Rabbit recently becoming more destructive

[Aleana]

Hello everyone,

I have a rabbit, Stella, who is about 1-2 years old (she was adopted and so not sure of exact age). Within the last week I have noticed her behavior becoming a bit more destructive. She now tries to chew the carpet up all the time (not just around the edges, but pulls pieces out, and its not a fluffy carpet), and its constant. Additionally, she has started chewing the wires on her cage, even when her cage is open. The cage wires especially are new behavior for her (and I have had her for about 5 months now). She has also taking to chewing some furniture which she never had chewed before, but the carpets and the cage wires are CONSTANT. I thought perhaps this was boredom, but if it is I am failing at countering it -- she has 6 or 7 major toys around the room, all different, has places to hide and jump on to, and spends approx. 10-15 hours per day out of her cage.

This is my first time owning a rabbit, so I am hoping that perhaps some of you with more experience might have light to shed on this situation and offer possible solutions.

Thank you.

 

[agnesthelion]

It could be boredom but it also sounds like typical bunny behavior. Why she has never done it before you may never know....maybe she just discovered how fun chewing the carpet is! I do think rabbits are very obsessive once they find something they like. Lol. They will go at it and go at it.
It sounds like you are doing everything right. Free run, lots of toys. Maybe just try different toys? Homemade stuff can be favorites, toilet paper rolls, boxes, phone books. My two like wicker balls too. Rubbing white bar soap on whatever you don't want her to chew on can be a good deterrent as well.
Lastly, I'm assuming she is spayed since she was adopted but just in case not thought id mention spaying as a possible solution too.

Good luck!

 

[lagomorph]

I wonder if she was chewing on furniture (or something) before, without you knowing. I have 2 friends who did not realize their rabbits were chewing up the backs of the couches, until one day when they moved the couch. It was a mess.

One thing that might help is to give them something they will prefer to chew, over rugs and furniture. We give ours a lot of twigs from our apple and pear trees (no pesticideds used), as well as twigs from certain wild trees and shrubs. I'm pretty good at plant identification and know which animals can eat what, so I feel comfortable with that. If you have access to apple or pear trees, you might try that.

Also, I wonder if boredom and/or lack of space could be leading to this bad habit. Ours has a lot of space and a large outdoor enclosure with an earth floor, allowing the bunny to dig a burrow. So there is always normal bunny activity to engage in, and neither my current bunny nor his friend (passed away a month or two ago) ever chewed on anything but stuff that is safe for them to eat.