Are you looking for a new toy to stop your rabbit getting bored?
We have reviewed the most popular types of Chew toys, Tunnels, Puzzles and Toss toys and tell you their good and bad points.
We tested them with our rabbits to share their reactions as well as rating them for Value for money, Mess and Noise nuisance.
We explain how these toys can help control unwanted chewing behavior and how they provide entertainment to keep your rabbit healthy and happy.
Don't waste money on a toy that may end up being discarded, take a look at our round up below so you can choose the best toy for your rabbit.
Fun: Irrisistable!
Value for money: Great value
Mess: A bit untidy
Noise: quiet
These are a very popular toy that your rabbit will enjoy tossing about and they make a great chew toy as well
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Fun:
Value for money: Affordable
Mess:
Noise: Annoying
If you had to choose a chew toy that will keep your bunny occupied the longest, then a cardboard castle has to be the winner.
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Fun:
Value for money:
Mess: No mess!
Noise:
These toys are great fun and value for money. Three-way tunnel toys transform a room for your rabbit to play in and can be neatly packed afterwards.
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Bunnies love gnawing on things especially if they can toss them about which twiggy or woven balls are perfect for.
They can be made of Willow, Wicker, Rattan, and Grassy woven materials. They are good for providing your rabbit with some dietary fiber. They will also help wear down your rabbit teeth which grow constantly throughout their lives.
You will often find chew balls in multi-packs which include a variety of shapes and materials that are the best value for money. Multi-packs are also good because you can swap them out to stop your rabbit from getting bored and overlooking them.
They also come in a variety of different shapes and sizes. Often the more detailed they are the more expensive they get however, intricate shapes don't seem to matter to bunnies that much.
Make sure you choose ones that are safe for your rabbit to eat. Avoid home decoration products as they may look the same but can be treated with varnishes or chemicals.
Our bunnies love the chunky willow ball. We also discovered we prefer the twiggy variety as opposed to the grassy types as they make less mess as they eventually fall apart.
We tend to bring these out when we are playing with our bunnies, and then we hide them away. This makes them last a bit longer as it turns out our bunnies can eat most of one in a single go if left unattended.
By giving your rabbit lots of fun things to eat you can distract them from chewing your furniture legs, wallpaper, baseboards, and carpet.
Leave these toys out where you find damage occurring as an acceptable alternative that will help stop costly damage to your home.
Fun: Irrisistable!
Value for money: Great value
Mess: A bit untidy
Noise: quiet
If you had to choose between all the chew toys here that will keep your bunny occupied, then a cardboard castle has to be the winner.
Your bunny can spend hours customizing it how they want by stripping ribbons of paper off it, chewing away at it to customize the entrances and even adding extra entrances.
The additional shelter it provides in a room will help your bunny feel more secure and give them a place to call their own in a room you share.
It's best to avoid products with print on them as eating the ink is not great and simple Cardboard castles are the best as your bunny will be more interested in a shape than its decoration it could be covered with.
We would not be without some sort of cardboard box for our bunnies to play in and they have often become so attached to the dens they have built over time that when they eventually fall apart, they have become quite upset
You can obviously use any box that is suitable, however we prefer these as we don't have to muck about removing tape or worry about where they have been stored and they obvious look a lot better.
We often combine these with other tunnel toys to make them even more fun especially if you through a few treats in as well.
Lastly it's worth noting that box munching can be noisy so you may want to keep this out of a bedroom, or you may be kept up all night.
There are lots of ways a cardboard box can help with the bunny proofing you do around the home.
Rabbits love shredding and tearing things up with their teeth and a solid box will give than something to satisfy this need and hopefully distract them from seeking out wallpaper and soft coverings around your home.
It can also help satisfy your rabbits instinctive need to tailor their environment and can be a good way to stop your rabbit tugging up your carpet or chewing under your bed or behind your sofa.
