# Questions on Free Range BunBuns



## Kittiebot (May 23, 2013)

Hi everyone - 
Mordin has made it perfectly clear to me now that he HATES being in his cage. He has already escaped 2 times, so I had to make some modifications to his cage. I let him out almost every day in an x-pen, but he seems to want even more space to run around! He tries to dig under the xpen so he can roam around my apartment. He also seems to be kind of emotionally needy, so he wants to be by me and my husband constantly (which I shouldn't really complain about!)

So here are my questions:

-How young is too young to be a free roaming bunny? Hes almost 4 months old and will be neutered in about a month.

-Litterboxes~should I get a few and place them around my apartment for him to use?

-Will he pee & poo everywhere if I let him have free range before he's neutered?

-Should he go back in his cage at night?

Thanks everyone for all your help!:rabbithop


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## whitelop (May 23, 2013)

I think its good for them to still have a cage as a "home base" sort of thing. Or in case of emergency, he would hopefully go to the cage and you could grab the whole cage. Make sense? 

I would put multiple litter boxes out for him. The way I see it is, if they're using them they need them. Ellie lives in an x-pen with a cabinet cage and she has two litter boxes that she uses. 
He will probably poop and pee in places when hes out for the first few days because he'll be marking his territory. But if he's good with the litter box he should continue to use the box. They tend to pick their own potty spot, so if you see a spot that he likes more than others, put a box there and he'll probably use it. I did that with Ellie and she used the box every time. 

If you didn't want him to be totally free range, you could get an x-pen for him, that way he would have much more room than a cage, but still be contained in one smaller area. Sometimes for them, when you put them in this huge area, they lose some litter box stills, but when they're in a smaller more contained area they pick the skills back up. 

You also have to make sure that your apartment is totally rabbit proofed! That is a HUGE thing! Ellie chewed through my fridge cord! They make cord covers, I think you can find them in the fish area of petsmart or google them. They're like plastic protectors. I would definitely get them! I would also try to block him off from getting into or under things. Like if he can get under your couch, don't let him. I could imagine that Ellie would destroy under my couch, so I would have to block that. I personally, wouldn't want him to be able to get behind or under anything. That doesn't seem safe to me. 
I would make sure that he had a hide box to get in, somewhere where he feels safe and can just kick back thats maybe in a quieter part of the apartment. 

Those are just some of the things I would do, if Ellie ever went free range. I would also put him up at night or when you leave. I understand that he doesn't like the cage, but its good that he know where his "home" is. You could probably teach him what "go home" means and maybe he'll go to his cage! haha.


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## PaGal (May 23, 2013)

I don't think a bun can be too young, you just want to make sure you bunny proof your home so your bun is safe and so are your belongings.

Depending on your bun he may need several litter boxes. I would start out with several and see how he does. He may need less. He may mark, again it depends on the bun. Thumper leaves no more than five poos in the room he has free run in and that only happens a few times per week but when he is allowed into other rooms then he poos in those rooms more. Thumper is over a year old and unneutered. He has always been good about his litter box and has never humped or sprayed. You could also slowly open up different areas to him as free run so he doesn't go from a cage with some free run to free run in the whole place. Let him get used to new smaller areas first and just keep opening up areas or rooms.

I put Thumper in his cage at night or when we are not home. It is more for his safety as I don't have my whole house completely bunny proofed. Since he has free run of at least his room from morning till later evening I feel he gets plenty of free time and so is fine being caged at night.


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## Apebull (May 23, 2013)

Twigs has free run of our living/dinning room. He only has one litter box and uses it 99.9% of the time. We do not lock him up or really have anything to lock him in took it down after he was ready for 100% free run time. BUT when we first got him he did go to his area at night and when we weren't home. We did like PaGal said and slowly opened it up to him letting him have more and more time/area until he had free run. Then we slowly starting leaving him out when we weren't home like on short trips to the store until he was finally out 100% of the time.

Oh I should say he did poop everywhere until he was neutered. Now it's just in his litter box.


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## Lorelei (May 23, 2013)

I gave Sugar free range before he was neutered. BIG mistake! He chewed through several electronic cords and tore up a corner of carpet. But then I also wasn't given permission to rabbit-proof the house (my mother resisted the idea of ANY changes that she didn't want). Since I got him neutered and Mom moved in with my health-impaired grandparents, I would say 80% of the destructive behaviour has disappeared; I found a couple of nibbled Newsweeks and that's about it. He also doesn't freely poop on the floor like he used to. Many male rabbits will spray to mark their territory, so if you want to give him more time out, stock up on PetZyme.  I would rabbit-proof a single room (preferably carpeted, bunnies don't like slick flooring) and put up baby gates to areas he's not allowed to access.

