Lazy bunny

[Tom Horn]

I've got a male Rex rabbit named Louie. He's about 3 years old now.

I keep the door to his cage open all the time, but he seems disinclined to explore or come out & exercise. This is an improvement over when he first came to live with me (I found him hopping in the street; someone apparently abandoned him, and he was getting hungry & thirsty), when he used to find electrical cords to chew through (came close to naming him Sparky) & other stuff to destroy.

Lately he just eats or lies on the towels in his cage. He's getting fat.

He likes to be held, but only for so long; when I put him back on the floor, he scampers right back to his cage. I'll spread out the bedspread on my bed & put him up there; then he likes to hop around, try & find a place to dig, or flip around this set of metal measuring spoons on a ring (he topples over backwards with those sometimes).

So he's great as far as not causing problems--but I'm worried that he doesn't have enough fun or exercise enough.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

[tazz1227]

Hit Tom...I don't really have any suggestions for getting your bunny more active but I would appreciate if you can tell me how to calm mine down. How did you stop him from chewing. Mine do not chew on cords but they do chew on the baseboards and carpet.

[Tom Horn]

Tazz: Maybe I'm just lucky?

The bunny expert in this town looked Louie over for me when I rescued him, and her opinion was that he's just a very mellow little guy. He let her hold him on his back for nearly 15 minutes, which she said is pretty unusual. And he hasn't even been fixed--which I've been told usually adds up to a more aggressive little buck.

When he first came here, he chewed on all sorts of stuff (even nipping at me or my clothing from time to time). Now he's almost too lethargic. Which worries me.

I do have a cat (Ingrid) who will be 15 in October, and she acts kind of like his big sister. To my knowledge there has never been any conflict between them; she always gives ground, and neither one of them seems to realize that she's a potential predator (she's never been out, really) & he's potential prey. They smell each other's noses & say hello; when Ingrid talks to him, it's mostly like "You better not" or "I'm telling." So maybe she keeps him out of trouble? I'm not sure.

Sometimes Ingrid does act as though she thinks Louie is overly forward. When I spread out the bedspread & put him on the bed (not often enough--he needs more exercise), he hops around & tries to dig & plays with his spoons, and Ingrid watches him (sometimes on the bed with him) with an amazed expression like "That guy is nuts!" If he takes an interest in her, sometimes she'll hold still but sort of tense up & lean away; other times she'll bolt, like "No you don't!" So I can't tell exactly what they think of each other.

And I wish I could offer advice about how to calm your bunnies. Do you give them blocks of (untreated!) wood to chew on? Maybe if they get in the habit of "This is kosher/This isn't," it will help. On the other hand, you've got a pair, and they may one-up each other like teenagers.

[tazz1227]

Tom PLEASE!! I have given them wood, phonebooks, baby keys, and baskets to chew on. But they LOVE the carpet and baseboards. I was told it is their "baby" phase and I had some hope. Boy Boy had stopped chewing and then Girl Girl started chewing. I figured, wait out the phase with Girl Girl and I would be ok. But now Girl Girl has stopped chewing and Boy Boy has started AGAIN!! She is now about 7 pounds. They know what "NO" is but they try it anyway. Hopefully, they will grow out of it because I want some new carpet but not until they stop chewing.

[Tom Horn]

Man! They sound like kids!

Have you tried a bunny hotel? That's a good-sized carboard box inside another, with entrances cut so they can run in & out; kind of simulates a warren. Then they could chew on that if they liked.

Sounds as if you've already tried most other positive alternatives. May be time to go with a little behavior modification or negative feedback.

I'd be very careful about this--you don't want to use anything that would actually harm their little mouths or noses or eyes, or be toxic to them (and lots of stuff that won't bother us is toxic to rabbits)--but I believe that it may be possible to discourage them from chewing on the wrong thing with a judicious application of tabasco sauce or something to the baseboard or carpet edges. Supposedly they can learn pretty fast from a negative experience--especially if you offer them a fun alternative like the bunny hotel at the same time.

Be sure to get more exact advice on this; you may need to dilute the tabasco or use another product that they won't like. But if it tastes bad to them or they say "Ooh--that's too spicy! Where's my water bottle?" it may teach them pretty quickly that this is a bad thing to chew on.

Good luck!

[tazz1227]

Been there done that!! I brought them a castle that they love. http://www.bunnyluv.com/buncritcas.html But they love carpet and baseboards !! hee hee I have brought the "bitter" stuff and they lick it off. They like it. I even tasted it and it was SO NASTY!!! I am using a squirt bottle and they don't like that but they still chew when I am not looking.

[Karen]

Tom, I think you just need toys around that he likes - things that will make him WANT to exercise. Miss Hoppy (my avatar) also loves to play games with me. We play toreador - her invention - almost every morning - I wave my bathrobe, she charges and grunts and either dashes under or through or just at it. Just a few minutes of intense action, but hey, it's action!

Have you tried walking him on a harness? He sounds laid-back enough for it to maybe work. Miss Hoppy does NOT like the way the hanress ruffles her fur, so spends more time trying to adjust than actually making forward progress!

Think of games that he might enjoy ... he just sounds like a super-relaxed bunny. No WAY could anyone hold our bunny on her back at all unless she was under sedation or terrified, so we just don't do it!

[Tom Horn]

Yeah--guess I need to use my imagination.

We're not at a critical stage of his life where this is a firmly set pattern, but if it goes on very much longer like this, he could wind up being an obese non-responsive bunny. Which I'm sure would shorten his life.

