Rabbit Proofing Your Christmas Tree

While it’s a lot of fun to decorate and create an atmosphere of festivity, you also want to make sure you think about what your curious rabbit would get into. When it comes to your Christmas tree, it’s important to take our rabbit’s habits into consideration. You’ll want to keep them from chewing on anything that’s potentially dangerous, and keeping them from breaking any hanging ornaments too.

While not exactly toxic (I’ll get into that in just a minute), Christmas trees can pose a danger to rabbits. Other decorating materials, tinsel, lights, and hanging ornaments also need to be kept away from rabbits.

That being said, a bunny is no reason to dampen your holiday spirit. Basic rabbit proofing (such as covering wires) is usually enough to keep your rabbit safe around you Christmas tree. 

• Related reading: How to keep your rabbit stress-free during the holiday season

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Are Christmas trees safe for rabbits?

Rabbits will often get very excited about Christmas trees. They see them as new plants in the house that smell yummy and will immediately start chewing on the branches.

The problem with the Christmas trees is not the tree itself. Most trees that you can purchase as Christmas decorations are spruce trees or fir trees, neither of which are poisonous to rabbits. However, you do want to watch out for pine trees, since these are mildly poisonous for rabbits to chew on.

Unfortunately, even though the type of tree is safe, you still want to avoid letting your rabbit chew on the branches. Most commercial Christmas trees are sprayed with fire retardant chemicals, (to prevent them catching fire inside your home), and pesticides (to keep bugs out of people’s homes). These chemicals are NOT safe for rabbits.

If you can find a place that sells completely organic trees with no pesticide or chemical sprays, then it’s safe to allow your rabbit to have fun and chew on the tree, but you may have to do a lot of searching before you find a tree that will be safe for your rabbit.

If you cannot find a tree that is safe for rabbits, then you could opt to purchase a plastic tree instead. Many of these look very realistic and you’ll be able to reuse them every year. While some rabbits will still try to chew on a plastic tree, many will not be interested at all.

The other option is to either keep your rabbit away from the tree by keeping them out of the room entirely, or surrounding the tree with some kind of fencing to make it off limits to rabbits.

Rabbit proofing Christmas tree decorations

For the most part, you need to think of rabbit proofing your Christmas tree decorations the same way you would rabbit proof the rest of your home. You just need to make sure anything that you don’t want your rabbit to chew on is covered up or moved to a place high enough that your rabbit can’t get it.

1. Keep Fragile Ornaments toward the top of the tree: When decorating your Christmas tree, try to make sure you keep the bottom area of the tree is free of any breakable decorations. This will prevent your rabbit from chewing on anything they shouldn’t or knocking over fragile decorations.
2. Hang rabbit toys on the bottom of the tree: If you must have decorations on the bottom of the tree to give the aesthetic more balance, try putting rabbit toys as decorations on the bottom. You can easily purchase or create rabbit toys that you can hang from low branches of the tree. (Try the hay-based hanging toys from Small Pet Select, My rabbits love them! You can also get 15% off your first purchase by using the code BUNNYLADY)
3. Keep lights and wires out of your rabbit’s reach: To protect any lights and wires on your tree, make sure to keep your display up and out of your rabbit’s reach. Don’t let any part of it dip low enough for a curious rabbit to take a little nibble. If you need to plug in the end of the cord down low where your rabbit can access it, make sure to cover that end with plastic wire tubing. 
4. Keep tinsel out of your rabbit’s reach: Typically made from tiny plastic or metal pieces, tinsel is something that you want to make sure your rabbit doesn’t chew on. Keep any tinsel out of your rabbit’s reach, and be sure the kind you get does not shed a lot, because your rabbit might try to eat the little pieces that have fallen to the floor.
5. Avoid standard wrapping paper for gifts under the tree: Both wrapping paper and ribbon are more plastic than they are paper, and they are not good for rabbits to ingest. Try wrapping your rabbit’s gifts in something that is 100% paper if you want to give your rabbit something to have fun and dig into. This way you won’t have to worry so much if they eat a little.

Sources

1. “Your Bunny and the Holiday.” House Rabbit Society. https://rabbit.org/care/holidays.html.