Bunnies and Christmas Trees…

[Deleted User]

This will be Boston’s first Christmas!!! Yay!!!! We got her her own stocking (pic to follow) and a special ornament for the tree (pic to follow also). My question is….we just put up the tree and we haven’t had any issues yet (someone knock on wood, quick!)…but I was wondering what you guys do to deter your buns from the tree? I think its only a matter of time before she’s chewing the tree, the cords, the ornaments……or maybe she won’t now that she’s spayed???

What do you guys think?

PS-Boston really REALLY wants the bunny maze under the tree for Christmas…help send subliminal messages to daddy for her!!!!!

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[Hedi]

Will you have a fake tree? IS that your tree already up?

As long as they are supervised you should be fine. All my buns LOVE the christmas tree. We use a fake tree and hang plastic bulbs near the bottom and they will stand up on their back legs and bat some of the bulbs off and then scoot them around the floor with their noses. THey are so interested in the tree. Other than that they don’t bother it. but sometimes they might try to sneak a peek of some of the presents by ripping paper of edges but thankfully our famlies just laugh about the rips and it usually isn’t much.

Definitely don’t use tinsel and make sure you cover the christmas lights with protectors so no one get shocked.

If you find Boston really bothering the tree just make a blockade using NIC cubes to surround the tree along the tree skirt so Boston cant get close to the tree. You could always cover the NIC cubes with something if Boston begins to pull on the cubes and throwing a fit to get to the tree.

IF for some reason this year is different then that is what we will do. I will keep a blockade up if the buns are out and I am not in the room. I can’t always trust my husband to bunnysit. lol

[MimzMum]

Is that a live tree? *peers closer*

The only thing I can think of is NIC cubes or a baby gate to wall off the tree and it’s assorted cords, etc. We definitely don’t want her chewing on that! 0_o

That little stocking is too cute! ^_^ I got some traditional stockings for Mimz, Pip & Fiver this year. One green, one purple and one blue. I want to put the names on them, but I can’t see using the glitter glue if they’re going to be near the bunny cages.

Of course, when I hung Pip’s on her water bottle she immediately noticed and set to chewing the little loop off! >.<

[Deleted User]

Its a fake tree….
i know its up already!!!! but we were scared we would get too busy and not be able to put it up together!!!
Thats a good idea to put up stuff that boston can have….i should get some willow ornaments from BB—its never as fun to get into if she’s allowed to have it!!!
i have noticed her periscoping to see herself in the mirror like ornaments, but thats it so far!
We were thinking of wrapping the gifts in newspaper…that way if she does chew them, it won’t hurt her!

[MimzMum]

lolz…Oh I can just picture that! Little bunneh periscopes to see, “Is Santa here yet??”

I mostly have to worry 1) the three cats will cause an absolute mess with the Christmas decor or 2) when we cut our tree from the neighborhood forest, we take off about the top five feet, it’s usually the week before Christmas since the tree dries out REALLY fast, no matter how much we water it. So it’s got to come down almost the day after. It’s very sad. All that work for only a little while….

*sigh* The holidays just aren’t what they used to be when I was younger. Even my son told me the other day that ‘all the magic is gone’ from Christmas and other holidays for him. ;_;

And then there’s always the “wheretheheckdidweputalltheornamentsandthelightsandwhoforgottowraptheseupproperlylastyear??” stuff…lolz. Hectic. Totally hectic. ^_^

Anyway, glad my bunnies are not going to be close enough to the tree to worry. I’d be more of a wreck than usual! xD

[Deleted User]

Yeah, i miss christmas as a kid. we always had a real tree at my mom’s. she would get a flocked one some years….so pretty! and her house is such a hassle at the holidays. i remember it being a punishment to help her decorate!!! she’s a holiday decorating nut!

luckily we just have the little apartment to decorate and the tree is pre-lit, so the lights never come off. we had the tree up and the whole place decorated in like half an hour!!

