To keep the rabbits in the house?

[frostedviolets]

It’s been years since I had rabbits (outdoor), have agreed to let DD (6) have some pet rabbits and yes, I am aware it will be me and DH looking after them and yes, I have had rabbits before and know how to care for them.

I see on Mumsnet a lot of people have house rabbits and I love the idea but I am curious about how it can actually work?

For example, how do you stop chewing them everything in the house?

Can you really litter train them?

I would prefer to have them living in the house rather than outside but anxious about my house!

We've had a bunnie for 10+ years (lost count). She has a large shallow bottomed tray/cage in the hall (full of clean sawdust) for nights in the summer and day and nights in the winter. Here everyone can see her, talk to her, give carrots and titbits to her every time they come in or out of the living room.

During warm days she is outside on the lawn in her run. The run is a metal guinea pig pen with linked panels so you can change the size/shape of the run. We move it round regularly so she gets a fresh bit of lawn each time. Within this we put a covered cat litter tray (never been used as a litter tray it's just for bun) full of clean hay to nest in. It makes a perfect house for her (we've taken off the flap) protects her from drafts and damp and she can snuggle in it for a nap when she's fed up with nibbling the grass. She jumps into it at going-in-time (she knows when you've come to get her in) and you just pick it up by the handle and carry her back into the house. No chasing round the pen here! Over the whole pen we place a large sheet of ply wood to keep any rain showers off. We keep it on at night even though she's not in the pen in case it rains so it keeps that patch of grass dry for her for when she comes out the next day. (! the things we do) These last few years we don't put her out unless its a proper nice day cos she's getting elderly, but in the past when she was younger she would prefer to be out if at all poss. even for a couple of hours. These days she dozes till mid morning in the hall and then asks to go out. I wait for her signal, and if it's nice out i take her

Incidentally on the poo/wee front: She always poos and wees in one corner of her indoor house and never poos or wees in her 'hay house' carrier but instead chooses a corner of the grass and keeps it all in one place.

What a bloody ramble. sorry!

We've never had her try to dig while on the grass. The out door pen is about .... 7 ft square. (Although it's rarely properly square as it's got 8 sides) It's tall enough so she can fully stretch up in it too if she goes on her hind legs. (to ask for Dandilions)

I'd like to add (in case anyone is still awake) that she was meant to be a dwarf lop. But clearly no one told her and she is MASSIVE! Properly heavy. Grey and white with a little 'wig' of long hair on top between her ears. Bless :)

This is a really good site OP, with some inspiration for setups:

forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?327753-Outdoor-Housing&p=5207978&viewfull=1#post5207978

My friend has some...that I bunny sit for, they have free reign of the house and the garden through the day and the cat flap locks them inside at night.

She’s had a few like that now - she started with a pair and one died, so she got another from a rescue and so on... so only 2 at a time, but it’s been 6 total.

They’ve never seemed to try to dig out the garden, the do dig, but usually just where the soil is loose anyway.

Cables are all protected and hidden... they still sometimes get them. They also chew furniture where you don’t notice it, so you pull out a couch and the back gives way, rofl.

Litter training, they just seem to use them - though her downstairs doesn’t have carpet and they’re not upstairs much, because they get told to come back down to stop them stealing the cat’s dry food.

I find they make more superficial mess than cats or dogs (the pets I usually have) hay gets places, they randomly throw things on the floor from the couch - but they don’t wear out flirting or trash furniture in the same way.

Unless of course you get a really chewy one, but then some puppies are like that - only it’s not the back of couches that puppies chew, or cats scratch at.

We have a house bunny. I wouldn’t be without him BUT yes, prepare yourself for destruction, mess and massive vet bills. I would find out why your DD is keen on getting a rabbit because a lot of rabbits won’t tolerate being picked up and cuddled. If you do go ahead and decide to house them outside please don’t get a hutch. Rabbits are really active at night as well as during the day and hutches are never big enough.
Sorry that all sounds really negative! They are brilliant. Ours is a little weirdo - litter trained and incredibly cuddly when it’s on his terms and only eats phone charging cables (!). But so many people take them on without knowing what they might be getting into!

