ramblingrabbit
Well-known member
I've been struggling for a while to keep the fresh forage for the grow-outs off the floor of the hutches so it stays clean. The adults are all self toilet trained and go in only one spot, so we can safely put their forage on the floor of the hutch (away from that spot) and it stays clean. But the grow-outs just go all over, including on their fodder, wherever we put it, so it has to be up off the floor. Tying it in bundles and hanging it from the walls from screwhooks works fine for large material like twigs, cane leaves, vines, or whole plants, but for looser leafy things some kind of manger is more convenient. Standard hayracks won't work for our purposes because most of our fresh stuff is too bulky for them to pull through the small openings. I was admiring Grumpy's hayracks, and I took some inspiration from his simple design and created my own version from scraps and old screws I had lying around.
The sides of it are made from a single piece of ancient redwood planking that I pulled out of the scrap wood shed and cut in half on a diagonal (only two cuts and no scraps to throw out after cutting). The slats are made of split pieces of bamboo, also gleaned from the wood shed. I pre-drilled with a hand drill through the bamboo to avoid splitting it before putting some little screws in. The single slat across the back braces the whole thing with surprising strength, and also conveniently gives you something to hang it up by (it's just resting on some screws stuck in the wall of the hutch, so it's easy to take out, replace, or move, but the rabbits haven't knocked it down yet). It works very well for us, because the slats, at about 2 to 2.5 inches apart, are widely spaced enough to allow the rabbits to access bulky forage, yet narrow enough to hold most materials without much falling out, especially if you stuff it down a little when you put things in.
It was quick to make, cost nothing, and even has a kind of groovy, rustic look to it. What took the longest was sanding down the edges of the bamboo to get rid of splinters, which I probably spent ten minutes or so on since I was being extra careful...
Perhaps this will help someone else too, whether directly, or by inspiration.
The sides of it are made from a single piece of ancient redwood planking that I pulled out of the scrap wood shed and cut in half on a diagonal (only two cuts and no scraps to throw out after cutting). The slats are made of split pieces of bamboo, also gleaned from the wood shed. I pre-drilled with a hand drill through the bamboo to avoid splitting it before putting some little screws in. The single slat across the back braces the whole thing with surprising strength, and also conveniently gives you something to hang it up by (it's just resting on some screws stuck in the wall of the hutch, so it's easy to take out, replace, or move, but the rabbits haven't knocked it down yet). It works very well for us, because the slats, at about 2 to 2.5 inches apart, are widely spaced enough to allow the rabbits to access bulky forage, yet narrow enough to hold most materials without much falling out, especially if you stuff it down a little when you put things in.
It was quick to make, cost nothing, and even has a kind of groovy, rustic look to it. What took the longest was sanding down the edges of the bamboo to get rid of splinters, which I probably spent ten minutes or so on since I was being extra careful...
Perhaps this will help someone else too, whether directly, or by inspiration.