Louie likes to be invited places: Like, maybe if I pay more attention to making his immediate environment fun & show him "Hey! Have a look at this, bro," he'll take more active interest. These days he gets upset if the cage door is closed; on the other hand, even with it open all the time, he rarely ventures out. And after I've held him & petted him a while, if I put him on the floor he scampers right back inside the cage.

He's pretty nervous on his back; I have to support his head, rub his ears & eyes to keep him still. Sometimes when I rub his eyes he does that tooth-clicking thing, which I'm told is a good sign. Then when I take my hands away, he flips back over onto his paws in a blur! Everybody laughs at that.

I check him for lesions on his belly & legs; he hasn't had any of those for about 18 months, but when he first came to live with me (he was an abandoned road-rescue bunny), he got those every few weeks. I don't know what caused those, but they always healed on their own just as fast as they had appeared.

Can you recommend a good kind of nail clipper? I've seen the ones where you put the nail through a hole & squeeze the blade oveer it. Louie does NOT like having his nails clipped, and it takes an extra pair of hands to try that with regular clippers without hurting him. He struggles quite a bit and I hate to do it.

[tazz1227]

I am afraid to cut the "kid's" nails. I take them to the vet and pay. My buns are still babies so they are not trained to sit still and Girl Girl is not having it when you try to pick her up. She loses her mind...Boy Boy will tolerate it for a little while but I would be afraid to cut her nails.

[Daisylover]

Wow, you guys have done a lot since I was on yesterday! This kind of interchange is so great.

Tom, does Louie have any loud gut noises? If so, that is probably GI statis can make a bunny lethargic and needs to be treat by a rabbit-specialist! vet ASAP. My instinct though is that you've got a real laid back guy just like your bunny expert suggested (my bunny knowledge is based on having 5 buns for about 6 yrs and I do extensive volunteering at a rabbit sanctuary
so I like to think I'm fairly knowledgeable!)
The boy needs toys...a lot of toys...you know what they say about men and their toys, heh-heh-heh!
www.busybunny.com and bunnybytes.com are good sites as is the infant section of any store that sells rattles, plastic keys on a ring, etc. Tazz' idea of a phone book is a good one as well. Does Louie have his own cardboard castle. My guys have resdesigned theirs...they added a doorwall, put in a picture window and taken down a non-load bearing wall. Also a concrete tube form from Home Depot or Loew's makes a great bunny tunnel for them to run through or sit in. The only problem with toys is that they have to be rotated because bunnies get bored very easily. Mine didn't show the slightest interest in any toys for a long time after I started buying them (I'm not sure they knew what to do with them); now they play with them all the time.
Another thought, he might need a companion bun but in that case everybody needs to be neutered. My buns have always had their own room, but still tend to snooze and relax in their cage anyways. It's a safety issue even when they know after all these years nothing scary is going to happen.
I was at a meeting of the Michigan Rabbit Rescue last weekend and they had this really cool laser light on a key-ring size thingy that when you shine the light on the buns toenails it lights up and you can see where the quick is. I'm just kicking myself because I didn't get the manufacturer name. But I'll see if I can come up with it and will share it with you all.
I also find the more I interact with my bunnies the more they interact with me, which makes sense I guess. But if I get busy for a couple of days and don't get on the floor with them, they get fickle and can't be bothered with me. They are such characters!!!
I don't have much else to suggest and I'm sure I didn't really tell you anything new. Congrat's on being concerned enough about Louie to contact POTD!!! Good luck!

[Daisylover]

Tom, it's a couple days later and when I was sitting ont he floor last night with by buns it occured to me that I didn't ask you Louie's age. I'm guessing you don't know since you found him, so best guess is he's 3-1/2-4 yrs, maybe older.
4 yrs is sort of middle-age for buns. Their life expectancy used to be estimated at 5 years but now that buns are getting improved nutrition and are living indoors, they are living longer some vets now say 7-10 yrs)....since he seems to be such a mellow guy I'm thinking he just wants to sit in front of the tv, drink beer and eat.
Seriously, if you are worried about him not getting enough exercise you might cut back on his food (please tell me he does NOT get pellets)to keep him slim and healthy that way.

(pellets are fattening, wayyy too high in calcium and usually alfalfa based..very much a no-no for rabbits....besides pellets can, if the bunny isn't feeling snappy, slow down the guy moving the food from one end to the other causing the G.I. stasis and can kill a rabbit within a day or two. My rabbit-specialist vet says if you have to give a bunny pellets it should be no more than 2 Tablespoons/day!)

Good luck!

[tazz1227]

Daisey, what are you supposed to feed them? Just hay? Kindda boring? I was going to ask abut that. My kids are getting FAT!! hee hee But they are so cute. But they eat pellets, hay, and at night I give them a bowl of veggies. Is that good? Oh...they also get a pice of apple or a carrot in the morning as a bribe so I can get dressed.

[Daisylover]

Tazz,
Somehow I posted my reply to you to a new thread...sorry about that. It's titled
The bad new is...or something close to it.

[Tom Horn]

Last night I looked closely at the ingredients in Louie's pellets (of which I feed him not quite a cup a day, to supplememnt his mainstay of Timothy hay).

They're Kay-Tee pellets with about 30 ingredients, beginning with alfalfa, but including wheat and a bunch of other stuff, working its way down to trace amounts of salt, etc. I know that overreliance on alfalfa is detrimental, but aside from pellets & Timothy hay (as opposed to alfalfa hay), what am I supposed to feed the little guy?

Thanks!

[tazz1227]

That's my question, what am I supposed to feed the kids?