Rabbit should be considered exotic pets, they are hard creatures to care for properly. To be completely honest they aren’t a good pet for a 6 year old, they hate being picked up bring a prey animal.

I’ve got two in the house just now in a huge run in the playroom, they have chewed the sofa and the curtains oh and cables. We got 2 sisters but one died last year from git status despite 3 trips to the vets, we then rehomed a rescue boy and it was hard bonding the two together, they now love each other and snuggle together and they are very cute together.

The DDs (who I got them for) don’t really bother with them it’s me who does the feeding and cleaning out which I don’t mind as I grew up with bunnies.

A cat is a much better pet IMVHO.

I've had two house rabbits and from my limited experience they choose pretty much the same place to poo so you just out a litter tray there it's great having them in the house you get to know them so much better
We had a small hutch for them for at night or if we went out
We bought reinforced plastic for putting around wires and used a deterrent spray for wherever they chewed and it worked pretty well
It's like having a wee dog in the house do it you won't regret it 🐰 ❤️❤️

DH seems quite keen for them to be indoors..
Confined to their cage first until litter trained and gradually given more freedom until they have the run of the downstairs.
I am still a little cautious.

To clarify some of the posts about research, kids, prey animal etc.
I am aware they are easily frightened, prone to heart attack, don’t typically like being picked up etc etc.
I have had had rabbits before, just not as indoor pets.

We have a small cat who DD doesn’t pick up and a dog who doesn’t get picked up, not that you’d be able to easily she’s quite large, we’ve had chickens who again were never picked up and when DD was 5 we had mice who were handled by her (with supervision) and are far more fragile than a rabbit.
So I don’t have any concerns really with my DD and rabbits.

My only real concern is my house.
I am houseproud and don’t want chewed up skirting boards, trunking etc

In fact thinking about it, I think DD was 4 when we had mice.
Point I’m trying to make us I’m not worried about her harassing and scaring or hurting the rabbits.

We had one as a child who just moved in with us after a few months and when it became clear that he would only go on the floor next to our loo. My mother just put newspaper down. I don't remember much chewing but this was back in the 70s/80s and I guess there were fewer wires, everything was unplugged at night and we could rewire a plug. He would play outside freely too if we were around. Will your rabbits be safe with a dog and a cat? I think they would need to be caged at least initially when you are not fully supervising them.

Houseproud + house rabbits = good luck! And you may indeed get lucky, but it's quite a chance.

That said, I doubt you can ever get so close to a rabbit as you do when it's living right there with you.

Somebody mentioned massive vet bills. I have prepared the following breakdown of our costs to date.

What happens if you get rabbits, and, like mine, they don't become littertrained? You really can't keep them confined to a cage, that's no life at all.

Maybe your best bet is to ask at local rescue centres if they have any former house rabbits? At least if they come to you littertrained that's one less thing to worry about, and you'll have some idea how destructive they are. Still no guarantees of course.

If you're house proud do not get house rabbits, i had to recarpet my entire flat because one of mine chewed a hole right in the middle the day after i put it on the market to sell 🤦🏻‍♀️. Sofa had to be thrown away when i moved because they chewed that (underneath so couldnt be seen) although they rarely toileted anywhere they weren't supposed to! Rabbits will pick where they want to toilet (usually a corner) so just put the litter tray where they have picked

Ive had indiors and outdoors.
My outdoors had the garden ( and at night was put in his hutch but was a game to get him back in!)
our two indoors were litter trained ( cat litter), and only chewed one wire ( and a few blankets!).
Indoors were def more friendly towards others and got along with all our other animals.

Our rabbits were rescued after living in a hamster cage..
2 tier hutch for overnight and dh built an enclosed run on slabs as we have no grass. Weekly branches and cones etc put into make a pile. Rabjys spend days reorganising their home! Plenty of food variations scattered among the place. Ours do like handled and aren't fearful of our dcats.
Can't imagine them being happy indoors. Have had house rabbits but they destroyed the place!!
Gave the last 1 to my dm as she was sure she could manage her...
She wrecked her house so she made an outside home and had the run of her back garden instead!!

