How to foil a jumper?

[Jenk]

Has anyone a clever method for detering a jumper?

This morning, a loud ruckus had me running to my big boy's room. I found him on the other side of his pen walls. From what I gather, he used his litter box as a launch pad and scaled over the NIC panel wall.

We have a 4-ft. x-pen wall that covers the room's "open" area and connected it to NIC panels (stacked two-high), which line two of the walls. The NIC panels are evenly spaced from the wall due to dowel rods that my hubby placed in the NIC panel feet. (The spacing method was designed to keep him from reaching the wall, as well as to keep him from scaling the wall. We figured that he hadn't enough room to do so. I guess that once he "perches" on the panels, though, his weight is enough to push the panels from the wall, allowing him to drop down on the other side.)

One trick that I might try is the tent method: attaching a small bit of cloth over the corner regions to make a sort of ceiling there.

Thanks,

Jenk

 

[Flashy]

I'd move his litter tray if you can and anything jumpable from or onto from either side of the barrier. Also maybe try to make it higher, but really, there is very little you can do, I have found.

 

[Jenk]

Flashy wrote:

I'd move his litter tray if you can and anything jumpable from or onto from either side of the barrier. Also maybe try to make it higher, but really, there is very little you can do, I have found.

Do you advocate moving it to the center of the pen? (I fear that if I moved it alongside the x-pan wall, he might still manage to escape.)

We'll likely add a third row of NIC panels as our next step....

 

[Flashy]

You have nothing to lose (other than his litter habits) by moving it to the middle, or even just a little bit further away from where it was to give a bit of a gap.

 

[Gordon]

Flashy wrote:

But really, there is very little you can do, I have found.

That's for sure. I have two little 4 1/2 pound mini-rex's, and while one couldn't care less about jumping, his brother is an athlete.

Good luck.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

what is it about the mini's? I've got two that had to be mountain goats in a previous life--also a netherland and holland lop that are climbers. try putting the litter box inside a cardboard box with the top all loose so it won't support either rabbit if they get on top. Cardboard at the top also makes a great addition to raise the height of the barricade. Good luck.

 

[Pet_Bunny]

My holland lop Bebe could jump 4' barriers too. I watched where and how she did it and changed my run so she couldn't do it any more. She was able to launch herself from a piece of carpet usedfor traction. I removed the carpets near the edge of the run so the ground was bare and slippery and that solved her jumping problems. I also moved her litter boxes away from the edge of the barriers, where she could stand in them to jump from. Over time Bebe just stopped trying to jump.