# Rabbit Housing Poll



## DutchBunny03 (Sep 30, 2016)

Feel free to leave a comment about your rabbit housing, or suggest any housing arrangements I may have missed!


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## micah wotring (Oct 4, 2016)

Me and my brother both have rabbits in all-wire cages but I'm going to have mine in a colony set-up soon. Hopefully real soon!


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## DutchBunny03 (Oct 4, 2016)

Nice!! What breed are they?


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## Baymule (Oct 4, 2016)

When I had rabbits, they were housed in all wire hanging cages.


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## DutchBunny03 (Oct 4, 2016)

Cool. That is probably the best form of rabbit housing. I was planning on all-wire hutches for mine, but couldn't find the right type of wire. They now live in wire hutches with wooden frames. Do all-wire hutches really work as well as they are said to?


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## Baymule (Oct 4, 2016)

DutchBunny03 said:


> Cool. That is probably the best form of rabbit housing. I was planning on all-wire hutches for mine, but couldn't find the right type of wire. They now live in wire hutches with wooden frames. Do all-wire hutches really work as well as they are said to?



Oh yes they do, they are the easiest to keep clean, no scraping poop piles out of the wood supported corners. I used a small propane torch to sanitize and burn the fur off when I cleaned the cages. Can't do that to a wood hutch! LOL Rabbits can get sore hocks from the uneven nubs of hardware cloth, 1"x1/2" is the best for bottom wire. Run it up the sides about 4" to keep the newborn kits from wriggling out, then clip on 1"x2" wire for sides and top. I used open top nest boxes with wire bottoms so urine ammonia didn't build up and give the kits pneumonia. If it was cold, I put those aluminum clamp type automotive lights over the nest box to keep the kits warm.


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## Alexz7272 (Oct 4, 2016)

Mine are in a wood/wire setup. Seems to work really well for us!


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## DutchBunny03 (Oct 5, 2016)

My hutches are wire all except for a wood frame to support it. They have the good caging wire on the bottom, and hardware cloth on the sides abd top. They work pretty well, but the manure does pile up. It's a pain in the neck. But making them that way was a lot cheaper than buying j-clips, j-clip plairs, and more expensive wire.


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## Bossroo (Oct 5, 2016)

Baymule said:


> Oh yes they do, they are the easiest to keep clean, no scraping poop piles out of the wood supported corners. I used a small propane torch to sanitize and burn the fur off when I cleaned the cages. Can't do that to a wood hutch! LOL Rabbits can get sore hocks from the uneven nubs of hardware cloth, 1"x1/2" is the best for bottom wire. Run it up the sides about 4" to keep the newborn kits from wriggling out, then clip on 1"x2" wire for sides and top. I used open top nest boxes with wire bottoms so urine ammonia didn't build up and give the kits pneumonia. If it was cold, I put those aluminum clamp type automotive lights over the nest box to keep the kits warm.


X2 x X2   the BEST and only way to go for desease control as well as the most efficient for production and labor savings.


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## micah wotring (Oct 5, 2016)

DutchBunny03 said:


> Nice!! What breed are they?


Oh, I'm not really sure. They look like NZWs but in all kinds of other colors. Back when we started there was one doe that looked like a lop of some kind so they have a little of that in 'm. When I have my colony pen going good I hope to purchase a trio of rex or mini rex. That'd be cool.


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## DutchBunny03 (Oct 5, 2016)

If they look like NZWs, but in more colors, they could be just different colors of NZ. There can be red NZ, broken pattern NZ, black NZ, and a bunch of other colors. Good luck with you colony and mine rex!!


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## micah wotring (Oct 5, 2016)

DutchBunny03 said:


> If they look like NZWs, but in more colors, they could be just different colors of NZ. There can be red NZ, broken pattern NZ, black NZ, and a bunch of other colors. Good luck with you colony and mine rex!!


