Naturally, rabbits love to dig and chew on stuff. It's very normal!
Unfortunately, the things around your home are no exception when it comes to their chewing needs. This makes them destructive when moving around your home unsupervised.
Aside from ruining your valuable furniture and possessions, your bunny can also get hurt. Hence, this is why you must bunny-proof your house if you want a free-roaming bunny.
Keep reading as we discuss bunny proofing and the different ways to do it in detail.
Bunny proofing is an essential part of rabbit care. And the purpose is to keep your rabbit safe from harm and protect the valuable properties around your home.
In addition, bunny-proofing helps bunnies use their instincts in productive ways. This equally means providing your rabbit with chewing and digging alternatives that are pretty fun.
If all this isn't in place, then your bunny can't roam freely around your home. For this reason, bunny-proofing is very important as long as you have your bunny living indoors with you.
Are you a new bunny owner? If yes, make sure you check out our Complete Bunny Guide!
Bunnies love chewing on things, and it’s a natural behavior. Wires just look like roots bunnies are used to chewing on in the wild.
So this is what every bunny can do and not a bad behavior your bunny developed. Besides worrying about your bunny destroying wires, you should worry more about the risks to your pet.
Wires are toxic to rabbits when they chew them. In addition to this, if a rabbit chews through a live wire, things can be fatal.
Hence, if you have a house rabbit that will often allow it to roam free around your home, you need to cover the wires. Here are ways to do this:
If you have many wires littering around your home, keep them in drawers, boxes, or any container your bunny can’t reach.
Alternatively, you can keep wires high above the floor level. This applies to cables and wires of your TV and other electronics that are normally on the ground.
Do this by clipping or fixing the wires on the walls – a height your rabbit cannot reach. It’s equally important that you make sure no structures are close by which your bunny can hop on to get to the wires.
If you have rooms in your home with a lot of unprotected wires, just block off the entrance to the room using metal baby gates. This way, your rabbit can have access to the room.
Another way to prevent your rabbit from chewing wires is to cover them with wire tubing. Instead of blocking off areas with wires or keeping wires out of your rabbit’s reach, you can use wire tubing to cover wires.
Amazingly, this method protects your wires pretty well. These wire tubes are thick, making rabbits less likely to bite them.
Additionally, if your rabbit is determined to chew through the tubes, it will be hard to get to the wires. This difficulty can help you catch your rabbit in the act on time.
Bunnies in the wild do a lot of burrowing! And this equally involves a lot of digging, which has become a natural rabbit instinct.
At home, they will try to dig and chew through surfaces like your carpet and rugs. No doubt, this behavior is destructive. Unfortunately, you can’t end a rabbit’s digging habit.
However, you can prevent your rabbit from destroying your carpet. Cover the carets first before you allow your bunny to free roam, particularly in carpeted areas.
Your main target should be doorways and corners of the room. These areas are common digging spots for bunnies. It’s ideal to use plastic mats to do this.
They are durable and are very effective in keeping bunnies from chewing the carpet. But without these plastic mats, you can use old cardboard boxes or bath mats.
Bunnies will also chew on the baseboards in your house (if you have them). Like hay and chew toys, baseboards are chewy and can help a rabbit control its ever-growing teeth.
Moreover, baseboards aren’t the structures you would like to see destroyed. To prevent this, you need to also bunny-proof them.
As long as your rabbit will be roaming free indoors, baseboard protection is important, and here are ways to do it:
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An effective way to bunny-proof baseboards at home is to cover them with cat scratcher mats. Of course, you don’t need to cover every part of a baseboard.
Just protect the areas your rabbit can easily reach. Do this by fixing them to the wall (one that has baseboards).
Moreover, it’s ideal to use flexible cat scratcher mats for baseboard protection. This flexibility helps to cover baseboards around corners of the rooms and doorways.
In addition, these scratcher mats must be flexible and thick enough to prevent your rabbit from getting to the baseboards.
Thin cat scratcher mats can be disappointing. Rabbits can easily chew through them and get to the baseboards.
Now, using wooden planks to bunny-proof baseboards is pretty effective. Here, you’ll have to attach wooden planks to the baseboards in your house. Though it requires some skill, it’s a solution that can last for ages.
However, not everyone can do this, especially if you live in rented apartments, where that’s against making such modifications. In such cases, cardboard boxes can come in handy.
You only have to flatten them up and cover the walls like you use scratcher mats. Nevertheless, this alternative might not be that good-looking.
Fences can also help protect your baseboards from your rabbit. This method involves fencing the perimeter of your room – it should reach all the sides and edges of a room.
It serves as a blockage and prevents your rabbit from chewing on baseboards. Furthermore, you can build a protective fence out of storage cubes.
