A Guide to Rabbit Hutch

There are generally two types of housing for your pet rabbits - a rabbit cage or a rabbit hutch. If you intend to keep your pet rabbits outdoor, then likely you would need a rabbit hutch.

The size of your rabbit hutch should be at least 4 times of your rabbit's stretched out length. Some rabbit breeds are larger than the others and this should be taken into consideration in designing the size of your rabbit hutch. Bear in mind also that your bunny rabbit will grow larger in size. The hutch should be high enough to enable your rabbit to stand upright.

You should not house two rabbits together unless they have been neutered or spayed. A male and female rabbit will pro-create few times in a year with as many as 7 bunnies. Two unaltered rabbits of the same gender will fight.

You may buy or build your own rabbit hutch. Building your own hutch for your pet rabbits are not necessary difficult. You may need some carpentry skills. Start with the rabbit hutch by sketching out your design with proper dimensions.

There are two types of rabbit hutch that you may choose - the all-wooden enclosure or the all-wire cage enclosure. The all-wooden enclosure is usually the more common rabbit hutch. In building your rabbit hutch, consider using good-quality plywood. You would want your rabbit hutch to last for a long time to come, probably for the entire lifetime of the rabbit.

One section of the rabbit hutch is usually entirely enclosed. This section may have a wooden floor. The other section of the hutch should be twice the size of the first section and should have a wire bottom. The door should be wired as well. This allows sufficient circulation throughout the hutch.

The roof of the rabbit hutch should be built sturdily. This is especially true if where you are staying encounters snowfall. You would also want to ensure that the roof is water proof. This can be achieved by providing sufficient sloping angle for the roof. The rabbit hutch should also be at least 3 feet higher from the ground to prevent predators such as snake to crawl into the hutch and also to allow better air circulation.

The other type of rabbit hutch that you can consider is the all-wire cage with wooden frame. This is actually the easier rabbit hutch to build on your own. For the all-wire cage rabbit hutch, you are actually building a wooden frame to hold a typical rabbit wire cage. The rabbit wire cage may be bought from any pet shops. Ensure that the wooden frame is built with legs which set the rabbit hutch to be 3 feet higher than the ground.

You may also want to build a dropping pan which can slide in and out of the cage. The drop pan should be regularly cleaned. If you do not want to build the drop pan, then just allow the rabbit's droppings to fall to the ground.

The all-wire rabbit hutch may be the better option than the all-wooden hutch as there are easier to clean and maintain. Your pet rabbits may urinate at the corner of your all-wooden hutch, and the accumulated ammonia can be very unhealthy to both your pet rabbits and you. It is also damaging to the rabbit hutch.

Read more about rabbit hutch from My Pet Rabbits site at http://www.mypetrabbits.com