It is also a simple defense against chewing and can simply be used as a way of protecting areas of your home that are a focus of this unwanted behavior by placing it in the way.
Fun:
Value for money: Affordable
Mess:
Noise: Annoying
If your rabbit likes exploring then they will love this activity tunnel toy, The best thing about them is they are light weight and collapse down into a small package when you want to pack them away.
They are made from fabric stretched over wire springs and are make from a tough fabric that is nonabsorbent and wipes clean.
They often come with a hole in the middle which your rabbit can use to peep out of and can be great for popping some treats down to make it even more fun.
This is a big rabbit toy and will take up a lot more room than a single tunnel toy. This does help make them a lot more stable as they spread out which makes them very stable when your rabbit shifts its weight about inside or dives into it.
Although they are larger than regular activity tunnels you can still pack them away neatly in much the same way so you can store them when not needed.
These toys can be a bit narrower so it's best to check the size or make sure you get a Large 3 way collapsible tunnel especially if you have a larger bread.
It's also worth checking that the toy you are looking for is designed with rabbits in mind as they are sold alongside cat toys that may be unsuitable. These cat toys typically come with a pompom in the entrance which your rabbit is likely to chew and eat.
If you want to make this even more fun for your rabbit you can buy them as a part of a tunnel and tent system that lets you join them together to build a warren that your rabbit will love.
We leave one of these out pretty much permanently as our bunny seems to be more comfortable with the shelter it offers in the room.
It's good because it breaks the room up a bit but is easy to step over. We have even stepped on it a few times and it always seems to spring back.
Our bunnies like the rustle noise it makes when they dig into it and spend more time jumping over and on it than running through it which is still good.
We like the peep hole in the center as we use this to drop some treats through which always encourages out rabbit to go inside.
Rabbits instinctively explore narrow spaces like behind your couch or under furniture.
Unfortunately, these spaces can lead your rabbits to danger as couches can be pushed back which can crush an unsuspecting rabbit or have materials such as long strands of synthetic material that may be harmful if digested.
This is why it is essential to enrich your rabbit's environment with hideout toys to give your rabbit safe alternative places to play.
Fun:
Value for money:
Mess: No mess!
Noise:
This wooden adventure toy is very versatile and can be used as a hideout, a chew toy and can also be very handy for bunny proofing around the home.
They are made from a series of thick wooden sticks that are joined together and can be bent into a variety of shapes of your choosing.
You can create an arch with them which can make a great hideout toy for your rabbit to play in. You can also, as the name suggests, use them to make a bridge. However, it is quite flexible so a larger rabbit may bend it out of shape.
They have a soft wooden bark that can be chewed, and your bunny will enjoy picking this out between the logs. Underneath the bark there is some tough wood that makes this toy resilient enough to be left out as a permanent shelter.
They come in a variety of sizes, but you will need a larger one if you want to turn it into a hideout.
We recommend choosing a natural looking Willow bridge with a bark as opposed to the more colorful stained varieties.
We have a few of these as we have found many uses for them as a toy and to help bunny proof our home. We found a clever way of setting them out is to bend them into a semi-circle and leave them on their side as our bunny likes tucking his rear end inside it for a snooze.
We have also found we can use them as a foraging toy by scattering some treats over it as these would fall into the ridges. Our bunnies enjoyed fishing the treats out and it made them last a lot longer.
Sometimes bunny proofing parts of your home can simply mean protecting them from chewing damage and this toy is ideal for this. It's heavy enough to not get moved out of the way and flexible enough to fit it up against areas that need covering over.
You can wrap it around table and chair legs or lean it against baseboards to keep them out of reach. You can bend it around the corners of furniture to protect the soft wooden or material edges or lay it on carpet to stop it being tugged up.
It is tough enough to leave out all the time and can be packed away if you do not want the mess. Keeping a few of these handy can be ideal to make bunny proofing easy and avoid expletive repairs.
Fun: Enjoyable
Value for money: Affordable
Mess: No mess!
