Can Rabbits Roam Freely In The House? (All You Need To Know)

Nobody enjoys living their entire life in a cage. Neither do rabbits like it. However, many owners need clarification about giving access to the rabbit to roam all day freely. So, can rabbits roam freely in the house? Is it safe for them? How to free-roam the indoor rabbit? Let’s find out all your answers in the article.

Rabbits should be allowed to roam freely in the house. However, take precautions before allowing them to roam freely, such as litter training, neutering, or spaying. Protecting your rabbit from electric wires, toxic plants, or sharp objects is essential.

This article will discuss the benefits and things to consider of letting your rabbit roam freely in the house, how to free-roam your rabbit or rabbit-proof the house, and many more. So, let’s find it out.

Can my rabbit freely roam in the house?

In earlier centuries, rabbits were only domesticated as farm animals and were kept in small cages, which was cruel to spend their whole day in a prison-like hutch. However, nowadays, they have been raised as a member of families.

Many owners of domestic rabbits are giving up on their indoor or outdoor hutches and crowded wire cages like baby pens to allow their rabbits to roam freely. 

Making a rabbit free-roam means giving access to wander freely in the house with and without the presence of their owners or caretakers. Just like dogs not kept in cages and can roam freely in the house, rabbits should also need free-roam access to explore, play, and take naps. 

Giving access to run freely in the entire house makes the rabbit happy and healthy. However, allowing them to run freely without any safety precautions is not easy. The two most frequent outside threats are neighborhood cats and toxic plants. 

Rabbits are prey animals. And owners need to take care of their safety measurements. For the safety and happiness of your rabbit, and your entire household, allowing rabbits free range of your property requires training, time, and extensive rabbit proofing.

Why should you allow your rabbit to roam in the house freely?

Allowing your rabbit to roam in the house freely is essential for their happy and healthy life span. Rabbits naturally enjoy exploring their surroundings, looking things over, and gathering information.

Also, there are many benefits of having free-roam rabbits. Some of them are:

Healthy Relationship:

Allowing your rabbit to roam freely in the house could be the best time for you and your rabbit to bond. You can have a great time playing with your rabbit, making them trust you, or eating snacks together, which reflects a healthy relationship, and reduces the boredom behavior of the rabbit. 

Mental Health:

Allowing your rabbit to roam freely in the entire house has one essential benefit: mental health.

No rabbit likes to be in a cage; they want to roam freely and should be. If the rabbit has no opportunity to exercise, has no exciting environment or mental stimulation, or is kept in the cage for hours.

In that case, this could lead to mental illness like depression. Therefore, for the mental health of a rabbit, they should have a free-roam lifestyle. 

Healthy weight: 

Your rabbit can get the necessary exercise when you let them out of its cage. In addition, free roam allows rabbits to run around the house to maintain a healthy weight because they can easily gain weight and quickly develop obesity if they do not have enough space to play or exercise.

And obesity in rabbits can cause severe health issues like GI stasis and other life-threatening problems. Therefore, allow your rabbit to roam freely, encouraging daily, frequent exercise and preventing obesity.

Bones and Joints Health:

If a rabbit remains active with the advantage of free-roaming, its bones and joints will exercise properly.

Due to this, your rabbits will have less chance of losing muscle mass when they age and will also be less likely to develop arthritis and other bone and joint issues.

Blader sludge and kidney function:

With the advantage of free roam, your rabbit will exercise by running around the entire house, which helps them reduce the risk of bladder stones or sludge.

By stirring things up, removing sludge, and lowering bladder stones, the exercise a rabbit receives from being allowed to roam freely can help kidney and bladder functions.

How to free-roam your rabbit in the house?

The first thing that you need to concern about before free-roaming your rabbit is how your rabbit feels. You should know what makes your rabbit happy, sad, or scared and where is their hiding spot, e.g., under the bed or couch. 

Secondly, it is essential to spay or neuter your rabbit. Fixing your rabbits helps to reduce territorial or aggressive behavior. When rabbits are territorial, they spray their urine as a territorial mark everywhere, which could be messy for an owner to clean.

If you want to free-roam your rabbit, you must litter train them because, in some cases show, rabbits pee and poo everywhere when they freely roam in the house. 

Therefore, it is essential to neuter and litter train your rabbit because once they train for a litter box and are neutered or spayed, they can live in a clean and healthy environment. 

