Moving to Free Roam

[CatieB]

Hey everyone!

At the moment my Bun Rory has a cage which he is in whilst we are out and at night. We have just got him properly litter trained and I would like to free roam him now. It's likely he will be confined to the living room when we are out. I'm particularly worried about him chewing the carpet, not because I care about the carpet, but because he eats it!!! And it's not in one corner, it's anywhere!

I'm keen to keep his cage with the door open as his safe place, but my partner would like no cage at all (we have a tiny house and he has a very big cage!) Is this something that we could work through, with maybe his house as safe place? He never seems bothered about sleeping/hiding in places dark or covered over.

Any other tips for moving to Free Roam? Especially when he isn't yet neutered! He has just started humping, we have been trying to get him to hump his toys, but apparently only our heads will do!

Thanks so much!!

 

[Imbrium]

I've never been able to get a bunny to stop chewing carpet . Some bunns are obsessed with it and others don't care at all. Cageless is definitely an option if you're never going to need to lock him in it, but you'd have to resolve the carpet issue first. If you don't want to rip out the carpet, there are types of flooring that can be placed on top of existing floors/carpeting (hard plastic garage flooring tiles being the most chew-resistant and interlocking foam tiles being cheapest but quite vulnerable to teeth). I used the ones in the link to protect the carpet when I lived in a house (I put a tarp underneath them just in case any liquid tried to get through the seams). Maybe someone else can offer up a cheaper solution - I went hardcore preventative, lol. As a general rule, once a bunny sets their mind on destroying something, blocking access is the only option.

I wouldn't ditch the cage until after his neuter, though. First, because he may escalate to pee-spraying (they can spray it 6 feet in the air and like to aim for eyes) and need to be confined and secondly, because he'll need to be limited to a small space for recovery post-neuter (2-3 days for males, I believe).

 

[CatieB]

I've never been able to get a bunny to stop chewing carpet . Some bunns are obsessed with it and others don't care at all. Cageless is definitely an option if you're never going to need to lock him in it, but you'd have to resolve the carpet issue first. If you don't want to rip out the carpet, there are types of flooring that can be placed on top of existing floors/carpeting (hard plastic garage flooring tiles being the most chew-resistant and interlocking foam tiles being cheapest but quite vulnerable to teeth). I used the ones in the link to protect the carpet when I lived in a house (I put a tarp underneath them just in case any liquid tried to get through the seams). Maybe someone else can offer up a cheaper solution - I went hardcore preventative, lol. As a general rule, once a bunny sets their mind on destroying something, blocking access is the only option.

I wouldn't ditch the cage until after his neuter, though. First, because he may escalate to pee-spraying (they can spray it 6 feet in the air and like to aim for eyes) and need to be confined and secondly, because he'll need to be limited to a small space for recovery post-neuter (2-3 days for males, I believe).

Thank very much! He fortunately isn't very destructive to the carpet, mainly he just has a quick nibble and moves on, perhaps I will not stop him next time and see how far it goes. Good plan for keeping it for the neutering!

 

[Imbrium]

If that's the case, try redirecting him when he goes to nibble carpet, offering him a good alternative to either eat or chew like a little bit of hay or a cardboard toilet paper/paper towel roll. It's possible he's trying to forage as bunnies constantly do and just wants to test if the weird stuff on the ground is food, lol.

 

[Blue eyes]

It's also possible that several weeks after the neuter he may stop carpet chewing. Before neutering, rabbits can be excessive with their destructive chewing. You just don't want him to develop a habit in the meantime of carpet chewing.

I'd agree with Jennifer to keep the cage until after his neuter. In fact, I think it's a good idea to always have some sort of home-base cage even for a free roam rabbit. It's handy for the rabbit to have a place he knows is his alone. It's also good for unexpecteds (a rowdy visiting kid, carpet cleaning day, furniture or appliance deliveries, parties). It doesn't need to be a super large cage if it is almost always going to be kept open.

Years ago, I had this as such a "home-base" cage. It's all plexi-glass and the door was always open (except for during those unexpecteds). (Ignore the lack of hay. I had just cleaned the cage and hadn't added it yet to the litter box.)