Bunnies inside.

[mtocih]

Well, I introduced myself on another part of the board, will explain I have chickens, goats, and will be up to two bunnies within the next two weeks and 4 by February. At this point w plan to house them inside our house. We have the one bunny in the house at this point. Which is no big deal. We are planning to take a corner of our laundry room and put stackable cages in there. The intention is to go to a rabbit convention and purchase our cages. Has anyone done this before? Does anyone have advice? I noticed last night while searching for housing tips many of you house them outside. We are in Indiana. The summers are super hot and humid, the winters can get down right icey an when we lived in town and had pet rabbits, I lost a few outside. So we moved our one pet inside last winter. I am a bit leary of housing them all outside...I know summer heat is bad and winter cold is okay..but there are water freezing issues. So I am researching this as much as possible. The bunnies are for my children to show at fair and for pets. Thank you for any thoughts.

 

[brentr]

Depending on how many rabbits you have, I would be concerned about odor. I'd also be concerned about the buck spraying and the general mess of having to empty litter pans. I'm not a fan of indoor rabbits, but that is just me. I'm in VA, and we have hot, humid summers and freezing temps in winter. There are ways to cope. For me, managing frozen water bottles in winter and keeping bunnies cool in summer is much preferred to dealing with rabbits in the house. Again, that is just me.

 

[nmred]

X2! Your whole house will smell. There is a big difference between 4 bunnies and 1.

 

[Sycamore27]

We have two indoor rabbits. The biggest tip I can give you is get stacking cages with really good urine guards. As I'm sure you know rabbits tend to back up into corners to pee, most urine guards are pieces of metal attached to each side thus not covering the corner itself. I have seen urine guards that attach past the corners on the sides so the corner is actually covered by the guard, I highly recommend finding that type. If you search online you should get an idea of the style I'm talking about. A lot of litter pans are not quite deep, or wide enough to go to all the corners, so that is another thing to look for when picking your cages.

In short, if you buy something at a convention see that they have a floor model set up to inspect for issues you might have with the cages. I bought mine sight unseen and they give me no end of frustration.

If you are breeding I would make sure your male is on the bottom of the stack and lay down newspapers or plastic matting under the stack and possibly over the walls/surroundings. I have heard of some people lucky enough to have bucks that don't spray, but it's not something to count on.

Cheers,
Jessie

 

[mtocih]

Thank you. So far mating isn't in the plan. We with have two bucks of different breeds for the next 6 months... and in Jan/ Feb it will be a third breed. She is strictly showing them. And I won't crossbreed. I know the smell will bug us if it gets bad...and I will look for those deep treys or panels because of spraying. We have been lucky with our first buck as so far no spraying. He us just over one. Thanks for the help