How To Stop Your Rabbit Eating Your House
Tazzee asks "How do I get my rabbit to stop chewing on the sofa and on my presents?"
Good question, Tazzee, and a problem that many rabbit owners face when they keep their rabbits indoors. First of all, good for you for making your bunny an indoor bunny, your rabbit will be much happier and healthier in the long run because of it.
Having a bunny living inside can be challenging though, because rabbits love to chew, and houses have a lot of things for them to chew on. If you have not done this already, you should be confining your rabbit to just one room. It's not safe for a rabbit to have free range of the whole house, all sorts of things could happen. Bunny could escape, be stood on, or chew something dangerous, like an electrical cord.
Once you've chosen a single room for bunny to live in, you must then 'bunny-proof' it. This is like baby proofing, but for bunnies! Bunny-proofing means removing any objects that the bunny can easily chew on that you don't want eaten. This should include electrical cords (rabbits love to chew on electrical cords, but it is very dangerous for them to do so,) and also any house plants that you might have.
Now, this covers the basics, but in many cases there are things in the room that you can't move that you don't want eaten. These include couches, beds, desks, tables and other items of furniture. There are two ways to approach the problem of an indoor rabbit that chews on furniture. The first thing you should do is make sure that the rabbit has things it is allowed to chew on. Rabbits need to chew in order to wear down their teeth and stay healthy, it also makes them happy to chew things. You can buy chew toys for rabbits, and if you have a problem chewer, I advise that you do get your bunny some toys to play with. Some rabbits will also enjoy a cardboard box. If you tape one end shut, and put the box on its side, the bunny can hop in and start to chew a hole through the back of the box. As long as the bunny is not eating the cardboard, that is perfectly safe.
The bad news is that some bunnies, no matter how many toys they have, will still want to chew the furniture. They're not trying to be bad, it's just what their little bunny brains tell them they should do. If you want to save yourself and your rabbit pain and heartache, just use some kind of divider or playpen to keep your bunny away from the furniture. Prevention is the best kind of cure.
