Rabbits are intelligent and curious animals that can become bored quickly if they don’t have enough enrichment to keep their mind and body occupied. Often, rabbits are kept in small enclosures for prolonged amounts of time during the day with little to no stimulation, which can lead to stress and boredom.
Discover how to help your bunny live its best life and bring joy into its day with six simple but effective enrichment ideas.
Enrichment Tips for Your Pet Rabbit
Before we discuss the activities and games you can enjoy with your pet rabbit, it’s important to keep certain things in mind first.
As noted, rabbits are social and intelligent animals that need a variety of enrichment to keep them happy and healthy. Still, there are a few essential tips to consider before you get started:
- Ensure your rabbit can move closer to or away from any enrichment object.
- Rotate enrichment objects so that they maintain your rabbit’s interest.
- Ensure you don’t overcrowd their environment; maintain enough space for your rabbit to stand upright, run, and jump.
- Supervise your rabbit when introducing any new enrichment item and monitor the effect it has on the physical and mental well-being of your rabbit. If the impact seems negative, remove the object from their environment.
Every rabbit is different. Still, understanding the basics of offering a healthy environment for your bunny is essential to their well-being.
1. Provide Places to Hide
Rabbits are natural prey animals who roam their ground-based environments looking for safe places to hide. To make them feel more comfortable in your home, you can add enriching materials that are big enough for them to crawl or hide under. Good options include tunnels, cardboard boxes, wicker baskets, or paper bags (with the handles removed).
2. Pair Them with a Companion
Rabbits are highly social animals, and studies show that rabbits value the company of other members of their species just as much as they value food. Even if we establish a bond with our beloved bunny, we cannot provide the same type of company that another rabbit can. Still, you’ll need to desex the rabbits first and give them time to get used to one another.
Contrary to popular belief, guinea pigs are not good companions for rabbits, and the two should never be housed together.
3. Give Them a Space to Dig
Dogs love to dig. But guess what? Rabbits possess the urge, too. If this urge isn’t satisfied, it can lead to unwanted behaviors or escape attempts. A better alternative is to provide digging or bunching materials that your rabbit can organize around themselves using their feet and mouth.
Suitable digging mediums include litter trays or cardboard boxes filled with dirt, child-friendly sand, or shredded paper.
4. Make Them Work for Their Food
In the wild, rabbits expend energy by searching for food. In comparison, indoor rabbits can become complacent because you provide everything for them, making them lazy or overweight. Including foraging materials in their environment allows them to keep their body and mind active and helps prevent boredom.
Keep it simple and scatter an array of treats around your rabbit’s enclosure for them to find or try something more elaborate and build them a foraging pit. To do this, start by filling a cardboard box with leaves (check for non-toxic plants), grass, or shredded paper. Next, grab some empty cardboard tubes (such as the inside of a toilet roll) and place some treats inside. Then hide these cardboard treats within the foraging materials and let your bunny scavenge for their food.
Other ideas for food enrichment include hanging vegetables around their enclosure or stacking egg cartons with treats inside. Just be sure not to overdo the treat-giving; every rabbit thrives with a well-balanced diet.
5. Provide Spaces to Run and Climb
A rabbit can live up to eight years old. However, it needs ample room to run around and exercise to maintain optimal health. Playpens are a great way to allow your rabbit to safely explore different areas of your garden. But ensure that they still have a hiding space where they can retreat whenever they feel threatened by other animals, such as large birds of prey that could fly away with your pet.
In addition, there is plenty of indoor enrichment that you can add to your bunny’s environment to encourage some healthy playtime. A wooden or cardboard house with ramps and decks is an ideal space for allowing your bunny to jump and climb. Cat towers can provide a cheaper alternative to setting up this kind of space. But make sure you choose smaller products aimed at kittens and check that the maximum height isn’t too overwhelming or dangerous for your bunny.
Additionally, add ramps and various materials to your rabbit’s environment, as they will love to explore the texture of new objects.
6. Let Them Have Fun
Rabbits love to chew, and providing your bunny with a rotating set of chew toys is a great way to keep them entertained. Try wrapping food items in brown paper or filling empty cardboard tubes with hay. You can also remove the glossy cover from a telephone directory and allow your bunny to tear out the remaining pages.
Let your rabbits have some fun by providing them with toys they can investigate and manipulate. You can buy a range of bunny toys online, but ensure you only give them a few at a time and rotate them regularly to prevent boredom.
Other good toys to enrich a rabbit’s environment include:
- Cat or bird toys such as balls with bells (always check the materials of objects that were designed for animals other than rabbits)
- Small boxes
- Bottles with dry pasta inside
In addition, rabbits will love to spend time playing with you, so make sure you dedicate some time to playing games, cuddling, and grooming each day. Positive reinforcement training is a great way to encourage play and teach your rabbit new skills.
