BBC Breakfast Reporting

Survey results from The British Trust for Ornithology (they study mammals too) show that the population of wild rabbits has declined 60% in the last 20 years, and 5% in the last 12 months.

You can view more population statistics on the BTO website here.

It’s normal for the population to fluctuate, but this long term decline is more worrying. It’s not just about the rabbits themselves, but also the role they play with in the wider ecosystem. The BBC interviewed Paul Stancliffe (BTO) who explained that this level of decline would also have an impact on other species, for example rare bird species that nest in the short cropped grass habitats created by wild rabbit grazing. Yes, those wild rabbits are doing an important job!

Why has the wild rabbit population declined?

The main cause is Viral Haemorrhagic Disease (VHD), which is something that’s been around since the early 90’s. Although other causes like Myxomatosis played a part too.

You may have already heard about a new strain of VHD, called VHD2. It’s not just our pets that these diseases effect but also the wild population. Luckily for our pet rabbits we can vaccinate to protect them from disease. If you are in the UK and haven’t yet vaccinated your rabbit speak to your vet about it asap!

How can you help

The Mammal Society have developed an app called the Mammal Mapper, which will help them access population numbers and monitor long term trends. They’d like you to download and use it to record sightings of wild rabbits.

Fiona Mathews, Chair of the Mammal Society and Professor of Environmental Biology at Sussex University explains “What we need people to do is to go on a walk or bike-ride (an evening outing of about 45 minutes is ideal) and record the mammals they see. By recording the route taken, the App will let us work out the densities of animals in different habitats. This is a unique feature of the Mammal Mapper app and will be hugely valuable for conservation. Previously we had no way of working out whether a sighting was submitted because an animal was common, or because people were excited to see it because it was rare. It was also difficult to pin down the precise habitat where the mammal was seen. New technology means that this is all now really easy on a smart-phone.”.

So if you are out foraging for your rabbit or just enjoying an evening stroll, download the app and record any wild rabbits you spot.

Rabbit’s love willow toys, but they can be quite expensive particularly when they are often chewed and shredded in no time at all. So I had a little experiment to see how easy it would be to make my own willow rings, and the answer is very.

For this activity you’ll need some willow and some secateurs (or tough scissors – bunny nail clippers might work at a pinch).

Step 1: Find some Willow

You can buy dry willow for weaving – the stuff that’s used in basket making. This will work fine for toys, but you’ll need to do a little more preparation as it needs soaking first to make it flexible again. The place you buy it from should be able to give you tips on how to do this – time for soaking varies between willow types (from what I’ve read).

The trouble with buying willow is you’ll still be paying for willow toys, although it will probably work out cheaper. You may have noticed my preference is for bunny toys that are free. So instead I recommend finding a willow tree and cutting some fresh branches yourself.

This is what willow looks like:

It has long slender leaves and the branches are yellowish brown and bendy – they’ll fold in half without snapping. You get weeping willows (pictured), whose branches hang down as well as ones that look like normal trees.

Do check the rules on foraging where you live – if you aren’t allowed in public spaces try asking around to see if anyone has one in their garden they are pruning.

Step 2: Prepare Your Willow

So you’ve found a willow tree, and been given some weird looks by your neighbours as you carry home your haul of willow – it should look something like this:

Now you need to do a little processing to get it ready for weaving. If you’re cutting willow whilst it has leaves, I’d suggest removing them – at least for your first go. It makes it easier to see what you are doing. If you run your hand down the branch backwards (from tip to where you cut it) the leaves come off easily. You can feed the leaves to your bunny to distract them whilst you continue with your willow weaving. They also dry well for feeding in smaller portions later.

Once you’ve removed the leaves (or if you cut after the leaves have fallen) it should look like this:

This isn’t long straight willow grown for weaving, so it’s got quite a few forks and bendy bits. That’s ok though, we aren’t trying to make a pretty basket. To make it easier to work with, just run down each piece and cut at the forks.

