Best Rabbit Toys & Enrichment
A bored rabbit chews skirting boards, plucks their own fur, and stops eating hay. Enrichment isn’t optional — it’s welfare. The good news: most of what rabbits love costs nothing.
The 4 Enrichment Categories
- Chewing — their teeth grow constantly. They need to chew, daily.
- Foraging — in the wild they’d spend 6+ hours a day looking for food. Replicate that.
- Digging — suppressed in most pet rabbits, but the urge is there.
- Hiding & running — tunnels, multiple levels, escape routes.
Best Bought Toys
1. Apple/Willow Stick Chew Bundle — Best Daily Chew
Untreated apple, willow, hazel and pear branches. The natural choice for daily chewing — safer than dyed pet-shop chew sticks, lasts longer too. A bundle keeps two rabbits going for weeks.
2. Fabric Rabbit Tunnel — Best Hiding Toy
Tunnels are the single best enrichment toy you can buy. Rabbits use them constantly — for hiding, zoomies, and sleeping. Look for fabric (washable) over wire (catches feet) and at least 25cm internal diameter.
3. Hay Forage Ball / Treat Ball — Best Foraging Toy
A wire or wicker ball stuffed with hay and a hidden treat. Rabbits roll, paw and chew it for surprisingly long stretches. Buy two and rotate so the novelty doesn’t wear off.
4. Seagrass Mat — Best Chew Mat
Goes in the hutch floor or run, gets shredded slowly over weeks. Doubles as draught insulation in winter. Cheaper than wood floor protectors and rabbits actually use it.
Free DIY Toys That Work as Well as Bought Ones
- Empty toilet roll tubes stuffed with hay. Toss in the run. Most-loved object in the rabbit world.
- Brown paper bag with a few greens inside. Tear, shred, repeat.
- A digging box. A shallow plastic tray filled with shredded paper, soil, or clean play sand. Surface them in a different spot each day.
- Plain cardboard boxes with rabbit-sized doors cut in. Stack them. Castles.
- An old phone book (remember those?). Endless shredding for free.
- Plastic baby keys or stacking cups — nudgeable, chuckable, indestructible.
- A small terracotta plant pot, upside down. They sit on it.
Toys to Avoid
- Soft plush toys with stuffing — ingestion risk.
- Anything painted, varnished or pressure-treated.
- Cedar shavings — respiratory irritant.
- Hamster wheels — rabbit spines aren’t built for them.
- Rope toys — threads tangle in teeth and gut.
- Yoghurt drops or any “rabbit treat” with added sugar.
How Often to Rotate
Rabbits get bored of anything within ~1 week. Keep three sets of toys; swap one set out every Sunday. Same toys, but they feel new again. Cheap trick, big difference.