# micro Rabbitry set up?



## sodamancer (Mar 5, 2013)

Okay since homing our little mini rexes 3 more bunnies have come home.  We now have 2 angoras does, and 1 silver fox doe.  I am interested in everyones set ups.  Our 2 angoras are a bonded pair and we house them in a 30x30 wire cage.  Our silver fox for meat babes is in a 24x24 wire cage by herself. And the mini rexes share a 18x24 cage and are let out daily for several hours. 

I am interested in what everyone does to keep things neat and organized and efficient. I was thinking of getting the stacking things and pans for the wire cages and perhaps more. I have a 12x16 shed that will be used to house them in the winter months and an eave in the summer months. But i would like to see how others do it on a small scale.

Thanks


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## secuono (Mar 5, 2013)

Pans are a huge pain and you'll soon hate yourself for getting them. Just hang the cages in a neat little row and shovel out the poop into compost. 
The does living together, they will eventually fight and near kill each other after they are bred. So buy/make enough cages for every single adult you have, with extras as grow out cages.


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## sodamancer (Mar 5, 2013)

I have no plans of breeding the angoras.  Why will i hate the pans? i have no place to put them that i can let poo and pee just fall.  I live in suburban neighborhood with just 1/3acre. Is there another catchment system that works well?


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## secuono (Mar 5, 2013)

Plastic pans will eventually crack, metal will rust, both will twist and spill all over the place as you move them. You'd have to clean them out often so the poo doesn't build up through the floor or cause them to buckle. I had both a long time ago, it was so nasty when the pee would swish and end up getting on me or on the floor. They were also hard to walk with. 
You can hang them and then have a tilted board leading to a solid laundry bin. Could even make it so you only have two bins to deal with. 
Drain the wee out, bag the poo in old feed sacks and sell for a few dollars, or dump into your garden/compost pile.


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## sodamancer (Mar 5, 2013)

I like the idea of draining into one bin. Do you know any good visuals of such a system?


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## secuono (Mar 6, 2013)

Tomorrow I can post mine, its just a carpet runner plastic hung on the back of the top row and then over the front of the bottom row. I have a wire on each side that lifts it and directs it to the center.


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## sodamancer (Mar 6, 2013)

secuono said:
			
		

> Tomorrow I can post mine, its just a carpet runner plastic hung on the back of the top row and then over the front of the bottom row. I have a wire on each side that lifts it and directs it to the center.


cool thanks! i saw that you breed a silver fox.  i wish u were closer. i dont know where to find an unrelated buck.  here is my first meat doe. kids named her silver mist.  she will be bred to a rex. if all goes ok with our first butchering i will look for my own buck and second doe


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## Ninny (Mar 17, 2013)

I litter box trained all my rabbits and we are in the process of building a solid floor cage setup out of a wire shelving rack.  I hate wire cages and the litter boxes are so easy to use that I won't use the standard rabbit cages except for quarantine.   I can get four cages to eight cages out of a rack for about the cost of one and a half wire stack able cages.    I just wipe the floors clean and let them air dry while rabbit is in exercise pen, use a vacuum(just for the rabbits) hose to suck up all random berries and dump litter boxes in a tub.  I then take the tub to the chickens who spread it around for me.    I am working on new custom built litter boxes where there is a screen to collect the berries and the pee goes into clumping cat litter.   I found that the rabbits like to eat hay while using the boxes so put a hay rack above it.   They hay they knock down is also contained to the box.  Right now I dump boxes once a day and the tub once a week.   I wipe out cages once a week.    I have angoras and silver foxes.  Also by doing this I have NO smell.   Everyone I know and have visited  that uses pans or lets in fall down it smells.  Also to us it does not look nice.   I am not trying to offend any one here but if you have never seen this setup it is a huge pile of frozen poop underneath the cages. Not some where most people want to send a large amount of time.  We are able to keep our rabbits in the house because it looks like a pet setup with no smell.      Because of this our rabbits get handled much more and we get rid of a ton of health problems.   Just a different option for you.


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## Hens and Roos (Mar 18, 2013)

can you post some picture- sounds like a neat system!


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## Ninny (Mar 18, 2013)

Hens and Roos said:
			
		

> can you post some picture- sounds like a neat system!


I sure will!  We are building them this next weekend.   So I will make a thread showing how we did it.  Right now my angoras are in dog crates and that works well.   I just want my crates back for the dogs.  The silver foxes are in the wire cages.  I am rembering just how much I HATE them.   Stupid tiny doors. My SF doe won the battle of coming out of her cage. So now I get to spend tonight working with her.   The door swings up and in so I have to fight the door plus she shoved the litter box in front and shes huge.   I lost and got told to bug off by a rabbit. Great. On top of this she has been smacking me with her front paws when I reach in.    I may be switching her to a dog crate. So I can get her out of it.  My angora doe hops right out the door so they will switch cages.    Also I found instead of trying to get them out train them to hop into a cat pet taxi.    Saves time and arms.


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## WhiteMountainsRanch (Mar 18, 2013)

*All my rabbits go right onto the ground where I can just shovel or rake it away. Simple.

A lady I know uses corrugated plastic under the cages to divert all the waste into one place, ie a basket of some sort, trash can? 

Not my picture, and not my ideal set-up but you get the picture with the plastic diverting the waste.

I would want to rinse it off with water pretty regularly to keep it clean.







*


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