them for you. I believe they have them at Home Depot as well. Then we just used zip ties to put the corners together and left one corner (side) unattached so that we can fold it together to make it smaller when not using. This corner is where we put the litter box. I got this idea from someone and thought it was a good one so I hope you find it useful :)
 
Thanks for the information. I'm going to try that. Do you know about how long your pen is? I'd really like to make one as big as yours. Looks like Elvis would have fun in that.
 
Could you just make the pen into her permanent cage? I think it would be a great cage for her! Then you could get rid of the old cage and reclaim some of your desk space.
 
elrohwen wrote:
Could you just make the pen into her permanent cage? I think it would be a great cage for her! Then you could get rid of the old cage and reclaim some of your desk space.
Click to expand...
:nod:thumbup
 
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