A plastic pan filled with newspapers for Shadow to chew = a happy bunny not chewing something else instead

Know up front what a rabbit might try to get into and chew on. The answer is anything and everything! Get the rabbit’s eye view by laying down on the floor on your stomach and looking at everything in the room. Are there any rabbit sized spaces that will need to be blocked? A small rabbit can fit in a space that is only 2” x 3”. Look for things that are exposed and likely to be chewed: carpet, electrical cords, baseboards, and furniture. Also be on the lookout for things the rabbit will try to hop on.

There are two goals with bunny proofing: protecting your rabbit in their new home and protecting your home from the rabbit. You may have some supplies already on hand, things you can repurpose for bunnyproofing. Supplies don’t have to be expensive. Check out discount stores first. Then move on to pet supply, baby, or home and hardware stores.

Using Throw Rugs / Grass Mats / Plastic Floor Protectors: When bunny picks a particular area of carpet as a favorite chew spot, you can place an inexpensive throw rug (read sacrifice rug) there or put down sea grass or dragon grass mats so that they can chew on something safe. We used a rectangular plastic mat used typically in offices to protect the carpet under their cage area since somebunny likes to overshoot his litter box and aims outside the cage.

If your rabbit hops up on furniture and digs or chews on the seat, you can use a throw rug as protection. A runner sized rug will protect the seat of a sofa, a standard sized rectangle rug will protect a loveseat, and doormat sized rugs will protect the seat of a chair. Each of these is easy to roll up and put away when friends and family come to visit.  A more expensive alternative is to have slip covers for the furniture. Slip covers can be used as the sacrifice to rabbit teeth or kept in reserve to cover damaged furniture when company comes.

Washable throw rugs can be put under litter boxes to catch near misses or overshots and will be easy to clean by just throwing them in the washer. We also used a series of small throw rugs to make the surface of a plastic patio bench safe for the bunnies to hop on (it was too slippery). We held the throw rugs in place on the bench with sheet holders and jumbo paper clips. Our bunnies also insisted on hopping on top of their cages. The grid on the cage top was too large for their feet. First we used binder clips to hold a piece of cardboard to the cage top, but this was  slippery. We then used jumbo paper clips to hold small throw rugs to the cardboard. Now the bunnies have a safe place to jump, and they love to hang out on their cage tops when they are out.

Be aware that the rabbits will also chew sacrifice rugs or plastic mats and that you will need to make sure that chewing doesn’t include swallowing.  Rabbits can cause themselves a hairball problem by chewing up and swallowing too many household fibers.  Hard plastics are better than soft plastics since they are harder for the bunny to chew pieces off.  Rugs made from seagrass, dragon grass or jute are going to be safer for the rabbit to chew than fabric carpet fibers. Look for grass / jute rugs that haven’t been treated with chemicals and don’t have a latex backing.  A rug that can be flipped over will have double the use if one side starts to be a little chewed.

I’ll post another article later today with some more bunnyproofing basics.