For a 6″ (15cm) ring you’ll need pieces about 2.5′ (75cm) long. In other words, long enough to make a full circle and another half (3.14 x the diameter of the ring x 1.5 if you’d like the maths). You can get away with slightly shorter, but it’s always easier to have a little spare to cut off than not enough. For thickness 3-4mm seems to be the maximum to bend easily for a 6″ ring; go a little thinner for a smaller one. As long as you have several pieces roughly the right length and thickness, you can use thinner and shorter pieces to bulk it up. Please don’t worry about getting the perfect length/width willow, I’ve just added the details as a guide, cut some and experiment – it will probably work just fine.

Step 3: Tie a Knot

We’re ready to move on to the exciting bit – actually making the willow ring. First, pick your favourite piece of willow. A nice even width, longish bit that’s nice and bendy. Then, tie a lose knot in it. That makes your ring. This first circle decides the size of your willow ring, so adjust it to how big you want.

Step 4: Weave the Ends In

Next you need to wrap the spare ends of your knotted piece of willow around the circle. Just wrap it round and round. Once you are done you should have something that looks like a very skinny willow ring. (I’ve digitally coloured the bits I’m talking about in blue to help you follow – that’s not some weird species of willow tree)

Step 5: Add Your Next Piece

Take another piece of willow and tuck it a couple of inches under one side of the ring, from the inside out. That will hold the end in place as you wrap it around the ring, like you did for the ends of the first piece. Again, you can see me adding a new piece here in blue.

Keep wrapping it around from there until you get to the end, don’t worry about the last bit sticking out – you can trim it later if you want.

Step 6: Add Lots more pieces

Now you just need to repeat step 5 with more pieces of willow until you are happy with how your ring looks.

Your rabbit will be perfectly happy with the willow ring you’ve made, but if you think it looks a little untidy compared to the shop bought rings, all you need to do is snip off the sticky out bits.

And that’s it – it seems a bit tricky at first but once you’ve got the hang of it you’ll need need to buy a willow ring again!

Let me know how you get on if you give it ago.

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I wrote a post on 5 easy to ID weeds ages ago, and now I want to expand and cover some more. So here are five more rabbit safe weeds and a video at the end to help you find it easier to identify them.

Dandelion

This is a dandelion  (Taraxacum officinale), they are very common and grow in all sorts of places – you might even have them in your garden. Each stem has a single bright yellow flower on the end and when the flowers die they are replaced with a pompom shaped seed head. The bright green leaves and flower stems all radiate out from a central point. Rabbits can eat the leaves, stems and flowers, and you can dry the leaves for eating later.

Stinging Nettle

Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) grow in big swathes often at the bottom of hedges or tucked under trees. They usually grow in big clumps, around 2 to 3 foot tall. Even if you don’t feed them to your rabbit it’s handy to be able to identify them as they’ll cause a stinging rash if you accidentally brush against them. That doesn’t deter rabbits though; they seem immune to the stings and consider these a tasty snack. They have pointed leaves serrated along the edges; the tassels near the top are flowers. You’ll need gloves and long sleeves to pick them, but they also dry well for winter.

Blackberry

Blackberries (Rubus fruticosus), or brambles as they as sometimes called, are one of the best plants for rabbits – they have tasty fibrous leave that are great for those with sensitive tummies. They can often be found in hedgerows and under trees. They have thick leaves on long arching stems with lots of spikes (be careful when cutting them). The leave in the photo are quite bright green and shiny as they are new growth. They get darker and duller as they age. From May they’ll have white/pale pink flowers, and as the petals fall away, small green berries appear that grow and turn shiny black. Rabbits can eat the stems and the leaves (they’ll even manage those prickles) and the leaves dry well for winter.

Plantain (Ribwort)

This is plantain (Plantago lancelolata/major), it often grows among grass and along side grassy paths, so the long flower heads can make it easier to spot, they are a long stem with a little tuft on the end. Plantain is sometimes called ribwort because the thick leaves have rib like veins running down the length of them. If you tear a leaf you’ll find they are stringy a bit like celery. That is narrow leaf plantain on the left and broad leaf plantain on the right, the leaves are very similar accept short and fat instead of long and thin. Both can be fed fresh or dried for later.

