Rabbit enrichment: toys and boredom busters

What is rabbit enrichment and why does it matter?

Enrichment is anything that lets a rabbit behave like a rabbit. Wild rabbits spend many hours a day finding food, dig burrows, keep watch from high spots, sprint, and live in groups. A pet rabbit has the same brain. Take those jobs away and you get a bored, stressed or overweight rabbit, and often a destructive one.

The RSPCA lists safe toys to toss and chew, tunnels and hiding places, foraging, digging and reward-based training as the basics. It warns that a rabbit unable to dig can become highly stressed. The Scottish Government's rabbit welfare guidance adds places to mark territory with chin rubbing, and access to a run at all hours, because rabbits are most active at dawn, dusk and overnight. Enrichment starts with space: our rabbit cage setup guide shows how to lay out a home with room for all of this.

Bored rabbit behaviour: signs to look for

A bored or frustrated rabbit usually tells you. The RSPCA and Scottish Government name these signs:

• Chewing the bars, the hutch, skirting boards or anything else unsuitable
• Over-grooming, leaving bald patches or sore skin
• Circling the enclosure over and over, or other repeated movements with no purpose
• Restlessness, nervousness or sudden aggression
• Hiding a lot or withdrawing from you and its companion
• Changes in eating, drinking, activity or toilet habits

Some of these are also signs of pain or illness, so if a change comes on suddenly, see a vet first. Our rabbit behaviour guide explains what normal looks like.

Rabbit enrichment ideas: foraging

Foraging is the easiest win, because you are feeding them anyway. The Rabbit Welfare Association (RWAF) says feeding only pellets from a bowl leads to fast eating, boredom and illness. Make every meal a hunt instead.

• Scatter the daily pellet ration through hay or grass
• Spread hay in several piles, racks and trays around the enclosure
• Hide leafy greens in different spots each day
• Stuff toilet roll tubes, paper bags or willow tunnels with hay and herbs
• Fill a muffin tray with hay and hide a few pellets in each hole
• Use a treat ball or puzzle feeder for the pellet portion
• Offer branches of willow, hazel, apple or blackthorn
• Grow grass in turf trays and swap two trays so each can regrow

Keep the amounts the same as normal and the diet still 85% hay; enrichment is about how food is found, not more of it. Our rabbit diet guide has daily portions, and the safe food list covers weeds and branches you can forage.

Digging: give them somewhere to dig

Every rabbit needs a place to dig, or it will dig your carpet. The RWAF suggests a high-sided large litter tray, planter or child's sandpit at least twice the size of the rabbit.

1. Pick a container. Use a high-sided tray, planter or a cardboard box at least twice your rabbit's length, deep enough to hold a good layer of filling.
2. Choose the filling. Indoors, use hay or shredded paper. Outdoors, use crumbly soil or play sand; the RWAF says turned soil, lightened with sand if you have clay, often gets rabbits digging.
3. Bury a reward. Hide a few pellets or small pieces of vegetable in it so they discover what it is for.
4. Keep it fresh. Change soil or paper regularly, and avoid litter types that cause breathing problems and large pellets that hurt paws.

Hiding, climbing and rearing up

Rabbits are prey animals, so a safe hidey-hole is not a luxury. The RWAF says every tunnel or hide needs both an entrance and an exit, so a rabbit can never be cornered. A cardboard box with a hole cut at each end does the job, and you simply replace it when they have eaten the walls.

Give them a platform too: a sturdy box, a wooden block or a hide with a flat roof lets them jump up and keep watch. The RWAF says rabbits need at least 1 m (just over 3 ft) of height to rear up fully and check for danger. Our pages on the best rabbit hides and houses and the best rabbit toys have picks from other shops.

The Oxbow Enriched Life Play Table is a popular all-in-one: a natural, untreated wood table with chew danglies that rabbits can hop on, chew and shelter under. It adds interest, but a cardboard box and a sturdy crate can do much the same for free.

DIY rabbit enrichment toys

Homemade toys work as well as bought ones, as long as every material is safe to chew. These come from the House Rabbit Society and RWAF lists:

Use plain cardboard with no heavy print or tape, untreated wood only, and take away anything that is breaking into sharp pieces.

Can rabbits chew pine cones, plastic and other things?

Pine cones are fine if clean and untreated. The House Rabbit Society lists oven-dried pine cones as a DIY toy, and the RWAF says the danger of pine sap has been overstated and that untreated, unpainted bark is generally safe to chew. Don't use craft-shop cones, which are often scented, painted or glittered.

Plastic is a judgement call. Rabbits can chew through thin plastic easily. The House Rabbit Society suggests heavy plastic baby toys and cat toys for tossing, so we'd allow hard, solid plastic under supervision and bin it the moment it cracks or splinters. Keep cables, soft plastic, rubber and anything with small parts out of reach; the RWAF warns cables are the main danger around Christmas trees for exactly this reason.

Outdoor rabbit enrichment

Outdoor rabbits have grass to graze, which is already half the battle, but a plain lawn in a pen is still a bit dull. Build on it:

• A shelter and run joined and open day and night
• A dedicated digging patch of loose soil or sand, with wire buried around the edges so they can't dig out
• Logs, tunnels, pipes and upturned crates to hide in and hop on
• A covered corner for wet days and shade for hot ones
• Run height of at least 1 m (3 ft) so they can rear up
• Safe weeds and branches tied up or scattered for foraging

The RWAF suggests turf laid over mesh in runs without grass. For deciding between the two setups, see our indoor or outdoor rabbits guide.

Training and play with you

Training is enrichment too. The RSPCA suggests positive, reward-based training such as clicker training, and names coming when called, fetching, going back into the enclosure and target training as skills rabbits can learn. Use a small piece of leafy green or a single pellet as the reward, keep sessions to a few minutes, and never force or chase a rabbit. Sitting on the floor and letting them climb on you is a game too; see how to tame and bond with a rabbit.

The best enrichment of all is another rabbit. The RWAF notes that rabbits with companions forage more because they are less stressed. If yours lives alone, read our guide to pairing two rabbits, and see the complete rabbit care guide for everything else.