[MimzMum]

Oh boo! That’s not even long enough to sing carols! lolz! xD

I was always the one ‘in charge’ as a kid to get the stuff down from the shelves in the garage, put up the tree (it was a tinsel one that I took with me when I moved out and it got mangled in a storm one year in storage and we had to throw it away *sniffle*), hang the ornaments, play the music and setup the lights (which was actually just a color changer in back of the tree, no strings to speak of) and since I was raised by my grandparents, they had TONS of stuff and all of it antique and the ornaments all crazed, and we also had a giant candle and candy canes that I would put up every year.

All that stuff is gone now. I miss it, but I don’t. I have very little energy for that kind of thing nowadays and the kids are the ones who want it put up, but they don’t really help with it, so it becomes a hassle. >.<
The nice thing about Christmas in Alaska is you can see other people’s decor (lights mostly) for months around the season. And it really cheers you up when there’s only an hour of visible daylight outside! 0_o

[Sage Cat]

Good question allenj! Love the snowman ornament with y’all names on it! 
This will be my first Christmases with Kay & Winston, too. I am planning on making them stockings!

Hedi – I love that your buns “peek” at the presents. 

I remember having the tree in the den when I was little. The tree was always so tall, my dad would have to cut the top of off the tree – that room that 11 foot ceilings!
Our cats were always climbing up in the tree!

For the last few years I have had a small fake tree. I put it on a table to make it look bigger. Plus,That was I don’t have to worry about the buns getting into it.

[kralspace]

hahahah, I love Christmas/pet stories.

When my kids were little and my cats were big, I got tired of the Christmas tree being pulled over several times a week, so I looped a wire around the trunk about a foot below the top and hung it on a hook in the ceiling (into a stud of course…lol). I made it just long enough so it looked like it was touching the ground, but if the kids pushed it or a cat took a flying leap into it, it would just gently swing. It could be a bit spooky to walk into the dark room and see it moving, usually because of the cat exploring, but it was a lot of fun and saved a lot of broken ornaments.

Kathy

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

WOW your organized getting it up already!! That is a sweet ornament with all your names on it!! Did you make that?

I have a question for all, pine is obviously OK for buns to eat, but what about non-dried out pine (like a real christmas tree?)

I’d think the only safety issues have already been covered, cords, tinnsel, tree knocking down, glass ornaments.

Did anyone mention the water at the base of the tree (Allenji I know yours is fake so non-issue for you) I’m pretty sure I read the water at the base of the tree is not OK to drink since it’s absorbing stuff from the tree and sitting around?

[Deleted User]

ah! Good idea with the hanging tree kralspace!!! love it!

K&K–luckily our tree is on carpet….so i don’t think we have to worry about ornaments breaking…..
we got the ornament at the Mall of America in a little specialty store. it cost like 10 bucks and then they personalized for free!

[Beka27]

i always circle mine with a NIC grid fence. i don’t want to take the chance of it being chewed (cords or tree), knocked over, or any of my ornaments falling and getting broken. i’m not always in the living room with them to supervise the going-ons, so i feel safer this way. since we have a fake tree, the bottom post is covered with garland, so i know that’s not a suitable chewing surface. we use glass bulbs, so if they get knocked down, that could be dangerous. it would be neat if you could get a small pine wood xmas tree from a craft store and set it up with willow ornaments for the buns…

[KatnipCrzy]

We have a small tree that we set up on our entertainment center.  After a couple of years of broken and chewed ornaments, I was done.

We tried putting all the plastic ornaments at the bottom, those still got knocked off- so the cats learned to jump, grab and release which basically slingshot the ornaments off the tree.  And it is so nice to sit in the recliner lean back and not hear an ornament shatter.  Because after they get them off the tree they have to play with them until the are stuck under the couch, chair,etc…  And to be safe, we would move the bottom 1/3 of the garland up further onto the tree when we were not home- so the tree always looked terrible unless someone was coming over.

