New with so many questions!!

[Tesla's Mom]

So many questions, where to start?  I’ve been reading through a lot of forum posts, but some of them just give me more questions!

Tesla is a mini-rex baby, we got him a couple of days ago and are in the process of building him a nice big cage to run around in when we aren’t there to supervise him.  I want him to be a house bunny, but we have three young boys in the house (ages 1 and a half, 3 and 4) so Tesla doesn’t get to roam around unless we are there to keep an eye on him and the boys interactions, so far the boys have been great, they sit fairly still (for their age) and let Tesla come up to them and sniff at them, my youngest giggles and squeals any time Tesla goes to sniff him and sometimes my youngest will run (more like toddle) away with Tesla hopping/chasing after him, it’s adorable!

Ok so first off, I got him from a pet store, it wasn’t very planned, kind of fell in love and after giving it the rest of the day, I just had to.  I don’t know his exact age, but he is very little, I don’t know how young pet stores get bunnies.  He’s a bit bigger than hand sized.  He doesn’t have a runny nose and when he holds still long enough I haven’t noticed any strange sounds with his breathing (I’m looking around where I live for a good vet).  He stays in a small cage now, but if all goes as planned, he will have an epic new home soon.  When I let him out of his cage to roam around, he’ll be casually nosing around the floor, or doing his little hop/walk thing when he’ll randomly spring up or jump and race like someone zapped him (thus the name Tesla, electricity, so on and so forth), I was wondering if this is normal, since this is my first bunny.

Also, once I have his new cage set up what would be the best kind of bedding for the majority of the cage, and also what should I use for his litter boxes?

Another thing he does is he really likes to chew and pull on the carpet, I haven’t noticed it being in one specific spot, the only thing I can think of is, with 3 young boys in the house, they trail crumbs and I may have missed a crumb or two when vacuuming.  I just worry that he is going to get something that will harm him, and I can’t imagine eating bits of carpet is healthy either so maybe some sort of suggestion.

He is still so little, he explores a lot, rarely holds still for more than a second unless it’s to chew on something or clean himself, he does well at always going back to his little cage to pee, but he drops pellets EVERYWHERE, not a ton, but by the time he goes back to his cage for bedtime, I end up picking up maybe 5-15 of them (in an average of 2-4 hours of roaming around).  Not sure if that is normal or if I need to do something more for training him.  I’m still reading lots but there is just so much to learn!

That’s all the questions I can think of right now, but I’m sure I will think up more the more I spend time with him!

[Beka27]

You will want to have him confined for awhile, especially with young kids around. Rabbits need a safe space that is off-limits to kids. Get as large of a space as possible. Many people build their own condos out of wire storage grids, or a dog exercise pen works well. Plastic-bottom pet store cage are too small for a long-term habitat and should be avoided.

You don’t want any bedding down in the cage, only some litter in the litterbox. This will assist with litter-training.

Rabbits can be very destructive, especially young ones. Keep redirecting him away from the carpet. Give him lots of rabbit safe toys, phone books to shred, cardboard hidey houses, etc. Litter-training should also improve as he gets older.

Have you found a rabbit vet yet? He’ll need to be taken in for a bunny check-up within the ext couple weeks. When there, the vet will do a thorough exam, fecal test, and you can discuss the time frame for neutering.

[sleepy538]

as far as your “tesla” reference (which i love!), that is called a binky and means he’s happy!!

you won’t want to put bedding in his whole cage or he will think it is one giant litter box! keep the bedding contained in his litter box only and you’ll have much more training success! people here use various kinds of bedding. you can read through some of those threads and decide what works best for you. kitty litter boxes are most popular. the ones they sell for rabbits are usually too small. random poos you’re finding are normal. tesla is just marking his territory.

rug pulling is common…as are wire chewing, baseboard chewing, sheet chewing…etc! the bunny i have now is my little destructo, and with some major bunny proofing and lots of appropriate things to chew she is doing well!

enjoy tesla!

[Floppybuns]

Hi and welcome

In my buns litter box I use a litter made of recycled paper and it works great .

It is very normal for them to leave little droppings around the place as they go along’ I believe it is their way of marking the area as their territory. My male bun did this heaps but since he has been neutered it has decreased heaps.

Chewing on anything and everything is also very normal my buns are huge chewers so I went and got some old rugs to put down to protect our nice carpet.

Him springing up jumping is him binkying! That is usually a sign of a very happy bunny

[tanlover14]

Hey there and welcome to BB!

The springy jump is definitely him showing how happy he is, so congrats on making your new boy happy!!

I prefer to use CareFresh as litter — and like everyone else said, only put in the litter box. It will help litter-training him tremendously. I used to put it all on the bottom of their cage until I realized I was actually just making my job harder and making them think everything was litter!