I would DEFINITELY cage him at night...bunnies can get into all sorts of trouble in just the second your back is turned. I find stories about free-range rabbits hard to believe; unless you rabbit-proof a house nearly empty, it must be virtually impossible to keep your stuff from being destroyed.

And yeah, you seem to have a snugglebun...Sugar's been taking a long time to warm up to me (mostly because I haven't been able to interact with him as much as we'd both like), and he's still not very "cuddly."


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## Kittiebot (May 23, 2013)

Thanks for all the great advice! The husband and I are going to figure out how to best bunny proof our living room tonight. We have a ton of power cords from our entertainment system, so I think I will just block it all off with my leftover wire cube pannels from when I made Mordin's cage. The living room is carpeted and my couch is very low to the ground so I won't have to worry about him getting under it. I just felt so bad for him last night, he wanted to come out sooooo bad to see me, so I let him out in his xpen while I was napping on the couch and he was trying his hardest to dig out of the pen, it was driving me crazy! I think this extra rambunctiousness is also due to hormones, I think he's a teen bunny now...my little guy grew up so fast!


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## Hkok (May 23, 2013)

Erslev is freerange and he have more than once proven that "bunny proof" is just an other word for underestimating you bunny. I promise you he *will* surprise you they are really creative when they put there mind to it. 

Be really carefull with the wires, we have ours packed in a "plastic tube" from Ikea like this http://www.ikea.com/dk/da/images/products/rabalder-kabelsamlere__53148_PE155239_S4.jpg 

I have never regreted to let him be freerange it more than worth proffing a few wires ect.


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## Troller (May 24, 2013)

We've been doing a sortnof free range with my buck. I trust him, my wife trusts him but we still hold out and cage him when no one is home, but we've experimented once or twice when we weren't and came back to find everything all right. I think he'd be a fine free range bunny but he has a bunwife who has yet to he bonded tonhim completely so he can't be out when she is. Once they're bonded maybe, but the doe can't be trusted one bit as she is a hellacious chewer.


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## Kittiebot (May 24, 2013)

So the husband and I bunproofed our living room with the NIC grids left from his cage, worked great. He was having an amazing time running all over the living room (and leaving poos everywhere, no big deal). The couch is a part of his running area so he jumped up on it. I was thinking, oh he wants to snuggle with me and be pet, Nope! He peed all over my couch  The couch is going to be replaced in a few years, so it's not a big deal. I just cleaned it up with vinegar and used my odor remover spray I use for my sugar gliders, but man he just instantly peed on it! So now I need to figure out a way to keep him off it. But otherwise, no accidents on the floor!


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## ladysown (May 24, 2013)

your rabbit will do what you ALLOW him to do.

So what if he doesn't like his cage. Then either make it more attractive to him AND more secure, or say tough luck buddy... until you are neutered, cope.

AND it's good for rabbits to not always get what they want. What if something happens and he requires cage care by someone other than you? Do you want him to mope and complain, or do you want him to easily adapt? YOUR job as his owner to consider as many of the possibilities as you can and then help your rabbit to know that life won't end if he doesn't get his own way.

The digging behaviour is precursor to maturing, so I'd be cautious about letting him out before you "get the deed" done. (as evidenced by his peeing on your couch) that's behaviour that should be and needs to be corrected. He's learned it's fine to do so now, so what's to stop that same behavior in the future?


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## Kittiebot (May 24, 2013)

He definetly will still spend the majority of the day (and all night) in his cage since I work all day. After doing some research online the peeing definetly seems to be hormone/marking related, especially since that was the only place he peed while being out for a few hours.  I set up his neuter appointment for the end of June, so until then I will either block off the couch or cover it with a shower curtain liner! 

Otherwise it was a very pleasant experience to have him running around. He did so many binkies and bunny 500s and then flopped on his side to relax. Also, there was no eating or digging the carpet! Yay! I'm also making him a dig box today so he can dig at something if he feels the urge. He is so smart though, he found a way to get over one of the barricades I constructed, so I had to make it taller. I probably should have named him Houdini! Ok I'm done bragging about my little guy...