Now we just decorate in different ways, small tree pets cannot get to, lights around deck and front window, and some awesome Snoopy outdoor lighted decorations.

If I had kids I would feel differently about the whole tree thing- but I don’t have kids and we are usually gone about 4 days at Christmastime visiting our family that actually does put up a tree.

I think that using the corrugated tubing to protect any electrical cords would be a must and to use an ex-pen or NIC cubes if the buns are not closely supervised.  For some reason my husband is really not good at keeping an eye on the buns when I ask him to.  Short attention span or something???

Julie

[bunnytowne]

Thats so cute ornaments with all your names on it cool.  Happy Boston      Yes Boston you need a maze under your tree. vibes Vibes Vibes.

 

[Deleted User]

Katnip—yep my BF has that short attention span too….no i take that back–its not a short attention span cuz he could watch ESPN for days at a time….its a selected attention span…..

Thanks Bunnytowne!!!! I think the vibes are slowly working!

[Cassi&Charlie]

I haven’t had a Christmas tree since I moved outta home 5 years ago…and since my BF is Hindu and can’t/wont understand Christmas, I don’t think I’ll bother. Katnip is right I think…too hard to prevent small animals from doing naughty things! My Christmas spirit extends to half heartedly hanging tinsel over the top of the drapes and singing the 1st line to ‘Little Drummer Boy’ over and over again…

[Scarlet_Rose]

Happy soon-to-be holidays!

Be sure to check out this discussion – Gravehearted posted TONS of info and links:

Holiday Hazards:

https://binkybunny.com/Default.aspx?tabid=54&forumid=2&tpage=1&view=topic&postid=2349#2349

[masteroffm]

my solution for keeping my rascally ones away from the tree…

had to add the bricks because jessica and marvin would simply pickup the fence and move it out of the way.  this has worked really well for the past couple of years.

[Lightchick]

My favorite childhood pet/tree story:

We had a bunch of dogs when I was growing up (I was constantly finding strays, and we’d try to adopt them, but they’d turn out to be incessant diggers or fence-jumpers, so some of them didn’t stick around long..), but the main ones were Arrow, who was a Miniature Bull Terrior, and Shannon, who was a Shetland Sheepdog.

Arrow was my dad’s and he was obnoxious, and stinky, and he got into things, and knocked stuff over, and tried to attack other dogs…even if it meant plowing THROUGH a wooden fence. Which he could do. “Bull” Terrier isn’t for nothing..

Shannon was my mom’s, and he was a small aloof furball, who couldn’t be bothered with such indignities. He sat and looked down his long pointy goody-two-shoes nose at all of us, and NEVER got into trouble.

Every year, my mom would put real candycanes on the tree. The same ones, year after year. Musty and old, but still candy. And the critters never bothered about the tree or the candy or anything. They were locked out of that part of the hose when we weren’t home, anyway, so they were always supervised around the tree.

Until one day, Shannon decided he’d had it with being the good one. He leapt the kiddie-gate, strolled into the living room, and ate as many of those candy canes off the tree as he could reach. He stepped on presents and knocked off ornaments and drooled on everything. He frothed peppermint for days, and was one sorry stomach-achey dog! Arrow totally gloated that Shannon was in trouble and he wasn’t!

So much for counting on an animal to always behave in the same way, right!

[Deleted User]

ah!!!! love the story lightchick!!!!!
nice setup masteroffm

[MimzMum]

Oh poor pup! >.< So Lightchick, was Arrow named after Oblio's dog in "The Point" perchance?

[Lightchick]

MM, I think so, that sounds familiar.. I’ve never seen it, though, and my parents got both those dogs before I was born so I wasn’t involved in the naming… I think that’s right, though! What was it about?

[KatnipCrzy]

masteroffm-  I know what you mean about the bricks!  After awhile a NIC barrier is not a deterrent unless it is secured, it becomes a challenge to the bunnies. 

[Author]

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