House Rabbit

Question
Hi Andrea,

I recently got a female Lionhead house rabbit who has decided to eat through every electric wire she can find. how can i stop her doing this? i brought a spray (aimed primarily for cats and dogs but i was advised this would still work for rabbits) which is supposed to stop her chewing but it hasn't.

Thanks!!
Mark

Answer
I personally have never had any kind of spray stuff discourage a rabbit from chewing cords.

You have some different things you can try:

1.  limit access to the parts of the house that has cords within her reach.
2.  attempt to find things for her to chew or play with that are safer
3.  rabbit proof the parts of the house that she spends time with by covering the cords

Many of the things that cover cords aren't the prettiest things to look at.  But it beats replacing/fixing things and taking a chance that your rabbit will get electrocuted.

I personally have used flexible plastic tubing and foam pipe insulating material.  Both have worked for me.

These sites list some types of materials you can use to cover the cords.  Some also list some training tips to train your rabbit to not chew cords:

http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/rabbit-proofing.html
http://www.ontariorabbits.org/diet/careinfo1.html
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=18&cat=1803&articleid=2724
http://www.usask.ca/wcvm/herdmed/applied-ethology/behaviourproblems/chewingrabbi...
http://www.bunnybytes.com/safeandsound.html

Good luck