Rabbit is a great companion for any age and most people choose rabbit since it’s a cute and active pet. It loves to hop here and there, runs around your garden, and bunches of other cute stuffs. But then, those are so much they can do and they will get bored after weeks of unchanging routines and that’s not good for your bouncy buddy. But here, we will give you some tricks of how to keep your hopping friend busy and entertained at home even when you’re not around. These are 7 useful tips to make your rabbit busy at home, and with these tips you will have a happy and healthy bunny hopping restlessly around you!
Why we need to make rabbit busy at home?
Rabbit is a social-type and energetic animal, and it’s really important to keep them always moving and hopping around. If they have less activities than normal, it may results into a boredom, which will make rabbit does unusual behavior, such as over-biting and scratching things, attacking things and become aggressive, or in some other case, caused to a lazy, unmoving bunny which is bad for its health. So that’s why we need to keep them busy around the house once you decided to have one. And here below, are 7 useful tips to make your rabbit busy at home.
1. Set spacious space
Rabbit tends to jump and explore its surroundings, since its nature as an explorer. That’s why you have to prepare a good space with enough depth for them to explore and dig around. A minimum space that you should prepare is at least four feet long and two feet wide with two feet deep for a single rabbit. And also, you need to make sure that the soil on the space is friendly enough for it to dig. Of course you don’t want your beloved buddy to get hurt during its playtime, do you?
If you have plants around the lawn and you want to keep them save from your bunny’s adventurous digging, you can set wooden fences around your plants and make sure it reaches 40 cm deep under the ground to make sure that your bunny can’t access your plants by jumping over the fence or digging under the fence.
If the weather is not good enough for your rabbit to play outside, you can fill the bottom of its cage filled with some wood pulp or other organic litter materials. So that they still able to rummage around and not fall into boredom.
2. Prepare ‘hidden surprise’
You know rabbit loves digging around. They will dig to make their safe spots, to find foods, or just for fun. You can combine the last two together to increase their excitement. You can hide some of your bunny’s favorite treats somewhere around your lawn, and let it sniff and dig around to find them! It will keep them happy and busy so they won’t get bored since they will let their explorer side to keep finding more good treats. Besides, it will also keep them in shape and not being an overweighed bunny, that’s a big no-no.
Or again, if the weather is unfriendly for your bunny, you can just hide their treats at some corners inside your house. But one thing that you must take note is make sure that the corner is free from any electrical stuffs and sources and also from any wooden furniture. You don’t a want to find unpretty scratches and bite marks on your beloved stuffs, do you?
3. Make safe homemade toys
Rabbit’s teeth and claws are keep growing every single day, it even could grow until 2 mm long each day! That may be turned into a disaster if they keep on growing and there’s no things for your bunny to scratch and bite around. To avoid this disaster, you can make some safe homemade toys from unused cardboard. This is one of the useful tips to make your rabbit busy at home. It could be an empty box with hole on its side to let them hop inside, or you just put the cardboard on the floor and let them scratch it.
Another good alternative is to have their bowl filled by healthy snacks like lettuces, apples, berries, and even melons. Or, you can hang some small piece of carrot and let them bite to keep its teeth on appropriate length. With that, your bunny doesn’t have to worry about going to vet due to teeth and claws problems!
4. Create a playground
As mentioned before, a fair space for rabbit is important to keep them entertained. But having a flat, grass-only field will also make your bunny bored at some point. You can gradually make some slopes or small hills at the corner of your lawn, and even modify them after few weeks. It doesn’t have to be big but you can make it different for every few weeks and you don’t have to worry about a bored hopping ball of furry at your home!
5. Train to use a litter tray
Having a bunny at your house might be fun and entertaining, but it will turn into disaster if your bunny decided to leave some unpleasant droppings around your house. To avoid that, you can train them to use their litter tray, by put its dung into the tray so your bunny will learn that the tray is the spot to do its business. It might need time until they understand fully the purpose of the tray, but once you get your bunny to do its business properly, you’ll have a clean house plus a happy bunny around!
6. Spare some time to play together
We do understand that you may have your own routines outside taking care of your beloved bunny but having a special time with your hopping buddy is also important once you have decided to have one. Rabbit is a social animal, and it loves to get some attention from those who loves this particular cute pet. You can spend your weekend with your bunny by petting it, playing together, giving its favorite treats, and much more. You don’t have to do something tiring with your bunny, just be there with it and shower it with your love and affection.
7. Gives different toys
Just like us, bunny tends to get bored over the same stuffs around them, including toys. As mentioned above, just having cardboard as their toys might lead them into boredom after few weeks playing with it. So, it’s important to change their toys regularly after a week or two. You can change it with willow ball or make a set of tunnels for them to explore. You also need to make sure to wash its toys thoroughly with safe detergent to keep it clean, so you don’t have to worry about infected toys for your bunny.
So those are 7 useful tips to make your rabbit busy at home, please do keep in mind that there are more ways to keep your bouncing buddy entertained, but if you do those tips above thoroughly, you can have a happy and healthy bunny with minimum budget! Hope the information is helpful for you, bunny-lovers!