Naughty Little Clover!

[Jayme]

So yesterday I thought I had been such a good bun mother, as I bought my little Clover a dog kennel, which tripled her cage spaced copmpared to her last cage. However, my sister woke me up this morning, alerting me that Clover was running around the house! We quickly caught her and I put her back in and watched so I could learn how she escaped. She was sliding right through the bars! At first I thought it was just the bars that were bent a little, so I straightened them, then she did again through bent bars, but got her hips stuck! I helped her get unstuck, and thought 'well now she's learned she can't do that again'. Well I was wrong because she did it again 5 minutes later through an unbent bar but this time she just slid through. I guess it's back into the old cage until she's too big to get out of this one. Ugh I thought I had done such a good job

 

[PaGal]

Buns sure do keep us on our toes! You could try putting something around the outside of the cage like chicken wire. You could attach it with some zip ties. Pieces of cardboard might even work. They could be replaced as she chews them.

 

[Imbrium]

hah! reminds me of the time when Nala started escaping and I was utterly baffled as to how she was getting out of a four foot tall pen until I caught her mid-escape the third time - something about the corner where the 4' playpen was attached to the corner of their NIC condo was allowing her to CLIMB up the corner, where she would proceed to go over the top and drop four feet down to the ground! fortunately, I took a piece of foamboard that was sitting around and ziptied it to the top of that playpen panel so she wouldn't be able to climb once she got about halfway up and that put a stop to it.

the good news is that it shouldn't be long before she can move back into the kennel - they grow SO fast at that age!

at 9 weeks old, I used my fingers to measure the width of Nala's head and held them up to a NIC grid and concluded that her head wouldn't fit through one of the holes, so I built a 1-grid-tall pen around their dinky store-bought cage for them to play in. they showed absolutely NO interest in trying to jump/climb over the short pen at their young age and tiny size, so I didn't think anything of wandering off for a nap with their cage door still open ><

an hour or two later, I was jolted out of a sound sleep by odd noises coming from the living room - frantic shuffling of bunny feet on tarp. I was out of bed and in the living room SO freaking fast because I just KNEW that something was really, horribly wrong.

Nala had not only escaped from the little pen, she had tried to get back in it by shoving her head through the grid!! she was freaking out; I was freaking out... I went over and pet her and - thank god - me being there and reassuring her got her to sit perfectly still (which alleviated my biggest fear, that she'd hurt herself while struggling). once I had her calm, the ordeal of how to get her head out of the grid began... and it ended at the neighbor's house at around 7:20 in the morning, a few minutes after I showed up holding a tiny baby bunny with a NIC grid around her neck and a frantic look on my face.

anyway, I think by 10 weeks she would've been ok with the NIC, as she'd grown quite a bit... I waited until 11 weeks to even let her near a NIC grid again, though, because I was so paranoid. after watching her try - and fail - numerous times to shove her face through the grid I was holding (I swear, that bunny's so smart and yet so dumb sometimes!), I was finally satisfied that she couldn't get stuck in it again.

TLR for all that rambling - give it like two weeks, hehe.

 

[whitelop]

Ellie used to squeeze through the bars of the dog kennel I was using for my bunny that had just passed away. She would pop through the bars and eat the other bun's hay. Ellie was like 6 weeks old though and a runt and totally tiny, but it was crazy how she could fit into anything. And now, she still can. They're sneaky!

I agree, maybe putting some cardboard or poster board around the dog kennel would help. Or just keeping her in her old cage for another week or two. She'll fine!

 

[Jayme]

Yeah I'll probably wait a month or so before I put her back in. She's only around 9 weeks old, so she should be growing pretty quickly. She's not happy about being back in her old cage though haha. I'm just glad she isn't a wire chewer, because she was loose probably all night, and normally she isn't allowed to play in my room, because of all the wires, but I haven't found any damage. However, I will spend my day picking up bunny poop haha.

 

[whitelop]

Don't let her fool you about not chewing wires! She was probably too busy with other things, but when she gets comfortable she'll eat your refrigerator cord! Thats what happened in my house last night!

 

[Imbrium]

whoops! bad ellie!

 

[J.Bosley]

Haha! Thats exactly what my little Chive did. Now Chive has free range of a spare room, until I can build her a NIC cage.

 

[Tauntz]

Too bad there isn't a safe spray product that could be sprayed on cords & other items we don't want the buns to chew on. Something that would just smell bad to them (& not us!) so that they would leave those things alone. It can be tough to bunny proof your house especially with practically everything needing an electrical cord.

 

[Imbrium]

flex tubing is cheap and is great for proofing cords... of course, it does you no good if you weren't expecting the bunny to be loose, lol

 

[JBun]

Try the cardboard or posterboard along the bottom part of the pen. It works really well. It's what I did when I let my baby bunnies play in their playpen. You can just use zipties to connect it. I used tape, but worried about them chewing on it.