This outdoor rabbit setup article contains the necessities you will need to give your new pets the best healthy life. Hello! I’m Cailyn, a bunny obsessed teenage girl, and I am here to share all of the things that I have learned throughout my years of being a bunny mom, which includes: -Our cage setup -Our rabbit’s diets -How to care for a pregnant rabbit and her newborn babies ♡ -My daily rabbit routine I hope this is helpful for all of the rabbit owners and soon-to-be rabbit owners out there
Enjoy!
Sliding door
The cage has two sides with a sliding door in between them because I was planning to possibly purchase male and female bunnies to breed in the future, which I would have to keep separate. We made the door removable so that we always had the option to have one big cage for our rabbits if we decided not to breed. This cage setup works great for us and would probably work great for anyone who wants to give rabbit breeding a try, but does not want a full out rabbit breeding program. However, if you are only considering purchasing one rabbit or two female rabbits, a cage with half the space of ours would probably be just fine (dimensions).
Cage wiring
As you can see in the picture, half of our cage has wired floors. I have heard stories of people whos rabbits have had problems with wiring on the floors, but I have had rabbits for about four years and none of my bunnies have had paw issues. This could just be with my particular rabbits, but they seem just fine with wired floors. I do have another area of my bunny cage with wood floors so that if the wire ever hurts their feet for any reason, they can go over there, but my rabbits are usually out on the wired floors 24/7 and seem to enjoy it, especially in the heat of the summer. Wired floors are also great for clean-up because the bunnies can do their business and it goes straight onto the grass underneath of the cage so I do not have to clean their cage a lot. Once the pile of waste under the cage grows big enough, we scoop it up and my mom uses it for her garden (rabbit poo is incredible fertilizer).
Warm box
To the right and left of both sides of our cage is what we like to call the “warm box” because it keeps our bunnies warm in the winter. Here in Virginia, it usually gets to around 30 degrees Fahrenheit at the coldest, but sometimes it can drop to be way colder. Rabbits actually do better in really cold weather than really hot weather because of their thick fur coats, so the only thing I have to do extra in the winter is stuff their warm box to be packed with hay so that they can snuggle together in it. I have never had any rabbits die or even get sick from the cold except for one newborn bunny from an accidental litter that was born in January. My rabbits do not spend a lot of time in the warm box, especially during the summer, but it is vital for when there are storms or bad weather because it is a lot safer for my rabbits than their wired area and they will usually go in there during a storm. Since the floors are wooded, I do have to clean out all of the rabbit poo and hay about once a week for my female rabbits. Although, I only have to clean out my male rabbits cage about once a month because he seems to only poo on the wired part of his cage, which is great for me.
Play area
After we bought our bunnies, we decided to build ramps onto each side of the cage so that our rabbits could enter and leave their cage freely when I open the door. We also added around (dimensions) of wiring around a section of the surrounding area so that the rabbits could run around and get out their energy. One bug problem that I have had with the run around area is that some of my rabbits really like to dig holes. There have been multiple circumstances where I walk away from my rabbits to do something, when they are out of their cage, and they have dug holes and escaped, so I have had to find them and catch them with a fish net . Although, I did lose one rabbit because one of my family members had opened the cage and the little door in the fence, and my rabbit ran down the ramp and out the door. By the time I found out, she was gone for good. What I have learned from these experiences is that when any of my rabbits are out, I need to keep a close eye on them and have rules for who is allowed to open the rabbit door.
This about sums up my advice for an outdoor rabbit hutch. I hope it was helpful!