Herb Robert

Lastly, this is Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) and its part of the geranium family. It’s little less common, at least where I live, but the bright pink – five petal – flowers are easy to spot. The leaves remind me a little bit of parsley in shape, with lots of splits and they sometimes have a red tinge to the edge. Like the other plants you can feed it fresh or dry.

Video

To make identifying them a little easier, here is a video showing clips of each plant:

Let me know if the video is helpful and I’ll add some more to my to do list.

Do you forage? What are your bunnies favourite plants to pick?

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Diet

To report uses two key factors to judge the quality of rabbits’ diets – whether rabbits are fed pellets or muesli (studies have shown muesli is less healthy than pellets) and whether rabbits eat enough hay (a portion about the size of their body).

The good news is that there has been a significant decline in people feeding muesli, from 49% in 2011 to 25% in 2017. This probably reflects the amount of publicity about the downsides to muesli around 2013, which led to some stockists and pet food manufacturers stopping sales. The bad news is most of that decline was in 2013/14 and the proportion feeding it has remained fairly static since.

There is also good news on hay, the amount of rabbits not eating a suitable sized portion has declined from 42% in 2011 to 31% in 2017. Again though, there is still a stubborn portion that aren’t feeding enough hay and it’s actually risen slightly from a low of 26% in 2013/15.

This years Rabbit Awareness Week (17-25th June) is focusing on diet. The great thing about the PAW Report is we’ll be able to look at the 2018 one and see if it has any influence. Part of the difficulty with improving welfare is you have rabbit owners that look out for new information and are therefore easy to reach, but also a group who aren’t getting the welfare messages. One of the things the report highlighted is that there is a big split between the welfare of rabbits that are registered with a vet and not e.g. only 17% of rabbits registered with a vet are fed muesli, where as 41% not registered with a vet are fed muesli. Vets are a really valuable information source for how to care for your pet properly – not just somewhere to go when your bun is sick.

Companionship

Rabbits are social animals so another key gauge of welfare is whether they have a companion. In 2017 44% of rabbits have a companion, a rise from 33% in 2011. Whilst that’s still quite low it’s nice there has been an increase.

The 2016 report had a little more detail on the living arrangements of bunnies:

52% Lived on their own
20% Lived with a rabbit of the opposite sex
17% Lived with a rabbit of the same sex
3% Lived with more than one rabbit of different sexes
1% Lived with more than one rabbit of the same sex
1% Lived with one or more guinea pigs

Note the similar numbers living with the same sex and opposite sex – this is interesting as matching up opposite sex neutered rabbit’s is what’s most frequently promoted. Of those rabbits living with companions, 64% of the rabbits involved were all neutered and 23% none were neutered – hopefully that later group are from the same sex category!

Neutering

In 2017 56% of rabbits are neutered, up from 37% in 2011 – there’s been nice steady upwards trend and I imagine it’s helped the upward trend in companionship too. These changes take time, seven years isn’t even the life time of one rabbit so seeing an improvement over what’s really quite a short period is great. As people tend to be reluctant to neutered older animals, it’s hopefully a sign that more young rabbits are being neutered and therefore the total neutered will continue to grow.

Vaccinations

The first few PAW reports just looked at whether rabbits were vaccinated or not – 46% vaccinated in 2011. Later reports have split this into primary vaccination (the first one) and boosters. In 2017 50% of rabbits had a first vaccination and 45% regular boosters.

Considering the prevalence of Myxomatosis and the new strain of VHD2 it’s worrying how few rabbits are vaccinated. The reason they aren’t vaccinated is also worrying – 32% said they thought vaccinations were unnecessary and 10% too expensive. Whilst cost isn’t something we can easily fix, if 16% of rabbits are unvaccinated because their owner didn’t realise it was necessary then we need to do some more education!

Housing

Indoor v outdoor can be a bit of a hot topic. In general the UK tends to see living outdoors as more normal for rabbits than some countries i.e. the US. So 41% of rabbits living predominantly inside was higher than I would have guessed.

