any tips for a rabbit with adhd

I have posted the same kind of thread on my forum but I thought I would post here as well for other opinions.

Some of you may have heard that I own the devils rabbit…its true. I have kept rabbits close to 20 years with my mum and I have never once come across one as ill mannered as this one.

His playing up again this morning and driving me insane. He keeps taking things off the table, TV, sofa, chairs and eating them. His chewing all of our bills and I can’t find anywhere to put them where he can’t get to them. When I leave the room it’s not unusual for me to hear CRASH, BANG and then he will make mad dash under the table. I have to have my eye on him constantly and I can’t because I am working. He pulls the telephone from the shelf, his knocked the ironing board over (luckily not onto himself ), his started a new trick where his throwing his droppings out of his cage from his litter tray, yes throws them out. He chews wires, digs and chews the carpet, chews the door when he tried to open it, chews our shelving, chews our CDs, DVD cases. Then we start to fall out because I reach the end of my patients “GET IN YOUR *beep* CAGE NOW! ” then he has me running all over the flat after him binkying on the way while I am raging. The only way I can get him into his cage in this situation is to put food in.

Then he will start to be destructive in his cage….more mess for me the clean up and he gets another run as well. The thing is with puppy pens, is they would not give him much exercise, his a large rabbit so he needs to exercise. This only started since the neuter (yes he is neutered) it may have happened anyway but it happened within a week/2 weeks after.

Sorry no advise but he sounds like fun!

Babybunnies4 wrote:Sorry no advise but he sounds like fun!

From an outsider it may sound that. But when his destroying your home and costing you a fortune it doesn’t seem like fun.

It's not uncommon for rabbits to get worse before they get better after a neuter, especially it seems with bucks. How long ago was he 'fixed' and how old is he now?

Has the start of this behaviour coincided with spring/summer at all? Even neutered bunnies still respond to seasonal changes.

Sooz wrote:It's not uncommon for rabbits to get worse before they get better after a neuter, especially it seems with bucks. How long ago was he 'fixed' and how old is he now?

Has the start of this behaviour coincided with spring/summer at all? Even neutered bunnies still respond to seasonal changes.

His been fixed for a few months now so It isn't recent, and it was soon after so I am not sure if its the season or not.

I mean if you think about it I have gone from good boy rabbit Toby that was also old, to this hell hound that is all over the shop . Talk about jumping from one end of the scale to the other. We have a love/hate relationship….totally different to what me and Toby had.

Could it be his food? He sounds almost like a child on a sugar high!

We had a cat once that had incredible mood swings and it turned out to be a hormone imbalance - maybe Satan's bun should see a vet? I do sympathise - poor you.

have you got a garden or outside area? maybe if he was out there with things going on to watch etc then he might be more tired when he comes indoors?

KathyT wrote:Could it be his food? He sounds almost like a child on a sugar high!

We had a cat once that had incredible mood swings and it turned out to be a hormone imbalance - maybe Satan's bun should see a vet? I do sympathise - poor you.

Yeah he reminds me of a child....hyped up 5 year old.

His on burgess excel rabbit pellets, greens and timothy hey (that he never eats). Oh and cardboard….I dunno how many E numbers cardboard has in….oh and wood….what about wood he eats that as well…in fact he eats just about anything . But yeah he could be on some kind of high, that’s similar type of behaviour.

racheld69 wrote:have you got a garden or outside area? maybe if he was out there with things going on to watch etc then he might be more tired when he comes indoors?

We have a garden but it’s in the front of the house so i would have to sit out their with him. Plus we have a lot of cats and foxes out during the day. Next door feeds this young fox and it sits at her front door everyday. We also have a lot of mosquitoes around at the moment and his not been jabbed yet. I am planning of getting him a fold down pen and putting him in the garden once his has his booster but he would have to be in a pen and i would have to sit with him. We are hoping to move soon so hopefully we will have out own garden…or at least a better sheared one…

The joys of living down south

How old is he? I know that giants mature later than smaller breeds which means he is likely to be stuck in his terrible teen stage for a while . I have found some rabbits are just suited to living indoors and others are little hooligans.