Ah, ok. I'm pretty sure they're just mixes but one never knows! Thanks


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## DutchBunny03 (Oct 5, 2016)

Even "just mixes" have a breed with dominant traits in them. That makes it easy to match them to a couple of their parent breeds.


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## micah wotring (Oct 5, 2016)

Oh, cool


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## DutchBunny03 (Oct 5, 2016)

It is pretty cool. But confusing. That is what makes breeding so hard and sometimes unpredictable.


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## micah wotring (Oct 5, 2016)

DutchBunny03 said:


> It is pretty cool. But confusing. That is what makes breeding so hard and sometimes unpredictable.


Yeah, I like looking at all the genes and traits. It gets pretty complicated!


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## Hopalong Causually (Oct 19, 2016)

I built all-wire hutches from the beginning.  The first bunch were stacked on PVC racks I built and have manure collection trays of leftover steel siding panels.  These panels slope downward into drain gutters I made by ripping 4" PVC pipe in half lengthwise and that drains into a bucket.  When I needed grow-out cages, I hung all-wire cages on hooks in the wall and used the same steel panels and PVC gutters for manure collection but with a bit more slope on the panels.  This works much better with almost every piece of manure falling all the way into the gutter and, if I had it to do over again, all my hutches would be like them.  It makes clean-up and collection of the manure for fertilizer a snap and results in a very clean rabbitry.


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## countrygirl1178 (Nov 1, 2016)

I bought a special shed 10x12 extra tall with two lofts here is one half of it it will hold 16 rabbits and two nest cages and I have three grow out pens out side I hope you can tell that I am so happy the way it turned out and I am very proud to share it


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## countrygirl1178 (Nov 1, 2016)

Sorry not sure why so many pictures showed up I will get better at this


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## DutchBunny03 (Nov 2, 2016)

@countrygirl1178 , I LOVE your cage set up! It looks so clean and efficient. Wire floored cages work so much better than solid floored.


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## countrygirl1178 (Nov 2, 2016)

Thanks DutchBunny03 it's a lot of work but enjoyable work I have 12 for now but my next pair will be dutch bunnies......I am busy from the time I get up till bedtime as I have chickens and turkeys also and in the spring two calves


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## DutchBunny03 (Nov 3, 2016)

Taking care of animals is fun(most of the time). Its great to watch them being happy and healthy. What rabbit breed do you have now? From the picture, it looks like you have quite a few breeds. Silver Fox, Chinchilla, Californian/Himilayan? Dutch rabbits are a HUGE pain to breed, if you are breeding for markings and show quality.


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## samssimonsays (Nov 3, 2016)

Since I no longer own rabbits, I voted for the way I caged them when I did have them. I had 5 that had free range of my living space, fully litter trained and all. and I had others in all wire and some in wire and wood cages. I also raised several in colony settings. If I do rabbits again, it will be colony setting outside and then inside the barn in a stall or cages for winter....


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## countrygirl1178 (Nov 3, 2016)

Hi dutchbunny03 right now I have three silverfox one buck two does ...one Himalayan doe ....two flemish giant does...six netherland dwarfs three bucks three does ...maybe I won't get dutch bunnies I can't even get my silverfoxes to mate the buck tried but the does won't ....I thought breeding rabbits was as easy as breeding rabbits


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## DutchBunny03 (Nov 4, 2016)

The breeding (as in putting together the buck and doe) is easy. Its the markings that are a pain in the neck to get. I end up culling over half the litter many times, because of the marking standards. If you are breeding for meat, its easy, but if you are breeding for show, its hard to get the right markings in the right places.


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## DutchBunny03 (Nov 4, 2016)

Do Netherland Dwarfs have as many jaw problems as is popularized?


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## DutchBunny03 (Nov 4, 2016)

@samssimonsays great post! Thats alot of housing arrangements to manage all at once.