I think it’s important that we don’t equate indoor with good housing and outdoor with bad though. Housing a rabbit inside doesn’t automatically mean it’s environmental needs are met, it’s very much down to the actual environment provided. Overall the report found 35% of rabbits were housed inappropriately, including 15% inside. A small cage is a small cage whether it’s in or out.

Behaviour

Last of all a little snippet on behaviour, a topic I’m rather fond of, so this one interested me – 44% of owners reported their rabbit displayed one or more unwanted behaviours that they’d like to change (including thumping and biting the cage bars). That’s a very high figure. It’s also worrying what that could mean for welfare – unwanted behaviours such as bar chewing can be a sign a rabbit’s needs aren’t being met. When the behaviours make rabbits tough to live with, they can also lead to rabbits being given up to rescues.

If you have a cage bar rattler/chewer I’ve an article on resolving it here: Rabbit Behaviour Problem: Chewing the Cage Bars.

Conclusion

So is rabbit welfare improving? The PAW Report shows that yes it is. We have made some positive progress in quite a short period, whilst there is clearly a lot more to do we have to accept it takes time to filter down education to 1.1 million or so rabbit owners. Those that work hard to educate people about rabbits’ needs should give themselves a pat on the back – keep up the good work it does make a difference!

What do you think are the biggest issues to rabbit welfare and how can we tackle them?

You can download the full report here: https://www.pdsa.org.uk/get-involved/our-current-campaigns/pdsa-animal-wellbeing-report

The lump continued to grow until it was interfering with the movement of his front leg and generally making him miserable. So on 13th September the vet visited him at home and helped him over rainbow bridge whilst he sat on his favourite box and I rubbed his ears.

Here are some of my favourite photos of his time with me…

Nine and a half years ago – eyes closed and small enough to fit in the palm of my hand

Still a baby here and curled up looking adorable

Shredding a telephone directory – one of his favourite activities

Adding backup escape routes to all his boxes (or in this case the vet carrier)

Napping in the sunshine resting on my hand… and getting nose rubs when I wasn’t pointing a camera

Jumping off high things

Finding him in places he really shouldn’t have been able to get to

Helping make toys for blog posts

Racing around the room binkying and then flopping over on my feet for cheek rubs

Scamp was an amazing little wild bunny, even if sometimes the amazing was his ability to chew, escape and generally cause trouble. He taught me a lot about bunnies and their fascinating behaviour (and a lot about bunny proofing) and it’s because of him my book Understanding your Rabbit’s Habits exists and is, hopefully, helping others understand these wonderful creatures a little better too. He’s also been the inspiration for the bunny toys and enrichment ideas, which I’ve posted on this blog and in Bunny Mad Magazine. Inspiration is a nice way of saying I spent a lot of time frantically coming up with ideas to occupy him so he wouldn’t get into quite so much mischief of his own design.

Scamp 2007 – 2016

Good bye little bun, I will miss you a lot.

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That square thing is the ‘hub’ which has an SD card to record too, and then there is an indoor camera, and outdoor camera, two sensors that detect doors/windows/cat flaps opening and a plug that you can turn on/off remotely.

It was very easy to set up, you download an app on your phone, then press a button on the ‘hub’ and it links your phone and the hub. You then link in the devices e.g. cameras you want to use to the hub by pressing matching buttons on the hub and the device (camera/sensor etc.). It worked perfectly first time.

Cameras

I set the cameras up first, that’s me watching Scamp sitting on his box from my phone whilst in a completely different room (do you think he knows?).

It’s very addictive, I kept peeking to see what Scamp is up to. It’s also interesting to see how he behaves when I’m not there. Like most bunnies, he has great hearing so if he’s up and about he tends to race to the door in time for me to open it – it’s hard to catch him just hanging about. With a camera, I get to see what mischief he was up to before I get there, for example, how does the hay get spread over such a wide area??? The answer… he stands on his box and digs at it until it gets thrown off behind him.