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## Nancy McClelland (May 24, 2013)

Neuter for sure. All of ours got free run of the house with a few areas blocked by baby gates from day one. We considered the furniture in the family room as "sacrificial" and had all wires and areas behind and under the furniture blocked or boxed in. They all spent their nite inside. Now they have their own bedroom, so each one gets to spend a whole nite out in rotation.


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## Kittiebot (May 28, 2013)

Another update! I reorganized his new area to not include the couch, way better! He loves it and has had no pee accidents on the floor, woo! Here are some cute pics of him enjoying his space:


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## tmaddox9 (May 29, 2013)

I have a totally free roam French Lop buck. He comes back to his only litter box no matter where he is in my three floor house. He only chews on card board boxes and the only cords he want to bite are the ones to charge the iPads. He has no taste for any others. When he's hungry he pushes his food bowl with his nose and follows me around the kitchen with it. His ony bad habit is He hate closed doors...if you lock him out of a room he will dig and scratch at the door until he drives you bonkers! Right now our house is under serious construction so he has to stay in his room with a gate across the door and he absolutely hates it! He's getting even by leaving all his poos outside the litterbox!


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## Peepers (May 29, 2013)

slowly increase his space for potty training..like you would with a puppy. don't allow free range off the bat, leave the cage as a home base and he can earn more space as his potty habits improve, I recommend more litter boxes to start with, with hay in the boxes so he learns to stick to the boxes, you can eventually start dropping litter boxes till its just his home base box. caging at night is up to you, I cage Peepers at night but not Jenny. Peepers is a trouble maker, she likes to hop the baby gate and go upstairs, sneak into my brothers room and get into all his stuff lol. Jenny is more trouble caged at night then loose, she gets mad and starts thumping when she is penned at night...that I could ignore, however my dogs are TERRIFIED of the thumping, and every time she thumps, I end up with 6 30-50lbs dogs on top of my face...ya so I just leave her pen open all the time, she is trouble sometimes and will wake me up at 2:30 am doing bunny 500's on my bed.. but that's preferable to a few hundred pounds of dog on my face lol.

oh and yes dig boxes are great!! Peepers doesn't care, but Jenny is wacky for her dig box, its just a covered cat box filled with eco bedding, I hear in that box every morning lol


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## Smoggy (May 30, 2013)

Hi there
When you start out with litter boxes it is a good idea to take some of the soiled matter from the cage and put it into your litter boxes, they do tend to choose spots yes but you can encourage them in this way use the area that suit you, for example behind a door is always nice. I have two bunnies and they have free range of the garden and the house. However once they were out of their play pen (as soon as they were big enough to make the jump out of it) i made a door in play pen and they continued to use it to eat, sleep, poop in and then i let them go free and got rid of it altogether. I house trained them with one small corner litter box i then replaced this with a large box (its an ikea toy box) lined with plastic then newspaper straw and hay (you can get cool wire balls which you can stuff with hay also). Our Buns choose their own territory...which was the first place we let them out, in our dining room which is the playroom for kids, thats their 'home', they root around the living room which opens out onto that, but although the living room door was always open and the front door to house also, they NEVER wandered out... We let them out into garden and obviously make sure that they cannot escape and watch out for predators. etc. Issues with chewing are never ending, they chew books, anything rubbery or plastic, sofas, curtains and of course wires. You can protect wires but they do have a go at the plastic covering also. You must catch them in the act and teach them it is wrong, a simple 'ah ah' or 'no' will do and move them on. Give them loads to chew, willow, old phone books and stuff like that. You can guard sofas or spray with something perhaps that they don't like the taste of. I would definetly let them go free, ours do not miss their 'cage' they choose places to lounge and like cover where ever they can get it, behind something or under a chair. Ours sleep in the middle of the carpet, always exactly the same spot (they love things to stay constant) they have also adopted an Ikea dolls bed with a fleece type blanket. I think a bunny should and must be able to pick up speed, get skittish and run around. They do not feel safe on slippery floors something to keep in mind. But the more exercise (freedom) they are capable of having, the healthier and happier your animal will be. If they had their way they would be out in fields and chewing all day (their teeth never stop growing) and burrowing with their mates! :nod


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## sparkly (May 30, 2013)

oh my god, that rabbit choosing dinner, to die for! why are all bunnies so cute!


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