I have just completed my new rabbit shed and am in the process of making cages. My shed is 8 foot x 8 foot and will have a three hole 90 inch hanging cage on each side and an isle down the middle. If I could hang another row of cages under the first it would take me from a six hole rabbitry to a 12 hole. What can I use under the top row to catch or deflect the waste? Thanks, ET.

-- Ed Thomas (wilded@austin.rr.com), April 21, 2002

Answers

Why not a peaked roof over the bottom row and a widened catch pit ?

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), April 21, 2002.

cooragated fiberglass,, is cheap (kinda) and lightweight,, could go with stell,,is weight isnt a problem

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), April 22, 2002.

Rabbit pee is pretty corrosive. It will take any finish off of anything. Galvanized is what most cages are make of an if you buy one of the store bough rabbit cages with a bottom in it you know that after a year or so the bottom is pretty much ruined. I don't know if fiberglass would work. Some sort of rubber that is angles may be best. I'm thinking the sort of heavy rubber they use in those Rubbermade dish drains.

Why wouldn't you keep your rabbits outside? Here in northern I have my rabbits outside year round and they are very healthy. They are in wire cages that are on wooden legs. I have three sides of the cages wrapped in black plastic and a top on each one. Some of them have a hutch but they usually use it at the bathroom so those will change. I have never had any health related problems and predators have never bothered my rabbits. My cages are sturdy enough to withstand a dog grabbing it and shaking it from underneath. At the same time I can just pick up a cage and move it to where I want to. I would consider moveing them outside. You also will have easy access to their bi-products.

Susan

-- Susan in MN (nanaboo@paulbunyan.net), April 22, 2002.

I second Susan's comments about outdoor rabbits. There are a few qualifications, though.

First, Susan says she has three sides of her cages wrapped in black plastic. Here in Oklahoma that would kill the rabbits in July and August, yet it is neccessary to keep predators away from the rabbits. A coon in particular will reach a claw thru the wire, pull off a toe or pull the rabbit to the wire and eat it piecemeal. For that reason I have to keep a top and three sides of the cage protected. I make sure the cages stay in shade, and I keep a metal roof over the cages so that nothing can reach down and get a rabbit. I keep a l2 x l8 nestbox or a board of that size in the cage so that the rabbit cannot be attacked from below. It is really not all that hard to keep the nestboxes clean; my rabbits do not stay in them, but on top of them except when they have kits.

My plan is to build an open shed large enough to hang the cages. The entire shed will be enclosed with welded wire to keep out varmints. The whole thing will be open to the summer breezes, but the North will be closed off in winter.

I am dead set against enclosed rabbitries. I have seen too many rabbits cooped up in dank, dark, foul-smelling sheds. Then the owners complain that their rabbits are unhealthy.

-- Jimmy S (Macrocarpus@gbronline.com), April 22, 2002.

My rabbit cages are enclosed in a dog pen. They have hutches to get out of the weather, and one big roof across the whole thing for shade. Jimmy is right, the heat in OK is awful during the summer. I keep 2 liter bottles full of water in the feezer for them. They love to lay up against them to keep cool. The people I got my rabbits from (this was 10 years ago) had a really nice indoor set-up. They had several rows of hanging cages. I'd say they had 50 females. Their chickens kept the dirt floor scratched and bug free, it didn't smell at all. They even had a large swamp cooler to keep the rabbits cool. They had been at it awhile and knew what they were doing.

Geez- for your original question, I'd go for something light weight and easy to hose off. The fiberglass sounds good, nice and cheap, light weight and easy to clean. Keep us posted on how it turns out. Best wishes.

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 22, 2002.

We used to have around 100 rabbits and used double decker cages also. You can use about anything to deflect the waste that is lightweight, slick (so the poop rolls off) and won't let the urine soak in. We improvised with a number of things, including light weight plywood with several good coats of paint. We tried the fiberglass, which wasn't slick enough. Same for some plain unpainted (aluminum?) corrogated roofing we tried. You don't want to be having to constantly scrape the deflectors to keep them clean, they should be pretty much self cleaning. If I were going to do it again, I would use the slick, prepainted metal roofing panels. We have a ton of that stuff around that we got for free, surely you could buy/barter/scrounge some for yourself. Ask your friends and neighbors for leftover pieces from new roofing/siding projects, or used stuff that someone is discarding.

We attached the "deflectors" to the front edge of the floors of the upper row of cages with baling wire. We hung the bottom row of cages far enough below the top row that the deflectors hung at a pretty steep angle. The deflectors rested on the top back edge of the cage below. The bottom row of cages was placed several inches out from the wall so there was room for the deflectors to overlap the back a bit and still leave room for the waste to fall through to the ground. We angled the deflectors to the back v.s. to the front because you don't want to have to walk through a mess in the aisles, nor do you want a "surprise" from above when you're tending to a rabbit in a lower cage. You could consider doing some worm farming below the cages.

Our rabbitry was a lean-to built off the side of an existing building. Two double rows of cages with an aisle between, wide enough to run a wheelbarrow through. The lean-to allowed for good ventilation which is sometimes a problem in an enclosed building. We have hot summers and cold winters here, the heat was much more a problem than the cold. In the fall, I wrapped 2 sides of the rabbitry with tarps to keep the cold wind out over the winter. That was all that was necessary. In summer, I had to set sprinklers on the roof to keep it cool enough for the rabbits, as well as put in jugs of ice for the rabbits to lay against on really hot days. I don't think they could have survived indoors in summer. The entire rabbitry was fenced off with dog-proof fencing, and our garden was adjacent to the rabbitry which allowed for easy disposal of manure. The rabbits also made use of some of the garden trimmings.

-- Lenette (kigervixen@nospam.com), April 22, 2002.

I have used painted plywood set up as Lenette describes. I quit using outdoor setups when dogs and cats started skinning the rabbits through the 1/2 inch hardwire cloth. The dog pen idea sounds good to me. Thanks for that info. Good luck to you ET.

-- Robin Downing (Southpawrobin1@aol.com), April 22, 2002.

I am putting them in a lattace walled shed with sheet metal roof for 2 reasons. The first is I don't want my neighbors or the neighborhood kids to know what I am doing if possible. The second is to have a door that I can lock to keep out kids, cats and coons at night and while I am at work. With lattace walls it is almost like being outside for the rabbits. Thanks for all the suggestions. ET

-- Ed Thomas (wilded@austin.rr.com), April 22, 2002.

Good idea, Ed. The lattice will also provide some shade in the summer. I know what you mean about the neighbors...my first rabbit project was in the backyard of a rental house in town many years ago. No one ever knew I had them. :)

-- Lenette (kigervixen@nospam.com), April 22, 2002.