Noise: Silent
Toys you can hide food inside always provide a success with bunnies, at least as long as the treats last.
Treat balls are a simple but effective way of making giving your rabbit some treats an activity. They will soon get the idea that by nudging the toy around they get a steady supply of treats to reward their efforts.
These tough plastic balls typically have a slot you can load the treats into then adjust to help control how many treats drop out depending on their size.
They are made from hard plastic so are durable and also double up as a rattle which your rabbits will enjoy making noise rolling it around and smash it into things.
Make sure you buy a Treat ball designed for rabbits as a product designed for a dog or can may not be as suitable.
This toy is great for when our bunnies are a bit bored and start being naughty by chewing our furniture or pulling things off our coffee table.
All we have to do is give it a bit of a rattle and our bunnies become completely distracted from what they were doing and come running out.
They will then let off all their energy chasing the ball around and eventually settle down to digest their treats.
We tend to only bring this toy out when we are supervising our bunnies and it works well to help make giving out the treats last a bit longer.
Once your rabbit picks up a bad habit of chewing your carpet, baseboards or wallpaper this unwanted behavior can be very hard to stop no matter how many times you say No!
Rabbits do not really understand discipline so a better technique could be to try and distract them away from what they are doing with something more interesting.
Treat balls can switch around your bunnies unwanted destructive behavior and are an effective way to stop the destruction driven by boredom.
Fun: Irrisistable!
Value for money: Very expensive
Mess: No mess!
Noise: Some noise
Grass mats combine two of a rabbit's favorite things to do, sitting about and eating which is why this simple toy is such a favorite.
They can be made from a variety of edible materials such as sea grass or reed grass that is woven together to make a sheet big enough for your bunny to sit on.
They often come in multi packs of 5 or so mats so you can use them individually as a toy or as a lot of bunny moms have discovered you can also place a few of them side by side to make an extra comfortable bedding surface. They are cheap enough to be replaced when needed.
Be prepared to put up with quite a bit of mess though. They can spread bits of grass about and when they start to fall apart you may end up having to take them away as this can get very messy.
We did not know if our bunnies would like these at first, but they are extremely popular, so we tried them out, and they took to it right away.
It satisfied his urge to tug and chew the floor which is good because this helped distract him from chewing on our carpet, which was a bad habit he had developed.
We had to keep this toy in our rabbit's enclosure as it made a lot of mess, and we also used it as a base in a digging box which our bunny enjoyed very much which helped contain the mess.
For a simple toy these really do offer terrific value and are a permanent part of our setup.
It is important for your rabbit's health and happiness that they get lots of things to chew.
They need a constant supply of fiber to help their digestion and grind down their teeth that can grow a few inches each year.
Many of the things around your home such as your base boards, carpet and wallpaper can substitute for the grass and woody material rabbit would naturally seek out.
This is why it's important to provide your bunny with lots of interesting things to chew before they end up being on the menu.
Fun: Very exciting
Value for money:
Mess: Compleat destuction
Noise:
If your bunny has a habit of chewing, tugging and dig up your carpet, or is constantly trying to burrow into your couch or bed then this is the ultimate toy for them.
Digging boxes are a great way to let your rabbit exercise their foraging behavior and the best thing about this popular toy is they are free!
To make a digging box all you need is a cardboard box or a basket filled with shredded or scrunched up paper, hay and other chew toys.
This will keep your rabbit endlessly entertained foraging inside and is also a great way of keeping the mess rabbits generate contained inside the box.
If you are repurposing a cardboard box as a rabbit toy, always make sure you check for staples and tape, and we recommend avoid boxes with glossy paper with heavy print on it as this will be bad for your rabbit's tummy if they eat too much of it.
Our bunnies loved their digging box, its always something they would go to and jump straight in. We often hide some treats in the bottom which may have made this more fun.
It's also great for keeping all our bunnies chew toys together and stops a lot of the mess from grassy toys that are falling apart being spread around the house.
