There are many ways to house your bun indoors, but if you’ve decided to give them free roam, you’ll need to think about rabbit proofing your house. While bunnies are very cute, they can also be very destructive, and you might find your house upturned by digging and chewing from your favorite furry friend!
Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which you can bunny proof your home so your rabbit can have a safe space to live.
Check Your Home
Before you start rabbit proofing a room or your entire house, you’ll need to give your home a good inspection for things that could be dangerous to your rabbit. To do this, it’s best to get down on your hands and knees and do some real searching, just as if you were a bunny!
Bunnies like to dig and chew, and they really can get into anything! Look for any uncovered wires, areas of uncovered carpet, furniture they could hide under, dangerous houseplants, accessible cleaning products, books and paper, and appliances. All of these objects and areas could be potentially dangerous to your rabbit, and cause a huge mess.
Once you’ve found these potential hazardous areas, it’s time to learn how to make them bunny proof.
Bunny-Proof Wires
Bunnies have a tendency to chew through wires, and they can do it in the blink of an eye. This comes from their natural digging and chewing instincts and, not only can it be annoying to have your headphones chewed through, it can also be dangerous if your bun chews through something electrical that is plugged in.
The best way to prevent your rabbit from chewing through wires is to keep all your wires in one or two places, and then block those areas off. For example, if you have a lot of wires around your TV, keep that area blocked off by furniture or a little fence. Another easy option is to raise wires off the ground, so your bun can’t reach them.
If neither of these options work for you, or you have some exposed wires that can’t be moved or blocked, covering the wire with plastic split loom tubing is your next best option. This is a thick tube that your rabbit will find much more difficult to chew into.
Although they may still bite into it, it will take them much longer to get through the thicker tubing. This gives you time to notice what your rabbit is doing and replace the tubing if needed.
Bunny-Proof Baseboards
You may find your rabbit has taken to nibbling at your baseboards. Rabbit teeth are constantly growing, so rabbits chew on things to wear them down. Hay is the best for this, but you may find your bun finds other things to file down their teeth!
You can use a flexible cat scratcher mat that can be attached to the wall using command hooks to prevent your bunny from chewing on the baseboards. You can also use these mats on other bits of furniture, such as table legs.
Some bunny owners like to attach extra wood to their baseboard to prevent their bun from gnawing at it. This can be a great option for those who like a bit of DIY, but not such a great option for those who live in rented spaces.
Another simple option is to block your rabbit’s access to the baseboards with furniture, or create a perimeter around the room with DIY storage cubes. A bitter apple spray can also be used as a deterrent to bunnies chewing on things they shouldn’t.
Ensuring your rabbit has lots of chew toys can also prevent them for chewing on baseboards.
Bunny-Proof Carpet
Rabbits have natural digging and burrowing instincts. You may find that your rabbit loves to dig at your carpet, particularly in the corners of a room or around the doors. While you can’t prevent this behavior (it is completely natural and hard-wired into their brains!), you can put measures in place to stop your carpet being ruined!
The easiest solution is keep your rabbit in areas of the house that have hardwood floors. You can place rugs down in certain areas that you won’t mind your rabbit digging at, so they still get to use their natural instincts without ruining anything too precious.
However, if carpet is your only option, this doesn’t help much. The best thing to do is to put something down to cover the carpet, particularly in the corners of the room. Plastic mats are a great option because they don’t cost too much and are very durable.
Bunny-Proof Furniture
Although you have managed to stop your bunny digging at corners of the carpet, your work might not be done just yet. Rabbits are burrowing animals, and they will often burrow their way under furniture, such as beds, couches and armchairs, to build a “den”. This means they’ll scratch and dig away at the carpet underneath this furniture to mimic their life in their wild.
The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to block off the area underneath any furniture, which you can do with storage cube fencing or other wire.
Another way to fix this problem is to place down rubber mats underneath any of the furniture, like with carpets in the corner on a room. This is great for areas where you don’t want visible fencing around all your furniture. You can also use cardboard as a cheaper option, but bunnies can dig through this pretty quickly so you’ll need to change it relatively often.
Bunny-Proof Houseplants and Dangerous Chemicals
It’s no secret that rabbits are curious and inquisitive little animals, so they won’t be afraid to go searching through anything that is left out that they can access. Make sure any houseplants they can reach and snack on are not dangerous or poisonous to rabbits. Despite popular belief, rabbits do not always know which plants are safe for them to eat.
You should also ensure that cleaning products, candles and human food are kept out of reach. Your bun could easily ingest something they shouldn’t when not being supervised. The best way to do this is to place anything dangerous in cupboards and make sure your rabbit isn’t smart enough to open the doors!
Bunny-Proof Any Books and Paper
Rabbits are lovers of tearing up paper, and this extends to books. If you’ve got a bookshelf or have books on coffee tables, you might want to think about relocating the ones you really care about.
For books on a book shelf, place the ones you need regularly high up the bookshelf. The others can be placed in plastic tubs and put back on the bookshelf. Don’t forget that rabbits are tall when they stand on their hind legs, so make sure any that are uncovered are placed high enough!
It is also not a good idea to leave important papers lying around. Whether they are paperwork for your company or your homework, you’ll want to hide them from your bun otherwise you might find them shredded!
Bunny-Proof Appliances
Not only is it important for you to cover wires when you’ve got a rabbit on the loose, but certain appliances in themselves can be dangerous to rabbits. For example, their ears or whiskers might get trapped in a fan, or they might get burnt by a heater.
Bunnies can be clumsy, too, so they might knock over an appliance that has been left switched on, and cause a fire.
To prevent this, place any appliances that could hurt your rabbit out of their reach. You should also make sure your rabbit isn’t left alone with appliances like space heaters, as this could cause serious damage.
Bunny-Proof Whole Areas
If there are certain areas of your house in which you don’t want your bunny in at all, perhaps because it is too difficult to make a safe space for them, then you can block these rooms off.
To do this, we recommend you use a baby-gate. Make sure the baby-gate is made of metal, not plastic, so your rabbit can’t chew through it, and ensure the slats aren’t too far apart that they can slip through! You should also watch out for the height — rabbits can jump as high as 36 inches.
Another way to isolate your bun from hazardous areas is with a puppy-pen. These come in lots of different shapes and sizes and can give your rabbit plenty of room to move around without you having to keep an eye on them all the time.
Other Ways To Rabbit Proof Your Home
Your bunny tends to dig and chew because these are their natural instincts and what they would be doing in the wild. Aside from bunny proofing your home, there are a few other options to help prevent your rabbit from causing too much disruption to your interiors.
Distract Your Rabbit
If your rabbit is fond of chewing and digging, giving them some toys to play with is one of the best ways to keep them away from wires, furniture and baseboards. Chew toys will not only keep them entertained, but will also help to wear down their teeth. Tunnels are also a good choice, because they allow your bunny to “burrow”.
You can make your own toys out of cardboard boxes and toilet roll tubes. A digging box is also a great option for those buns that love to dig. This is a box (big enough to fit your rabbit, either cardboard or plastic), filled with shredded paper and chew toys.
Allow Them Time Outside
If you can, giving your rabbit time outside in your yard or garden is another great way to stop them from digging and chewing their way through your home! If they can dig and chew outside instead, they might have less need to do it inside your house.