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## samssimonsays (Nov 4, 2016)

It was. Eventually they were all in the barn in wire, or wire and wood cages. Most of my caged rabbits were potty trained to litter boxes for ease of cleaning. I raised French Lops so there was a LOT of rabbit per cage and I had 42 of them at once in my prime in raising them. I had a few colonies litter trained in condo style cages with 3-4 different levels. Here are some photos of what I can find at the moment from what I have used. My favorite are large dog kennels with a large litter pan in the back and feeder and water bowl attached to the door or near it and raised off the floor when using litter boxes (litter gets in them easier).


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## DutchBunny03 (Nov 4, 2016)

Your plywood hutches look really nice. I have a couple of those dog crates, which i use for holding pens for extra rabbits. My rabbits arent litterbox trained, so wire floors have worked out better.


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## samssimonsays (Nov 4, 2016)

DutchBunny03 said:


> Your plywood hutches look really nice. I have a couple of those dog crates, which i use for holding pens for extra rabbits. My rabbits arent litterbox trained, so wire floors have worked out better.


They work really nice. The built in nesting boxes were convenient with plastic totes that would slide out and keep the wood clean with babies in it. It was also dropped down lower than the wire bottom in the large run around to keep them in and safe.


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## firedragon1982 (Nov 5, 2016)

I've got all wire 3 tier cages with litter pans underneath. My mom and brother raised red satins in the 80s for show, meat, sale. They used all wire, 2 tier with roofing panels between top and bottom tier. I was about 6 when they sold out of it because my grandparents wanted us to move in and care for them, but refused to allow more than 2 rabbits for pets because of their "smell". Even my 2 pets growing up were  in wire cages.

One of my husband's friends tried rabbits in the last few years and quickly gave it up because of the millions of flies they had caused. They had a mostly wood hutch type of set up that was hard to keep clean. I never got to see it, just heard of the outcome. Nothing other than they didn't like it.


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## DutchBunny03 (Nov 5, 2016)

Rabbits don't cause flies if you manage the waste right. I haven't seen more than ten flies all summer. The wood does get damp, and attract flies. Rabbits don't smell too bad, compare t chickens or ducks. But if you forget to clean out the cage for a while, it is HORRIBLE.


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## samssimonsays (Nov 5, 2016)

Wood is usually not recommended due to you can't clean it fully. It absorbs all the ickies. I made sure to keep trays under for the urine and poop with a wire bottom and then the litter pan in the main run as well as the plastic bin in the wooden sets box for my climates in the winter we reach below -40 degree days and I needed something to help insulate those guys. In summer the same best box helped keep them cool.


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## samssimonsays (Nov 5, 2016)

I had 42 rabbits in my barn and had very minimal flies. And with the right litter for inside ones, no stink at all.


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## firedragon1982 (Nov 5, 2016)

DutchBunny03 said:


> Rabbits don't cause flies if you manage the waste right. I haven't seen more than ten flies all summer. The wood does get damp, and attract flies. Rabbits don't smell too bad, compare t chickens or ducks. But if you forget to clean out the cage for a while, it is HORRIBLE.





samssimonsays said:


> I had 42 rabbits in my barn and had very minimal flies. And with the right litter for inside ones, no stink at all.



I know that rabbits don't stink if you manage it right. Heck, my chickens and ducks caused more flies this summer than my rabbits. My grandparents were a special type of controlling and seriously disliked my mother, so anything she loved doing was pretty much banned when we lived with them. They were always about being "proper" and everything was always about looking like they were rich even if they weren't. They barely allowed her to have a vegetable garden. Special type of horrible. She was a farmer's daughter, so therefore not a proper lady in their eyes.  And as I said, the friends that gave it up, I never got to lay eyes on the set up with the hutches, only got to hear about it, so can't vouch for the "millions" of flies they claimed (emphatically too when I saw them). They were amazed when I said our 5 rabbits only caused a handful of flies in the garage all summer when they didn't have success with just 2.


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