However, we did learn an important lesson when we left this toy out for too long only to discover one of our bunnies had got it confused and used it as a litter tray!
We only bring this toy out when we can supervise our bunnies playing with it and for shout sessions.
Digging and foraging for food is instinctive behavior for rabbits and in their natural environment they are adept at tugging up tough roots and digging through hard soil.
If you find your rabbit has started a habit of trying to dig or tug up the corner of your carpet it's important to do something about this unwanted behavior as soon as possible before significate damage can be done.
Unfortunately, it can be very hard to persuade you rabbit to stop this behavior. No matter how many times you say No! it's likely to continue the moment your back it turned.
This is where a digging box can help by using it to simply cover the area of carpet to protect it.
Place the box directly over the spot and you rabbits will soon get the hang of dig and forage inside the box instead of elsewhere.
Fun: Very exciting
Value for money:
Mess: No mess!
Noise:
Most pet stores stock Cardboard chew tube as they are excellent value for money because they combine a tunnel toy, shelter, and chew toy all in one.
These colorful tubes are made from thick cellulose board, which is safe for your rabbit to chew, and they will soon discover they can strip the layers of papery material off which keeps them endlessly entertained.
They come in a variety of sizes so it's important to check you choose a tube that is big enough for your rabbit to hop through comfortably especially if they are a larger bread.
They can be left out as an activity toy for your bunny to jump through and make a great hideout toy for your rabbit to relax in when they want a bit of shelter.
They do roll about quite a bit so work better on carpet or you can simply push it up against a wall or wedge something next to them.
When they got older, they mostly discarded it as a tunnel toy and used it as a giant chew toy which they enjoyed.
We got one of these when we set up a room for some baby bunnies and it became an instant hit.It was a part of their routine to hop through it, which they loved.
It did leave quite a bit of shredded paper everywhere, but this was easy to tidy up.
We did try out alternatives such as Alfalfa coated tubes as we thought it would be more fun, but they don't seem to get any more attention than the basic cardboard ones and created an awful lot more mess that quickly spread about.
A frequent problem with bunnies is wallpaper chewing. They love getting their teeth under the paper and then tugging it off strip by strip.
Short of fencing off all the walls in your home there is not much you can do to prevent it other than try and provide your rabbit with more fun and acceptable alternatives.
Carboard chew toys are typically made of lots of layers of papery material and when your bunny gets the hang of stripping this off, they will hopefully leave your wallpaper alone.
Fun:
Value for money:
Mess:
Noise: Silent
These attractive hideouts are not only great fun for your bunny to play in, and the soft twigs are also good for chewing so this toy is guaranteed to be a favorite.
They come in various materials like wicker and willow, and you can get a full tube or a half tube shape. We recommend the half tube as it will be a lot more stable as rabbits tend to crash around these toys.
We also recommend getting the largest size you can as this will be more comfortable if your bunny wants to use it as a shelter.
Make sure you buy a Twig tunnel made specifically for bunnies or other small animals, not a home decoration which often comes treated with varnish or flame-resistant chemicals.
This toy was a bit of a special treat as it's quite expensive. Our bunnies really loved it, so much so we had to put it away and bring it out when we could supervise them around it as they would have tried to eat in in one go if they could.
It did make quite a bit of a mess when it finally fell apart so it was a bit of a waste in the end.
Chewing toys can help provide an alternative to the fiber your rabbit may be seeking out in your home by chewing your furniture, baseboards, and wallpaper.
This toy is ideal as it not only provides an acceptable alternative source of fiber that they will enjoy munching it will also give them a shelter to relax in or around which can help satisfy their instinctive need to tailor their environment by chewing.
Fun: Very exciting
Value for money:
Mess:
Noise:
As the name suggests Snuggle tunnel are a combination of a pet bed and a small tunnel and will give your rabbit a comfortable place to relax that will make them feel safe.
