Help

[brittanyjean15]

My name is Brittany. I have a lop eared bunny under 1 years old. Ive had her since she was 6 weeks. I researched rabbits before I bought her, but I guess no amount of research can really compare. I have a lot of other pets in my house because Im still living at home, so she isnt free to just run around anywhere. She lets me take her out of her cage, and pet her, but putting her back is a major problem. Im torn, I have thought about giving her away, but I do like her. I just need help.

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

Try giving her a treat or her food when you have to put her back. Usually, you should be able to open the bag or dish out the food and she should come in pretty quick.
You can also try walking behind her and sort of herding her into the cage. You can use the cage door (depends on the cage) or other things to block off escape routes.
It can also be beneficial to teach her a word that you can use to get her back into the cage. This could be something like Go to bed or Go home. Follow it with a treat and some praise when she goes it, rabbits are pretty smart so she should catch on quickly.
Make her cage somewhere that she wants to be. Make sure to feed her and give any treats in the cage. Having the litter box in there is also good so if she needs to pee, she can do that in the cage. If she is comfortable in the cage, she will spend time in it even if she can be out.
It is also a good idea to have the cage so she can go into it when she wants. Some rabbits don't like to have to be picked up to go into the cage. They can also associate being picked up when they are out to going back into the cage. Since that means play time is over, they will want to avoid it. Letting them come and go as they want definitely helps. You may need to build a ramp or some stairs for her to use.

Just keep working with her, it can take some time for her to be more comfortable going back into the cage.

 

[Kizza]

Are you thinking about giving her away because she wont go back in her cage or because she doesn't get much 'out' time?

It is very important for bunnies to run a round and get some exercise, if she isnt getting enough this might be why she doesnt want to go in. If her cage is small she might not want to go in there either.

Can you bunny proof your room and let her run around in there? to can you put up a cage in your yard for her to play in?

If this isnt the problem just try to train her to go in with bribes of food and such lol

 

[pamnock]

You may also want to give her a smaller run area so that getting her back into the cage less stressful.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

:yeahthat:

 

[brittanyjean5]

Thank you everyone! I will definitely bunny proof my room and make more of an effort to bond and spend time with her. She is adorable and she's a sweet girl, I'd hate to have to give her away!

 

[bunnylove7782]

Hi everyone,

We have 2 little cute bunnies with us.They really love being outside the cage.However the problem is they pee and poop all over,coz of which letting them outside is a bit of a concern. We need some tips on how to make them use their litter tray .Plz help!!

 

[gentle giants]

brittanyjean5 wrote:

Thank you everyone! I will definitely bunny proof my room and make more of an effort to bond and spend time with her. She is adorable and she's a sweet girl, I'd hate to have to give her away!

What I do with mine is to let her out to have her run time about two hours or so before her usual feeding time. Then when I want her to go back in, I rattle the feed scoop and let her see me pouring the feed into her dish, she runs right back in to eat and I close the door. I only had to do that a few times before she learned the routine. Now as soon as she sees me opening the feed bucket she runs right into her pen and waits for her feed.

 

[gentle giants]

bunnylove7782 wrote:

Hi everyone,

We have 2 little cute bunnies with us.They really love being outside the cage.However the problem is they pee and poop all over,coz of which letting them outside is a bit of a concern. We need some tips on how to make them use their litter tray .Plz help!!

Bunnylove, I can give you a couple of tips here, but the best way to get replies is to start a new topic asking for littertraining help.

First of all, are your two bunnies still babies? If so, they will take a little while to get completely trained, just like human babies. To start them potty training, take note of where in their cage they go pee the most. Since you have two, that may be in two different places, but anyway. Get a small litterpan, or two if they have two favorite potty places. Put in clean litter, and put some of their poos and some pee soaked litter as well, and put the litterpans in their potty places. Then keep them in their cages for a couple of days until they are using the pans fairly consistently. When you let them out again, let them out only in a small area where they can always get back into their cage to pee. You can gradually widen the area where you let them out to play as they get better at using the litterpans.

On a side note, do you know for sure that both of your bunnies are either boys or girls? Please do not trust the word of a pet store employee on that either, they almost never have any clue how to tell. If an experienced rabbit person has sexed them for you, you should be fine, but please know that rabbits can breed as young as four/five months old and you will not have any idea your bunny is pregnant until you see babies. It only takes ten seconds for bunnies to breed, and they will mate again within 72 hours of giving birth.