When I was rehoming there were a few rabbits we had to advise against keeping as house buns because they were so destructive and on the other hand there were those that were so good they litter trained themselves (like my Lexie :luv: ).

Sooz wrote:It's not uncommon for rabbits to get worse before they get better after a neuter, especially it seems with bucks. How long ago was he 'fixed' and how old is he now?

Has the start of this behaviour coincided with spring/summer at all? Even neutered bunnies still respond to seasonal changes.

i agree i remember when my first mini lop was castrated his behaviour went worse and i thought omg what have i done, a month later he had settled down

rosie can still play up when its spring/summer and mowgli gets very fed upof it all and soo do i at times

maybe when you get him a companion it will calm him down alot, giving him something else to focus on, ie grooming, playing etc

lisa

His about a year old.
He is very litter trained...he doesn’t do droppings anywhere else apart from his litter tray.
It’s mainly in the morning and early afternoon his playing up.
His usually destructive from when I get up to about 12 in the afternoon, then he will sleep until the evening have his dinner then sleep it off then get ready to start again. But he is always worse in the morning.

[quote="nethie"]

Sooz wrote:

maybe when you get him a companion it will calm him down alot, giving him something else to focus on, ie grooming, playing etc

lisa

There are just a couple of concerns I have with getting him a playmate, and they are:

A: fighting
B: not solving the problem.

If they started fighting I have no space to split them up. All I would be able to do is gate one off in the bathroom or kitchen.

I am also worried that it would make the situation worse, like I don't want two naughty rabbits on my hands. Plus I am not even sure how rabbits with spontaneous personalities like McQueen’s get on with other rabbits.
Its all abit trial and error.

can you not take him take him with you and ask a rescue to pair him up some do this then you will get more idea on how he'll react with other buns, i was worried when i got rosie a new friend, she had become bored when i left her to go to work she shredded wallpaper ripped the carpet chewed through the bed and cushions etc, all this luckily stopped when i got mowgli

i was lucky as you say it could easily go the other way i could of ended u[ woth double trouble, which is why i went for a more laid back breed rather then another hyper nethie

good luck
lisa

nethie wrote:can you not take him take him with you and ask a rescue to pair him up some do this then you will get more idea on how he'll react with other buns, i was worried when i got rosie a new friend, she had become bored when i left her to go to work she shredded wallpaper ripped the carpet chewed through the bed and cushions etc, all this luckily stopped when i got mowgli

i was lucky as you say it could easily go the other way i could of ended u[ woth double trouble, which is why i went for a more laid back breed rather then another hyper nethie

good luck
lisa

Yeah I have thought about going to my local ARC and seeing what they have, but I am rather picky. I can’t have another giant because of space. I would love another big bun but I have to be realistic. I am going to wait until I have got settled into my new job (hense money ) and then Ill see. In the meantime…..anyone care to tell me what the “laid back breeds” are? I am interested

I've always found my Dwarf lops to be pretty chilled out rabbits, they tend to be quite independant though and are happier doing their own thing.

You do get the dental issue's to contend with though, only one of my lops has good teeth

Aww
I never had a lop, so I would probably look to get a lop. I think I have enough ears on McQueen to last me a lifetime
Maybe a slightly older rabbit to kick him into touch....like a mummy figure

A matriarch who wont stand for his nonsense sounds like a plan . I would love to have a giant, Lola (of Kirsty & Lola) came to stay with me for bonding and very nearly never went home....the deciding factor was that my Staff cross was petrified of her .

I think Juno will be keeping my hands full for sometime now though.

my old thumper was a french lop she was very laid back, mowgli is a mini lop he is also load back and as sooz says dwarf lops tend to be more laid back

I hate to say it but I think he sounds like a reasonably normal bun, it probably does just seem such a shock because hes so different from Toby. I know Rhia was a shock to the system & we've had some testing times...but I cant imagine my life without her now, I've had to just learn to chill a bit and realise her naughtyness isn't causing life or death. She makes me laugh every day X