They have soft padded sides and base, which would be good for keeping your rabbit warm and insulated from the cold floor.
The base is more stable than a thinner cloth activity tunnel which can spring about a bit if your rabbit crashes into them.
These toys are often quite small so may be better for smaller breads. They are also machine washable which is great as areas where bunnies nest in can get a bit messy over time.
We have hard floors in our home, so we got one of these to provide a bit of comfort for our rabbits. Our bunny likes to sit in it from time to time but more half on and half off, which suited him.
It's natural for rabbits to seek out safe places of shelter to relax in or around.
Unfortunately, many of these narrow places such as under or behind your couch, under wooden furniture or your bed can have rough unfinished or exposed materials that may be dangerous.
Staples and nails that poke out can cause harm, plastic covers can contain long strands of synthetic material that would cause harm if eaten.
That is why it is important to give your rabbit lots of safe and acceptable places of shelter to keep them out of trouble and away from harm.
Fun: Enjoyable
Value for money: A bit pricy
Mess: Easy to clean
Noise:
We understand how important it is to give your rabbit a constant supply of new and exciting toys to keep them healthy and happy. Toys stop your bunny from getting bored when you are away but have other benefits as well. Chew toys are an effective way of getting more fiber into your rabbit's diet and can help wear down your bunnies which grow constantly throughout their lives. Tunnels and shelters can offer a suitable place to explore and relax where they feel safe. Toss toys and hide-a-treat toys can stimulate foraging behavior and make play more fun.
When it comes to shopping for the best toys for your furry friend you really are spoiled for choice however, there are some old favorites that every bunny patent keeps to hand as they have proven to be invaluable.
In this review we take you through this must have list of toys to help you discover any essential products your bunny may be missing out on.
Our reviews put the benefits to your bunnies wellbeing first. We look at how each toy will enrich your bunnies environment by satisfying many of the natural behaviors they enjoy.
We also mention any negative aspects of the toy we think are worth considering. We examine what each toy is made from and guide you on how good the materials are for your rabbit to digest. Jump upon or crash into. We would not review toys that are glued together or constructed from materials we consider harmful.
Every rabbit is different, and we understand they will treat the toys in their own way. Some rabbits will overindulge in a toy which may be a problem if they eat too much, other rabbits may simply ignore the toy. In this guide we help you understand how quickly they can be consumed and whether this may be a problem.
In this guide we also show you the many ways each toy can be used to help you bunny proof your home, this is after all our specialist subject.
Some toys can be good at providing the digestive fiber your bunny may be seeking out by chewing your baseboards, wallpaper and wooden furniture. Others can help satisfy your rabbits instinctive need to tailor their environment and can be good at stopping your bunny tugging up your carpet or chewing under your bed or behind your sofa. Others can simply be used as a way of protecting areas of your home that are a focus of this unwanted behavior.
In this guide we match the bunny proofing problem with the toy so you can make sure you are providing a safe and acceptable alternative that will satisfy your rabbits instinctive needs and avoid expensive repairs to your home.
We have been house rabbit owners for over 20 years and have tested out all of these toys here at Bunny proof HQ with our own bunnies, they didn't seem to mind too much. We share their reactions and tell you how these toys performed over time.
We know every rabbit is different, so we have gathered lots of advice from our bunny proofing Facebook group which has over 50K members at the time this article was written. This has helped us to discover what toys seem to be a success and what toys have caused unexpected problems.
To help you compare each toy we have given them a rating on three criteria, Value for money, fun and mess.
Value for money - How expensive they are compared to how long they will last
Fun - How much time your rabbit will spend with the toy compared to its other toys
Mess - How much mess may spread about and how hard it is to clean up
Noise - How much of a nuisance this toy may become especially if left out during the night
Our goal is to improve the lives of house rabbits. We are an independent group and not affiliated with any other companies or organizations.
These rabbit toy reviews are based on our own experiences, as well as the 50K members who share their bunny-proofing experiences on our Facebook group.