Get many storage cubes and link them up to form a fence. The fence should be able to cover the perimeter of the room where your rabbit will be free-roaming.
Funnily, you can protect your baseboards with butter apple spray. However, they fade off quickly, requiring you to spray them frequently.
In addition, the bitter taste will keep your rabbit from chewing on the baseboards.
Pro Tip:
It’s very easy to prepare a bitter apple spray at home. Do this by mixing 2 cups of apple cider and a cup of normal white vinegar.
Afterward, shake the mixture thoroughly and pour it into a spray bottle. That’s all it takes!
Another area in your home you will need to protect from your rabbit is the space below furniture. These spots are possible nesting areas for rabbits.
And when your rabbit finds such areas, it can start digging carpets or rugs under the furniture. Moreover, you might not notice it easily due to the spot where it happens. Hence, you need to prevent this on time.
Whether it’s a bed, sofa, or any other furniture with legs, block the spaces under them. A DIY storage cube fencing can come in very handy here.
Get a couple of these fencing panels that cover the furniture you want to be bunny-proof. Afterward, link them up together with zip ties.
Once you’re done creating a fence, fix it to the furniture to ensure your rabbit can access the space beneath it.
If you dislike blocking your furniture with fences, you can cover the rugs or carpet beneath them with plastic mats. It’s an effective solution to prevent your rabbit from damaging the carpet or rug under furniture.
In the absence of plastic mats, you can use cardboard boxes. Just flatten them and place them underneath the furniture legs.
However, this alternative requires you to change the cardboard occasionally. Rabbits can chew through cardboard until they get to the rug or carpet.
If you have houseplants in your home, rabbits can start to chew or eat them and destroy them. In addition, some houseplants in your home might be toxic to bunnies.
Hence, keep your houseplants out of your rabbit's reach, especially on high surfaces. Alternatively, you can keep them hanging from the ceiling.
Above all, the best way to go about this is to restrict areas with houseplants from your rabbits. Even if you keep toxic houseplants to bunnies high above the ground, their leaves can fall off, and your bunny can eat them.
It’s not new to say that rabbits love chewing and shredding paper. Bunnies will happily hop on the shelves or areas with books they can reach.
They’ll then take out books and papers only to rip them apart. So, if you have a bookshelf or library at home, you should restrict your rabbits from getting close to them.
What’s more, you can block the entrance of your library room using baby gates or any other suitable blockage.
If you have a pet bunny staying indoors, you must be very careful of the items you keep around your home. No doubt, many objects in your home can harm your bunnies.
These items include appliances, sharp tools, chemical-based products, and other materials that can hurt your bunny. It can also be food items that are unsafe for bunnies.
To proof your home, you must keep your bunny safe from these items. It’s either you block off your rabbit's access to them or keep them in places your rabbits cannot reach them.
When you let your rabbit out of its enclosure, ensure they don’t stay with other pets. Bigger pets like dogs and cats can hurt your bunny. And this can be unintentional in most cases.
Even if these pets are friendly or well-trained, they are still dangerous anywhere near your bunny. You should let your bunny roam alone or with another house rabbit in a separate area. Your dog or cat can roam freely in other parts of your home.
First, you’ve taken care of things in your house that your rabbit can destroy and could hurt them. Good job! It’s time to keep our furry friend’s attention away from where you distract your bunny.
Naturally, rabbits love to dig and chew stuff. It’s impossible to make them stop! However, you can give them safer alternatives to keep them busy and prevent them from destroying your properties. Let’s look at these elements of distractions for your rabbit below:
Among all the categories of rabbit toys, chew toys are the most important ones! They offer your rabbit more productive ways to use their chewing instincts.
Some examples of chew toys for rabbits include hay balls, toilet paper rolls, sticks, and wooden toys. Additionally, you can get in stores.
However, you can get creative and make chew toys for your rabbit with simple household items.
Owing to a rabbit’s digging needs, you should also give them something to dig to their satisfaction. Get a cardboard box or basket that contains your house rabbit and allow it to dig freely.
Afterward, fill the box with shredded paper, crumpled-up papers, toys, and treats. Let them have fun digging in these boxes while you prevent them from digging through your carpets and rugs in your room.
To sum up, you now know what rabbit proofing is all about and the need to do it. Remember that bunny-proofing keeps your home as well as your rabbit safe.
So, if it's your first time owning a rabbit, it's ideal to bunny-proof your home before letting your pet out of its cage. Certainly, this article has revealed the different ways to do this.
Don't go without checking our 9 Amazing Rabbit Facts!
Credit for the featured image here: Keith Survell