It also has night vision, so you can watch even in the dark…

Cute by day, scary little monster at night.

The outdoor camera is water proof and has a x metre long cable. I ran it from the house, out an ajar window and it worked fine even in the rain. It comes with a base you can screw to a wall, but the attachment is a standard camera mount so I used my bendy Gorrillapod so I could attach it where I wanted and move it about.

If your shed/aviary/hutch is nearish the house you could easily run it like that. I know many bunny owners have quite well kitted out sheds so you might have power installed anyway. It can be up to 300m from the hub and still connect so you just need power near where you want it.

Remote Access

It’s not just another room you can watch from, once you’ve set it up on your phone/tablet you can access it anywhere. My parents happened to be going on holiday so before they went I connected my mums phone to the device and asked them to report back on how it worked for very remote bunny spying. Big mistake! Did I mention the cameras have two-way sound? You can hear your rabbit and use a built in speaker to talk to them.

It’s very creepy to know you are in the house by yourself (other than a bunny obviously) and suddenly hear someone in another room having a conversation with Scamp – although Scamp didn’t seem to mind. Worse, the indoor camera has a lullaby option that plays music, which I’m sure is actually designed for people monitoring babies not for attracting attention when you want to have a conversation via intercom on what you are up to on holiday! Lesson learned – remote viewing works great, so watch who you give access too!

Pre-empting txts wondering where Scamp is, whilst he’s busy eating err exploring the rest of the house!

Motion Detector a.k.a Poop Cam

You can press a button and take a photo and record video remotely if you catch your bunny doing something cute (or naughty). But, you can also set it to record automatically using door sensors, sound or motion as the trigger. So for example, attach a sensor to your rabbits cat flap and then get a record of each time they go through.

I was pondering what to up to test the motion sensors…  and then I thought – poop cam. What rabbit owner hasn’t obsessed over whether their bunny is currently eating/pooping at some point or other? Not pooping is a sign of gut stasis and needs urgent vet attention, so if your bunny seems a bit under the weather or is recovering from being unwell, a poop cam would be perfect! You can check from work or see a record of when they used the tray. It would be handy too if you had a group of bunnies, because you could easily check who was using the tray which is tricky to monitor when they share.

Anyway, I set up one camera on Scamp’s litter tray and one covering the rest of the kitchen (where he lives when he’s not out and about). His litter tray is just out of shot in the bottom right corner on Camera 1.

Then I set it to record for one minute seconds each time it detected motion. Some of the resulting video clips are below:

Scamp hoping about:

Late night snacking with his treat ball:

Poop cam:

So Scamp messed about a bit, napped, visited the loo and was surprising well behaved.

Sensors

The window/door sensors were as easy to set up as the cameras. The door/window sensors would work on a cat flap or a hutch door, or even on your garden gate if you were worried about people coming into your garden. There are two pieces and you fit them next to each other when the door is closed, and the system detects when they move apart and can take a picture or send an alert. They are completely wireless (they have batteries) and just have to be within 300m of the hub (which I think will cover most people’s gardens!).

Summary

All round it was very easy to set up and use, the sensors and motion detection etc. all worked perfectly. It was fun to watch, and reassuring to be able to check what he was up when I wasn’t there.  The only downside is I’d have liked HD quality recording, it’s good enough to see what he’s up to, but a little blurry for sharing photos with you of what Scamp’s up to.

If you’d like to find out more the product page is here: Panasonic Smart Home System

Thanks to Panasonic for letting me and Scamp play

Anyone else use bunny spy cameras or tempted to get one?

It’s the perfect little guide for anyone who is thinking about foraging but is a bit unsure where to start.

Whilst there are a lot of books on identifying plants, this book is written specifically for rabbit owners, in fact Dr Way’s rabbits have helpfully rated all the plants suggested on taste – afterall just because something is safe to eat doesn’t mean it’s tasty. In fact my favourite line from the book is in answer to the question: what if my rabbit doesn’t eat what I have collected?

