is it okay for rabbit to eat plastic?

Question
Hi, I want to ask that my rabbit had been chewing on the plastic litter box and the front part had been chewed off around 50%. Is it okay for the rabbit to chew on it and how should I avoid my rabbit chewing on the litter box?

Thank you

Answer
Dear Cassidy,

As you probably have guessed, it's not great for your bunny to eat plastic. Even though the litterbox plastic is hard, and is probably chewed into very small bits before being swallowed, it's indigestible.  One hopes that your bunny is getting enough roughage (long fiber hay) to push things through uneventfully, but there's the chance that plastic bits could remain in the stomach and cause problems, if they are large enough to stay.

There are also petroleum distillates that can leach out of the plastic, some of which could be hormone mimics.  No telling what problems those might cause down the line, but I wouldn't want my bunny exposed to them unnecessarily.

The big question is:  how do you get him to stop?  One way is to make sure he's not doing it out of boredom.  Provide him with alternative toys, such as clean cardboard boxes (glued into shape; no tape or staples) with entrance and exit holes cut in the sides.  He'll have hours of engineering fun!  Strips or blocks of untreated pine or fir firmly attached to the sides of his pen or even his litterbox will give him a safer alternative to chew than the litterbox itself.

If your bunny is female and unspayed, then spaying may help curb this behavior.  Unspayed females have a high risk of uterine cancer, so this is an important thing to do anyway.  Please read:

www.rabbit.org/health/spay.html

and find a good rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Hope this helps.

Dana