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Best Toys for Rabbits to Play With: 15 DIY & Store-Bought Options

Best Rabbit Toys

Believe it or not, toys do a whole lot more than simply provide entertainment for your rabbits. You see, when you supply your bunny with an assortment of interesting, species and age-appropriate toys to play with, you’re not only engaging their interest, but you’re also ensuring your smart little cottontail is mentally stimulated, encouraged to exercise, and isn’t tempted to nibble on things around the house when they’re outside of their cage. So, in all actuality, toys are an essential part of a rabbit’s life, one that you definitely don’t want to ignore.

Why Is Play Important for Rabbits?

Mental stimulation: Your intelligent little bunny can easy get bored when they’re home alone, which can lead to a variety of issues like depression or anxiety, potentially causing them to destroy their habitat. To avoid these problems, offer your pets several toys they can play with if they wish to, so they can interact with them, feel engaged, and learn from the experience.

Physical exercise: Bunnies need a healthy, safe outlet to burn off all that powerful, physical energy. Both their mind and body will certainly benefit. Without a means to exercise, they can easily become overweight or depressed, and quite possibly take out all that energy on your furniture when they’re out of their cage. As such, offer toys to chew on, dig into, climb on, crawl under, and hop on.

Distraction from destruction: Toys are also a way to entertain your pets, so they don’t focus that energetic need to chew on something else – and end up destroying your house! In a roundabout way, toys bunny-proof your home.

What Are Good Toys for Bunnies to Play With?

What makes a toy ideal for a bunny? Basically, there are three main criteria: they need to be safe, healthy, and appropriate for rabbits. While you can indeed purchase many toys for your bunbuns to play with at the local pet store, the truth is, there are tons of DIY toys you can create yourself with bunny-safe materials.

DIY Rabbit Toys

DIY rabbit toys

Here’s a great list of simple DIY ideas that you can make at home with some basic materials and very minimal work.

Hay-filled Carton Roll

Stuff a paper towel or toilet paper roll with hay for a tasty toy that will entertain them for hours – or until they’ve eaten the whole thing.

Cardboard Maze

Assemble several cardboard objects like paper bags, color-free shoe boxes, and large moving boxes. Cut entry points in the boxes and use the paper bags (with the bottoms cut out) to create tunnels, attaching the various pieces together to make a maze. Your rabbits will love crawling, burrowing, chewing, scratching, and nibbling their way through the toy.

Cereal Box City

Stock up on empty cereal boxes to build a bunny city. Open up the ends of the boxes so there’s an exit and entrance in each one. Attach them to one another to make a long tunnel.

Plain Wood Blocks

Use plain, untreated wood blocks to design different structures for your bunny to explore.

Wicker Basket

Rabbits playing in a basket

If you have an untreated wicker basket, fill it with shredded scrap paper or envelopes, crumpled newspaper, straw, hay or any other rabbit-safe material for a fun-filled day full of digging. Don’t have a basket laying around? That’s okay, a box will do the trick!

Nest of Sticks and Pine Cones

Though this one is fun, it does involve a few more complex steps. Collect untreated, dried out sticks and pine cones to create a fun nest your pets can play with. The wood, however, needs to age for at least 3 months before you can use it. Most importantly, making sure to stay away from the following wood that is toxic to rabbits: redwood, cherry, plum, peach, apricot, and other trees that produce a fruit with a solid pit. See a more detailed list of dangerous and safe chew woods at BunnyProof.

Box of Rolls

Cut open the top of a facial tissue box and fill it with toilet paper rolls, with the ends pointing up and outside of the box like they’re “standing up.” The rolls should fit in tight, with no space between them so they won’t just fall out. Fill the rolls with exciting things like hay, healthy treats, wooden balls, or shredded paper.

Tissue/wrapping Paper Heaven

Take tissue paper (the gift wrap kind) or wrapping paper and scrunch several pieces into balls. You can go crazy and fill the floor of a room, thus creating a “paper heaven” for pets to explore and hide in.

Store-bought Rabbit Toys

If you’re interested in purchasing some fun toys for your furkins, then you may be interested in this list that’s sure to entertain!

Activity Zone

The Original Activity Zone Rabbit Toy – made of safe, non-toxic wood and coloring – is a play center that your rabbit is sure to fall cottontail-over-heels in love with. An eye-catching structure from every angle, this toy is full of entertainment possibilities. With strings and dangling toys safe to chew on, the structure itself also provides a fun place to hop on and hide under.

