Blanc de Hotot Enrichment Ideas

A Blanc de Hotot — love that choice. They've got that bold, almost theatrical personality to match those dramatic eye markings, and at two years old yours is right in the prime of needing proper mental engagement. Are they free-roaming or do they have a hutch or run setup?

That bowl-tossing is classic bored Hotot behaviour — they're not being destructive, they're telling you they need something more interesting to do. The rearranging instinct is actually a good sign: she wants to problem-solve and manipulate her environment. What does her current setup have in terms of things she can actually interact with — tunnels, foraging, anything like that?

Right, so she's essentially working with almost nothing, which explains everything. For a rabbit like her — confident, manipulative in the best sense, clearly food-motivated given the bowl antics — what you want is something that makes her work for her food and rewards persistence. My recommendation is the Rosewood Boredom Breaker Small Animal Activity Centre. It's a wooden foraging board with multiple compartments, lids she has to flip, and different textures to investigate. You load it with herbs, pellets, or forage mix and she has to figure out how to get to each section. It's sturdy enough that she can be rough with it, and complex enough that it won't bore her in five minutes.

Both works well, but I'd start during free roam so you can watch how she approaches it — Hotots tend to be methodical once they realise there's food involved, and it's genuinely entertaining to watch. Once she's confident with it, leave it in her pen during the day loaded with a small amount of forage or dried herbs. That way she has something to come back to rather than resorting to bowl redistribution. Pair it with a willow ball or two for the tossing urge and you'll have a much more satisfied rabbit.

Perfect combination. Load it with something really fragrant the first time — dried chamomile or mixed herbs work brilliantly — so it grabs her attention straight away. She sounds like a fantastic rabbit and she'll absolutely take to this once she knows what it's for.