If a rabbit or group of rabbits does not want a particular plant but is/are otherwise eating then just take the plant away again (and apologise).

Because we know who really is in charge!

The book starts of with an introduction to foraging – why forage, where to forage safely, the law on taking plants, drying and storing forage, toxicity, and understanding plant names. All illustrated by cute photos of bunnies tucking in to tasty plants.

The rest of the book contains just over 60 (if I counted right) common plants that you can forage. Each plant has a colour photo, the common and latin names, a description and some tips – for example when it’s at it’s most tasty, where to find it, if it dries well or if it’s good for something in particular and the taste rating (in stars).

Most plants only have the one photo, but the latin plant names mean it’s easy to search online or in plant books for extra photos to help with an ID and the back cover includes a helpful list of plant reference books. The book itself if a nice size (A5/35 pages) to pop in your bag when foraging, unlike a giant tome that some general guides are.

I’ve already tried out two new plants thanks to the book, both of which Scamp approved.

Scamp placing his order.

You can also hear Dr Way discuss foraging in Episode 4 the All Ears Podcast here. And me discuss rabbit behaviour and enrichment in Episode 8 here.

Foraging for Rabbits is available via the Rabbit Welfare Association here and costs £4.

Win a Copy of Foraging for Rabbits

As I mentioned, I bought two copies, so I’m giving one away to my lovely readers. For a chance to win, please leave a comment below – why not tell me what you think about foraging – is it something you’ve tried or are thinking about tryin? I’ll draw a winner on 22nd June 2015.

Happy Foraging!

Step 1: Find a Box

To start you need a box with a base about this size you want your finished pad. This ones about A4. You’ll need to remove any tape/labels so it’s bunny safe.

Step 2: Chop the Bottom Off the Box

Using a knife or scissors chop around the base of the box so that you end up with a tray about 1-2″ deep. Don’t discard the rest of the box – you’ll need that next.

Step 3: Make a lot of Strips of card

With the left over cardboard (you may need an extra box) cut strips the same length as the length of the tray and the same width or slightly more than the depth of the tray. So if you tray is 12″ long and 2″ deep, then cut strips 12″ long and 2″ wide. The easiest thing is to cut one, pop it in the tray to check and then use that as a template. Don’t worry about being too perfect – it’s probably going to get shredded anyway! How many you’ll need will depend on the size of your tray and the thickness of your cardboard.

Pro tip: finding it a bit of a flaff with craft knife or scissors – use a bread knife – it whizzes through cardboard!

Step 4: Slot the strips into the box

Once you’ve got a good handful of strips you can start slotting them into the box. The strips go in on end.

Pack them in so they are wedged in tight:

Stop at the point you try to wedge one more in and the whole lot pop out in protest … then put them all back in minus that last one.

Step 5: Add Rabbit

You should now have a lovely dense cardboard mat perfect for sitting in, digging at and generally shredding.

You could make it more fun (and encourage shredding) by sprinkling some dried herbs/plant mix on it for your bun to root out.

Scamp loves a mat to sit on and this one was really quick to make, much faster than the woven mat I tried, and just used free scrap cardboard so cheap too. Let me know if you give it a go and what your bunny thinks!

It’s great to have these stats on things like how many rabbits are neutered and whether they get an appropriate diet because it helps welfare campaigners monitor how successful they are at implementing changes and also where to target change.

So, on to this years report. Here is a handy graphically summary (feel free to share):

And now a few details…

Diet

One of the biggest changes is the rapid decline in muesli based dry foods. In the last four years it’s dropped from being eaten by 49% to 25% of rabbits. Interestingly it’s been a sustained change, continuing this year, not just a short term reaction to media coverage.

On the other hand in the last year there hasn’t been much progress on hay eating; the percentage not eating a good portion of hay has gone up very slightly. That might be an area that needs a little more focus. It can be tough to get rabbits not used to eating hay to make the change, it can take quite a bit more effort than picking up a different dry food brand.

One of the focuses in this years report is obesity, whilst they don’t delve into too much details specifically for rabbits, I do think it’s something that needs monitoring. It’s easy for rabbits to put on weight when eating too many pellets.

