Rabbits need complex environments for physical and psychological health, and thoughtful enrichment dramatically improves their quality of life.
Environmental enrichment for pet rabbits addresses the profound mismatch between the complex environments they evolved for and the simple housing most owners provide. Wild rabbits engage in extensive foraging across large territories, maintaining complex social groups and digging elaborate burrow systems. Pet rabbits housed in simple hutches or even large enclosures without enrichment miss all of these behavioral opportunities. Providing foraging enrichment through scattered hay, digging boxes, tunnels, and platforms enables expression of natural behaviors and significantly improves welfare. Bonded pairs that groom and play together show dramatically better psychological welfare than solitary rabbits.