Keeping Rabbits Cool in Hot Texas Heat

[Texas Granny]

Hello everyone, I am new to this site and found you while surfing around. I'm very interested in what you are doing to keep your rabbits cool and safe in the Summer.

Texas is experiencing another very hot Summer. My rabbits are meat rabbits. So far we haven't lost any, but other rabbit people we know are loosing some even when fans and misters are used to help keep them cool.

Right now I have frozen gallon milk jugs of water in the cages that are changed out about 3 times a day, and am putting ice in their water as well and hosing down the roofs of the cages.

I've been thinking of making some sort of something I can hang around the cage that will keep it cool. What I'm thinking of is some lightweight fabric with lots of pockets to put frozen cans of water in the pockets, then set the fan on. Maybe hang these panels of frozen cans of water around the cages.

Have any of you tried something like that?

 

[pennylove]

I have Angoras in Illinois. It's not Texas-hot here, but we definitely get hot, incredibly humid weather. We put ceramic tiles in our freezer for the rabbits. Our rabbits live in a colony, so we just make little tile "floors" for them on hot days and they lounge about on them. The ceramic itself stays pretty cool, even in the heat of the day, but we keep two sets so we can switch them out in the afternoon. We also do large shallow pans of ice water--angoras aren't supposed to get wet, really, but I don't mind extra combing and a couple of our rabbits really love to wade in the water. So far, no ill effects from that habit, at all.

I've never tried an air-conditioning system like you're suggesting, but I've read they work well.