Three of my bunnies are TOTAL carpet yankers. I’ve given them some towels laid around on the floor that has seemed to divert their attention from the carpet to the towel. Every time they started yanking on the carpet I would shove the towel under their mouths and they eventually started going straight for the towel rather than the carpet. It’s the only “toy” they have that they will spend hours digging at.

[Tesla's Mom]

@ Beka27; Tesla has his little cage that the boys know not to touch, they will sometimes go and sit near his cage to just look at him but they don’t touch or open it (for such young boys they are very well behaved around animals). We just picked up some wire storage grids to build Tesla his own epic habitat where he can roam and bounce around to his hearts content when we can’t supervise his exploring of the rest of the house. He has a litter box where the bedding/litter stuff goes in for him, so far he has stuck to one specific corner as far as where he chooses to go pee. I picked up some used sheets/towels that I am going to wash and use to line the bottom of his new cage, something soft that he can dig and nose around in as much as he wants. I’m still looking for a rabbit vet, I live in a smaller town in Alaska, and I refuse to take him to just any random vet so I’ve been calling around, didn’t get many calls in today because I spend my whole monday on campus (exhausting and now even more dreaded because having to go that long without seeing Tesla sucked today, he had plenty of fun while I was gone, I just missed out on it)

@sleepy538: Took me a few hours of thinking, but the minutes Tesla was suggested, it stuck! and if binkies means he is happy, then that’s awesome, he is a very happy little bunny, he gets between 3-5 hours (intermittent depending on what is going on) through the day and he’ll explore, and randomly do his little jumps, it makes me so happy to know that’s a sign of happiness, I’ve been worrying that something was wrong! So far when I catch him pulling on the rug, I walk over to him, say “no” and nudge his rump to move him away from the spot, I have a lot of little bunny safe chew toys for him, but sometimes the carpet seems like his favorite (though I know there is probably spots he finds where one of my boys has spilt something recently to add flavor to the carpet).

@Floppybuns: Thanks for the welcome! I like the old rug idea! Something he can dig at and chew on that won’t destroy something that is important (I think this weekend is going to be a major thrift store shopping spree if I can get away with it!)

@tanlover14: Thanks for the welcome! I think CareFresh is the name of what I’m currently using, it comes in some different colors and is supposedly good at helping keep smells down. I picked up a bunch of towels, pillow cases, and sheets (all used) to let him claim as his. I’m going to try and lay the sheet spread out on the carpet tomorrow when I let him out for his morning romp and see how that goes over. I’m also seeing if I can barrow a steam cleaner from a friend because 3 young boys = lots of crumbs and spilt juice no matter how hard I try and keep things clean, so after a good scrubbing maybe Tesla won’t think the carpet is so tasty.

Thanks everyone for the great advice ! I was gone all day today (The one day out of my week I’m stuck on campus until 8pm at night bleh!) When I opened Tesla’s door, he came out, sniffed at me for a minute and held still while I petted him twice before he hopped off and did a binky (I still can’t get over the fact that that means he’s happy, it’s so adorable, looks like he gets zapped and just goes from a stand still to a full on jump in the air! adorable!!)

I’m going to set up his new cage tonight, I got those wire storage boxes that you put together, I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve seen a lot of pictures of home made cages useing them. I probably won’t put him in it until the morning, because I want to make sure if he starts using a corner to pee that isn’t his litter box, I can clean it up quick.

Anyways, it’s past 10pm and I have been at school all day, time for bed

[LittlePuffyTail]

I don’t have any additional advice since the other members did a great job, just wanted to welcome you and Tesla.

Is that him in your avatar? If yes, he is super cute. Would love to see more pictures. I LOVE Mini-Rex’s.

You’re gonna be very busy with 3 little boys and a baby bunny! Bunnies, especially babies, can be a lot of work but they are so fun and loving. And yes, binkies are super adorable.

Feel free to ask if you have any more questions.

[Tesla's Mom]

@LittlePuffyTail: Thanks for the welcome! That is Tesla as my avatar, I uploaded a couple pictures to the profile thing (not sure exactly how that works). Things are pretty crazy busy, I’m either chasing around after 3 boys, or after a baby bunny, but at least with Tesla he doesn’t scream or cry or hit anyone and make them cry, lol. It’s been one of those days.

[tanlover14]

Everyone on here calls them NIC cubes for the condo pieces, although I’m not sure if thats what they are actually called! But those are perfect for a building a nice house for the bun bun!

I bet he’ll take right to those sheets and towels and such. If I’m not mistaken, he’ll dig the crap out of them. Mine go NUTS when they really get going on them. Especially when they were younger. Haha!

Binkies ARE adorable! When we got our first bun, he did that, and I thought we got a …. bunny with a few less brain cells. I was confused he was absolutely bonkers and had no idea what he was doing. Turned out I was the crazy one. And he was being a normal bunny.

[Tesla's Mom]

He loves his new home so far, I will have to do some adjusting over the next few days to find the best way to have it set to make him happy, so far so good though!

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