When Rabbits Get Bored – 4 Easy Rabbit Enrichment Ideas DIY
February 26, 2024 | by Joshua Kid
Introduction
Hello and welcome to the Homesteading Kid. Today I will be telling you about rabbit enrichment ideas to help alleviate boredom and provide mental stimulation in your rabbitry. Signs of boredom include chewing and other damage to the house which the rabbits are in. It can also make them fight more. So, the solution, rabbit boredom busters. In this blog post I will be looking at some designs, the swing ball and the egg box chew + the rabbit feed sack + the stick. The good thing about these toys is they use waste such as egg boxes and empty feed sacks that would usually just go in the bin! So, what are we waiting for. Let’s get started!
The Swing Ball
This one is not so simple, but it can be simpler than I did it! You need to have a good knowledge of knots though in any circumstance. It needs a little more than the others though it does work well so let’s get started
Needed Materials
All you need for this project is:
- Some rabbit safe string (I used garden twine)
- Some balls (rabbit safe ones of course)
- Scissors (kitchen scissors will do)
- A knowledge of knots
- A place to put it
So now let’s do it!
How To Do It
- Tie some string to the place you are putting it then if you are tying it between 2 places (I used the roof supports and tied it between 2 of those) then run the string along and cut it and tie to the second.
- Take your string (or twine) and tie another piece to the string you set up in step 1
- Let the string down so the rabbits to reach it (allowing space to tie knots) and cut
- Then tie it to the ball
- Repeat for as many as you are putting up
So now you have made your 1st rabbit boredom buster! You can also tie it to some of the wire in the pen or practically anywhere you can tie some string to. I put 2 up in my Dutch colony pen to stop them destroying the supports and give them something else to do that isn’t quite so destructive, but since rabbits are rodents, their teeth grow all the time, and they need to chew on things to wear them down. This brings us on to our next invention, the stick!
The Stick
This one is very simple it is basically putting a rabbit safe stick in the pen for then to chew instead of the posts holding the roof up! Some rabbit safe sticks are:
- Goats willow
- Hazel
- Branches of apple or pear trees
This is a very good one to help with chewing problems because it gives them something else to chew on instead of the stuff they should not chew on. Anyway, here is another one our rabbits like, the egg box chew machine
The Egg Box Chew Toy
This one is essentially an egg box filled with a few herbs covered in hay then shut and the rabbits must try and get it open! It is very simple and easy to make and fun for the rabbits + the materials are all easily sourced from around the house. So, let’s get started
Materiels Needed
- An egg box
- Some rabbit safe herbs (sage, parsley, dandelion, grape leaves, and plantain are all good choices)
- Some hay (just enough so that they must hunt around to find the delicious herbs and not so much that it is impossible to close the box)
How To Make It
- Take your egg box and put some herbs in
- Then put some hay in
- Then close the box
- Voila complete
So, there you go you have made a thing which, if done correctly will please your rabbits for hours and is all recycled. Now let’s do our last invention for the day, the rabbit feed sack.
The Rabbit Feed Sack
This one is so very simple and yet the rabbits love it. We use Allen and Page Breeder and Grower pellets for our rabbits. These pellets come in 20 kg bags which are made of paper so they can be put in the rabbit pen and wrecked. This is good and so funny when you just take the bag and give it to them just before breakfast. They like to shred it and sit on it. They also like to hunt for any left over pellets inside it. Just make sure your bag doesn’t contain plastic. And just a tip if you are changing over food, do it gradually so the rabbits don’t get bloat.
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