Oh dear!
Definitely going to try as house rabbits, if some of the posts on here are to believed however they may well end up living as per my original plan...

The whole thread has been a trifle depressing truth be told.
Not that I blame anyone, I’d rather hear of people’s negative experiences too than 100% good so I can prepare for all eventualities.
But a little depressing still.

Reminds me of some of the doghouse threads where the dogs are made out to be complete fucking nightmares, and of course some dogs do end up being that way.

🤞🏻the future rabbits litter train easily and don’t end up as destructive nightmares..

I've been thinking about your house proud comment this afternoon and to be honest I have become a bit blind to the mess our rabbit makes. There's bits of hay and sawdust all over the living room and also various big cardboard boxes for him to hide in and toilet roll tubes which he likes to chew. I think essentially our living room is a big rabbit hutch and we are just conditioned to it/don't really mind. And as I said, he is not a destructive rabbit at all, it seems!

We adopted a lovely rabbit, he was already a house rabbit and pretty well litter trained. He lives in a double story hutch in the hall, but we leave his door open all the time so he can hop around the hall whenever he wants, gives him lots more space. He uses his litter tray 99.5% of the time, it took a few weeks for him to settle into that. He only goes into the living room with us there and has on occasion nibbled a few holes in my lovely curtains (thankfully just the curtain liner) but generally he doesn’t chew anything he shouldn’t. He doesn’t like stairs so wouldn’t try to climb up them if unsupervised, so we don’t have to worry about him going into bedrooms etc.
A massive benefit of adopting, rather than buying a baby rabbit, has been we already knew he was a friendly sociable rabbit who would be good with the kids. You never really know the temperament of young ones. He loves to just hop around following us and comes to greet us in the morning.

There's bits of hay and sawdust all over the living room and also various big cardboard boxes for him to hide in and toilet roll tubes which he likes to chew. I think essentially our living room is a big rabbit hutch and we are just conditioned to it/don't really mind

Toys and hay don’t bother me so much.
But chunks missing out of tables and skirting boards and urine soaked into hardwood flooring for example definitely would!

As an aside, sawdust has been linked to respiratory issues and liver disease in rabbits.
I would consider looking for an alternative.

Should add the one time he did wee on the carpet it has been a pain to get clean. The sawdust isn’t much of an issue on hard floor it’s easy to keep on top of keeping it. A cage located on carpet would be messier I imagine.

Should add the one time he did wee on the carpet it has been a pain to get clean. The sawdust isn’t much of an issue on hard floor it’s easy to keep on top of keeping it. A cage located on carpet would be messier I imagine

Yes, I know how potent the urine can be.
My whole downstairs is all hardwood, except for my lovely white cowhide rug.
Urine on that would be horrendous 😱

I would look on it as realistic, rather than depressing. It wouldn't be fair for everyone to tell you how it would all be perfect and straightforward, and then you find out the hard way! Rabbits themselves are bloody awesome. I cried every day for a full year after mine died, they were honestly one of the best things to ever happen to me. You just need to be really aware what you're getting into, same as having a baby, or moving to a new city, or buying a new car. There are going to be pros and cons to every decision, it's just about making an informed choice.

Your rabbits may well pee on the rug. One of mine would pee on my duvet! He just couldn't resist it! On the other hand, you may end up with dream buns who come ready littertrained and only ever chew hay! Oh, I recommend critter fresh (I think that's what it's called, I'm going rusty!) for the littertrays, with a hay rack above. Much less messy than woodshavings, far more absorbent than newspaper and the hay above gives them something to nibble while they're doing their thing, without it getting scattered as they hop out of the tray, and it's kept clean. www.thehayexperts.co.uk has the most delicious range of 'treat' hays. They honestly smell so good.

Why not just get a house cat? They don’t chew threw the wires and come litter trained.