Declaring War against my bunnies

[foxbunny]

(Title is a joke btw)
Been lurking awhile and thought it would be fun to blog my experiment here.

I’ll start with some context I guess. I have five rabbits, three hollands and two NZs. The hollands are the ones I’m going to be talking about here. Their names are Emilia Earhart (Emmy) Citabria (Sebby or CB) and Cinnamon Bonanza (Cinamabunny). Emmy is the mother over the other two, and she is 4-ish years old. The other two are 3-ish. All unspayed. A little over a year ago, I moved them from my room to the great outdoors, into an aviary I set up for them. But recently, I’ve been having a problem. A problem I should have been more prepared for in the past. Digging. They’ve always dug little tunnels in places here and there, so I would just fill them in over the weekend when I cleaned their setup and hutch and stuff. But in the past little while, they’ve been going full ham on the whole thing. Yesterday, I completely filled in and smoothed out their run. Today, I found it in shambles, with at least 3 five to seven foot long burrows in it. I am VERY tired of filling in those darn rabbit holes. I don’t know what it is that’s triggered this dig-a-thon, but I have a couple ideas. I don’t think they dig during the day, because when I am in their, they religiously avoid going down their tunnels. If I try to put them down the tunnels, they huff at me and run right back out. Another thing I’ve noticed is that Emmy and CB are humping each other non-stop. They’ll do it to each other’s heads, sides, and backs. Cinamabunny will run like hell away from the two when they try to mount her. It sounds dumb, but today I re-checked their genders even though I’ve had them for four years . I know dominance mounting is a thing with the females, but the amount of times I see them ‘going at it’ is a bit…. excessive. I’m also wondering if the two lovebugs are starting to exclude Cinamabunny from the herd. I see her sitting in her little house all alone while the other two are hanging out together in a little rabbit pile.

Anyways, back to the digging. I am planning on setting up an experiment of sorts, where I will lock up one of the bunnies in the hutch overnight and seeing if more burrows appear. I will switch bunnies until I find the perpetrator. If it’s perpetraTORS, then I will just start locking them all up at night, and finding ways to prevent the digging. I hate locking them up because the hutch I have with them is way too small for 3 bunnies

I call it a declaration of war.



Pictures!

Emmy

Sebby

Cinnamon

Cinnamabunny in a hole

 

[foxbunny]

more picture because I ran out of attachment room

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Bunnies were born to chew and dig. You might put pavers doen and put a dig box in somewhere--plastic bin filled with dirt so they can only go so deep and not as much work to refill. A long time ago I dig-proofed our chicken coop but that was to keep foxes, skunks and racoons from digging in--the chickens did not do any digging.

 

[jeannybobs]

that is very sad if you lock them up in a small hutch for doing what comes natural to them. They are also more active at dusk and dawn so would be very unhappy at being cooped up in such a small space as yours. once spayed or neutered, that may also deter them. plus, it can protect them against getting cancer which is very common. I would be inclined to take them out and then dig down a bit and put paving slabs down and then replace the soil. this would also stop them digging out. have noticed that your wire is single skinned, do you have any predators where you live?
i buy cat play tunnels and this re creates in a way, the tunnels ( they only last a few weeks as they chew them like mad but they love them)
sorry to be so negative

 

[Peaches and Cream]

more picture because I ran out of attachment room
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Your bunny habitat is amazing! If you look closely your buns are living the life! They have hidey houses, tunnels, plenty of hay and water, pellets, SO much wood to chew on and a resting place off the ground, personally I think of it as, if they have enough room to binky it's big enough! 10 out of 10 Foxbunny!

 

[overhear]

Yep, bunnies are born to dig! Maybe @Preitler can advise on how to manage digging that becomes problematic to humans.

 

[Preitler]

Yep, bunnies are born to dig! Maybe @Preitler can advise on how to manage digging that becomes problematic to humans.

Sure. Grab a shovel .

I keep filling up holes that are where they are not supposed to be, if they insist on the spot I just put something large, like a piece of wood in the hole. Once a year I fill up the tunnels I can find.

Mine don't have an enclosure though, and enough spots in the yard and at the bank of the brook where they can dig as much as they like.

This is a picture from today, Chantal digging a tunnel right at some steps. I let her do that for 2 or 3 days, then fill the tunnel. She's going to have a litter in a few days, so the exercise definitly is good for her, but she'll need to use the nestbox, not a tunnel (again).