Also read: Do Rabbits Need Hideout?

How to rabbit-proof your house?

Rabbit proofing is very important before letting your rabbit roam freely in the house. Once you know and understand your rabbit’s likes or dislikes, what they like to chew or what they gravitate towards, like carboards or chair legs, you should rabbit-proof those things or remove them. 

Rabbits like to dig or chew on everything. That is why it is essential to rabbit-proof those items if you let them roam freely in the house. Here are some ways to rabbit-proof your rabbit.

Toxic plants:

If you allow your rabbit to run freely inside your house, you must keep toxic plants such as tulips, poinsettia, tomato leaves, and holly away from the rabbit’s reach. 

These plants are very dangerous and even cause life-threatening problems if your rabbit ingests them. Therefore, you should remove the plants or restrict your rabbit’s area so they can not reach it. 

Wires: 

The most hazardous household items to keep your rabbit away from are typically wires. In addition, if the rabbit tries to cut off the power to a crucial appliance, there can be a higher chance of getting electrocuted or burned.

Therefore, you need to keep the wires away from the rabbit’s reach by blocking the areas where many cables are available. Also, you should cover the wires with hard plastic sleeves and protect the baseboard with purring strips or plastic guards for more safety.

Baseboards:

Rabbits love to chew baseboards. As a result, baseboards frequently sustain damage because they are so close to the mouth. In addition, paints that contain toxic substances are harmful to rabbits and should not be consumed, especially in older homes where lead paint is still on the walls.

Therefore, it is essential to cover the baseboard with flattened cardboard boxes or wooden planks or block the baseboard area with any furniture so that your rabbit cannot reach there.

Carpets:

Usually, most of the rabbits, especially female ones, like to dig or eat the carpets around the room’s corners. Unfortunately, ingesting these carpet pieces blocks their intestines and causes life-threatening problems. 

Therefore, you should cover the room’s corner carpets with natural fiber rugs or plastic mats to prevent damage and protect your rabbit from health issues. 

Also read: Can Rabbit Mites Live In Carpets?

Limit the areas: 

You should limit or block off the unsafe areas for your rabbit. Rabbits are prey animals, and there can be high risks of neighbors’ cats or other predators around your house or inside your house example, having dogs or cats in the house. 

Therefore, you should limit or block off the areas that can be dangerous for your rabbit, for example, beds or couches, to prevent digging into the carpet. Provide puppy pens or baby gates to limit or block off the areas.

Furniture:

Additionally, rabbits may try to chew on or dig into furniture, such as the cushions of couches or chew the legs of any wooden furniture. 

You can prevent this by wrapping the wooden furniture legs with flexible cat scratcher mats. You can place the cube netting on its top for couches or cover it with any old blanket.

When should I not allow my rabbit to run around the house?

Some owners allow their rabbits to roam freely in the daytime. However, they prefer to keep the rabbit safely enclosed in a cage at night.

This might be a smart move for both the rabbit and you because your rabbit can be stuck anywhere while exploring at night, and because rabbits can’t speak, you will not be able to hear that they are in trouble. 

Also, here are some other safety tips when you should not allow your rabbit to run in the house freely:

  1. When your rabbit is pregnant: Even though pregnant rabbit moves more slowly, they can still run around and exercise. We advise keeping pregnant rabbits apart from other males and even females. Otherwise, exercise and running sessions might become overly frustrating or aggressive. Instead, set aside times for your non-pregnant and pregnant rabbits to run around the house.
  2. When your rabbit is injured or ill: Allowing your rabbit to roam around if they’re not feeling well may not be a good idea. Mild exercise may occasionally help with illness symptoms. But everything is situational. However, safety comes first when a rabbit sustains even a minor wound. There may be many good reasons not to run around, ranging from an open injury to broken bones.

Conclusion:

  1. Rabbits should be allowed to roam freely in the house just like other domestic pets, e.g., dogs or cats. 
  2. Giving access to run freely in the entire house makes the rabbit happy and healthy.
  3. Rabbit proofing is very important before letting your rabbit roam freely in the house.
  4. You should know what makes your rabbit happy, sad, or scared and where is their hiding spot, e.g., under the bed or couch. 
  5. Do not allow your rabbit to run all around the house if they are ill, sick, or pregnant.

Reference: nidirect.gov, Rabbit.org

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