replacement tray/flooring for dog crate

[Lauraeli]

My bunny is in a 36 inch wire dog crate, with an attached x-pen. He has eaten through a third of the plastic tray. Replacement trays are expensive, and Im sure he will just eat the new one. He really enjoys plastic and rubber. Shoe soles are at the bottom of his food pyramid, along with expensive leather coats (can you say gourmet dinner? :happybunny, and rubber phone cases.

I used to close him in his crate at night. The tray-eating was possibly due to boredom as I havent seen him chew his tray at all since I started leaving the crate door open at night. He does leave his litterbox alone.


Wondering if anyone has any ideas for things I can use in place of a tray in his crate? No matter what it is, the edges of it will be accessible to him.

 

[Watermelons]

Linolium? ( spell check....)
Carpet?

 

[Lauraeli]

Does a bunny generally eat linoleum? carpet wont work at it would be too difficult to clean up messes

 

[Watermelons]

If your rabbit eats hard plastic trays then yes they will likely eat lino and you will be out of luck. Its just a cheaper option.

You could lay down ceramic tiles.... otherwise everything is kind of chewable.

 

[Azerane]

What else is in the dog crate with him when he's locked in there? Instead of him chewing at a new pan or new flooring, put something down there, cardboard to chew, a phone book to shred. If you put something in the place where he started with the chewing, chances are he'll direct his energy at that instead of the actual base that you put down. Even a toilet paper tube stuffed with hay is a good distraction.

 

[Lauraeli]

the only thing he had in there with him was a wooden block and his hay. He likes to lay next to his litter box and hes a fairly big bunny so that doesnt leave room for much else.

Really I should go cut him some apple tree branches

To be honest, he prefers plastic and rubber over wood.

 

[Azerane]

If he's not big on wood then perhaps something made out of cardboard, a small box, a cardboard ball or hanging toys made from pieces of cardboard and sisal string. It sounds like he just gets bored, I don't blame him if that's all that's in there.

 

[Lauraeli]

He always has boxes, baskets, or paper bags to play with in his pen. I think that is why he doesnt chew on his tray much anymore. Since I got him a taller x pen (36 inches), i dont need to close him in his crate at night. He used to jump out of his pen while i was asleep.

 

[flemishwhite]

My baby Flemmish rabbits were penned in the living room anytime we were not at home or were at sleep. Bunnies need to have things to chew. We have three litter boxes of oat hay for them, one litter box in the pen and the others in the house. Never had baby rabbits before, and out of the pen, they wanted to chew on furniture! I bought some 2X4 pieces of pine timber and laid them on the floor in front of the couch and a stuffed chair. Sure enough they enjoyed eating the fresh wood better than the varnished wood! I bought some expensive pet store rabbit chew toys. But listening to advice from rabbitsonline, I placed cardboard boxes under the dining room table. They really love their boxes. The scoot them around, hop in them, crawl in them, and EAT them. As far as I know bunnies can eat some amount of clean paper with no harm. The cardboard boxes and oat hay have seemed to have pretty much put an end to maybe 95% of their chewing problems.