Health Care

General health care hasn’t done well over the last 12 months; the numbers of rabbits neutered/vaccinated has gone down. I’m slightly surprised about this as I’d have expected it to at least hold steady. It would be good to get vaccination stats up – cats/dogs are managing 70-80%. I think vaccination is good for more than just disease prevention, it means rabbits get an annual health check giving vets the opportunity to give advice on other subjects like neutering and diet.

Reassuringly, 91% of rabbit owners would contact their vet first thing in an emergency situation, apparently rabbit owner’s second step would be to search for help online.

Where Rabbits are Obtained & Why

This year the PDSA asked owners about where they got their rabbits: 39% came from pet shops, 21% from family and friends and 15% were rescues. Whilst 15% of rabbits being adopted from rescue isn’t bad, 24% of cats and 35% of dogs came from rescues, so I think we can do better.

On the reasons behind getting a rabbit, 26% got a rabbit because ‘children wanted a pet’. That’s 1 in 4 rabbit being bought for children and couple that with that fact that ‘children getting bored’ is one of the most common reasons rabbits are given up to rescues – I think that’s a statistic that would benefit from some work to change it.

Vet’s Opinions

When vets were asked their main concerns about rabbits they were:

1. Inappropriate Diet
2. Complete lack of care – rabbits being forgotten about
3. Dental disease

Personally, I think the main problem is getting the information out there. If you research, particularly online, there are plenty of resources on good care. But, it’s very hard to reach the people from that aren’t looking for advice or don’t know they need it.

What do you think the biggest welfare issues facing rabbits are? And do you have any ideas for tackling them?

Here is the box; it’s a nice sturdy one that the printer sends my Understanding Rabbit’s Habits books in.

Ooo, a new box for me!

The first thing I did was cut all the way around about 3″ up from the base (and removed the tape) to make a tray. It makes a nice lounging spot/hay outpost/chewing spot – I tuck these in corners to help prevent unsanctioned chewing/digging.

What did you do to my box!

That left quite a bit of cardboard over to make some toys!

Simple Cardboard Ball

Step 1: Make Three Circles

I started by drawing around a bowl to get three circles. They can be whatever size you like, go for plates if you want something bigger.

Watch out for my nose.

Next cut them out with a knife or scissors.

Scamp was banned from this part because he was at risk of losing whiskers.

But he wasn’t gone for long.

Step 2 Make Slots

Now you need to make slots in your circles. Unless you are using very thin card, e.g. cereal packet, then rather than just cutting a line, cut an actual slot discarding a thin piece of card so the slot width is the same as then thickness as the cardboard. It makes them much easier to put together.

Each circle needs a slightly different slot.

Circle 1. Cut  to the centre of the circle.

Circle 2. Cut to the centre and then continue half way to the other side.

Circle 3. Cut to the centre, then make a second slot from the opposite side half way to the centre.

The blue x marks the centre of the circle.

Step 3: Assemble Your Ball

Now assemble the ball by slotting the pieces together.

Start by slotting together circle no. 2 and the short slot on circle no. 3. Then take circle no. 1 and, working from the same direction, slot that over the top.

Slot together 2 & 3. Then add no. 1.

And you should have this:

Finished!

If you want to add a bit of extra fun, try making holes in the circles with a pair or scissors or jabbing it with a pen and then put pellets through them.

Cardboard Ball Advanced Level

After successfully completed one ball, I decided to get a bit more adventurous with a ball to stuff with hay.

Step 1: Make Six Circles

Again, cut circles but this time they need to be around 6″ or so across (or bigger) and you’ll need six of them.

Step 2: Cut Slots

This time all circles need matching slots:

Step 3: Slot Together

Then you slot them together. It looks complicated but just slot the first three on, and then it will be obvious where the last two go.

Then stuff the gaps with hay and treats and hand over to your bunny!

Okay, I forgive you for cutting up my box.

Not a bad evenings entertainment from just one box!