3-way Collapsible Tunnel

With the natural inclination to dig and tunnel, the collapsible 3-way Prosper Pet Tunnel will be an absolute crowd-pleaser. What’s really great about it is that you can close it flat for easy storage and portability, so you always have a means of entertainment that can be opened with a quick flick of the wrist. Dangle some toys on the exits for added amusement, then watch your bunnies zip around and exercise!

Interactive Learning Toy

Here’s another pick your rabbit will flip over – the Living World Teach N Treat Toy, an interactive toy that rewards pets when they search and find treats. It’s both a mentally stimulating and educational way to encourage your bunny to stay alert and attentive. Plus, it also gives your pet an opportunity to forage for a tasty bite to eat through observation, listening, and learning. The Teach N Treat Toy has three different levels of difficulty, so if you have some smart little rabbits, you can adjust the level to something more challenging for them.

Snack Ball

How do you get your bunny to exercise while eating – all the while sharpening their minds? With the Niteangel Treat Ball, of course! This ball offers bunnies a more physical way to find food, an interactive toy that gets them to roll and push the ball around until food falls out, which ends up encouraging them to play more. It’s very simple to use – just place a healthy treat or your pet’s favorite food into the hollow ball, via the opening. You can then adjust this opening to control the flow of treats. Bunnies will get to nibble as they play while it provides them with hours of mental and physical stimulation.

Snack/logic Board

Another great way to test a rabbit’s mind and get those foraging instincts to kick in, the Trixie Snack Board Logic Toy for Rabbits offers species-appropriate mental stimulation. Made of sturdy plastic, the round board has 7 lids that hide food. This version of the hide-and-seek-a-treat toy provides entertainment through logic, though it is a simple, easier model than the more complex ones out there. As such, it’s a good choice for a bunny that’s never played with one of these toys before.

Rabbit Chew Toys

Made from 100% natural, organic, rabbit-safe wood, the JanYoo Bunny Chew Toys come in a sweet-tasting 7-pack of yummy deliciousness that’s fit for any bunny king or queen. When your rabbit is looking for a bit of fun (and a nice nibble), they can play with and chew on apple tree branches, a watermelon ball, dumbbell, unicycle, and squared molar block with rope, along with a small and medium sized bell roller. These toys will keep those choppers at a healthy length, but also provide your pet with lots of fun through exercise.

Bridges, Ramps, Ledges, and Platforms

Although not toys per se, you can use bridges, ramps, ledges, and platforms to create an exercise area for your rabbit, be it inside or outside their habitat. Build a stimulating environment with hidden treats to get your pets on the trail of something exciting, encouraging them to explore their space. They’ll surely be eager to scurry under platforms, climb up ramps, hop up onto ledges, and run over bridges.

For some ideas, check out the:

Rabbit Toys Keep Pets Happy

As a caring pet parent, you no doubt want your bunnies to thrive in every way possible, with the hope that they’re content living with you. Certainly, providing them with a safe place to live and healthy food is of utmost importance – but it’s not enough to ensure your rabbit is happy. That’s why bunnies need toys, as they provide a means for mental stimulation and physical exercise.

When you give them species-appropriate toys to interact with, you’re guaranteeing the best environment possible – one where they’re healthy and entertained.

Food for Thought: Do Fancier Toys Mean Happier Bunnies?

Out of sheer curiosity, I posed a question about store-bought toys versus DIY toys to my go-to bunny guru – my very own sister. After laughing at the question – which in my opinion was a legitimate one – she told me that she stopped spending money on toys a long time ago. While some cool-looking toys had held her bunny’s interest in the past, her pet always came back to the same tried-and-trusted favorites: cardboard boxes, crumpled up paper, and paper towel rolls filled with hay. That’s it – nothing fancy, nothing you have to spend money on.

So, in the end, although every rabbit is different with different preferences – just like humans – there’s really no need to dish out the big bucks to make your bunny content. Keeping it simple, it seems, is perfectly fine, as long as you do indeed offer toys to entertain your furry best for optimal mental and physical health.

What are your rabbit’s favorite toys?

Let us know in the comments 🙂

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2 Comments

  1. A couple times in the diy section you say to “attach” the items together. What should I use to attach them that is rabbit safe?

    1. Hi, the safest option is to create a pet-safe glue yourself with flour, sugar and water (see how in this video). Some pet owners use a non-toxic glue such as Elmer’s School glue and if they notice that their rabbits started nibbling on the glue, they remove the toy. If your rabbits are not very interested in eating their DIY toys (including the glue), that can also be an option. Some things might also be attached with strings instead.

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