Bunny biting blanket!!

[Arloismybunny]

I got Arlo on March 7! He’s only 2 months old. Recently I bought him a fleece blanket from ikea. I put it in his playpen and he instantly began to dig and bite at it. I can’t tell if he’s just biting at it or actually ingesting some of the material. Would it be bad if he were to ingest some of the fleece? Should I remove it from the playpen? Obviously I wasn’t planning on keeping it in there unsupervised.

 

[JBun]

It's pretty normal behavior. Rabbits love to dig, bite at, and rearrange blankets. It kind of is them mimicking digging and moving dirt and foliage around. Often though, blankets end up getting used as a toilet. A lot of rabbits tend to like to pee on soft things. So watch out for that.

Usually fleece is considered the safest fabric to use with rabbits because if any does get ingested, it's short small fibers and not strings. You'll probably start seeing tears and rips in the fabric which is usually not a problem unless they're big enough to get a foot tangled in there. But if you start seeing chucks missing from the fabric, then you may need to remove it, as it could mean pieces are getting ingested. An alternative to a blanket for digging, is creating a dig box. So if you have to remove the blanket, a dig box might be worth trying next.

 

[peanutdabunny]

I got Arlo on March 7! He’s only 2 months old. Recently I bought him a fleece blanket from ikea. I put it in his playpen and he instantly began to dig and bite at it. I can’t tell if he’s just biting at it or actually ingesting some of the material. Would it be bad if he were to ingest some of the fleece? Should I remove it from the playpen? Obviously I wasn’t planning on keeping it in there unsupervised.

You should make a dig box or get a timothy or seagrass mat where he digs the most so he digs the mat instead of the blanket

 

[ArtistChibi]

I got Tu Shen a 6 pack of fleece blankets for pets. He LOVES digging at it. Plus my daughter's old purple fleece blanket. Another safe bet, besides a dig box, could be one of those Timothy hay tunnels from Oxbow. Like this one: Amazon.com : Oxbow Animal Health Timothy Hay Tunnel : Timothy Hay Tunnel : Pet Supplies
Shen loves digging at his sea grass mats, too.

 

[Arloismybunny]

You should make a dig box or get a timothy or seagrass mat where he digs the most so he digs the mat instead of the blanket

He does have a Timothy hat mat from Oxbow that he adores!! It’s not very big but I put in it the corner that he likes to chew the pee pads at