Building a rabbit barn... new question: PREDATORS!

i'm not sure if this is the right location for this post but here goes.

My husband and I are at a standstill for our rabbit barn plans.

I'd ideally like to build a shed that instead of siding has lattice. I'd like to plant growing plants up the side to make it shady yet airy. In the winter, we wouldn't raise any litters (or just one) and so we'd only be over-wintering the bucks and does (thinking 2 of each max), so they could be moved into the horse barn in an empty stall or in the feed room or what have you.

Problem: rain and wind can be brutal here, and the rain could drive right inside the building. We've thought about plastic sheeting (how to secure? how to access it behind the cages?) and also thought about shutters, or simply enclosing the building (which defeats my ideal of an airy, fresh building). Husband likes this idea because then theoretically we could just heat that building for winter and not move the buns into the horse barn (which he thinks is a terrible idea since we live above the feed room and he is concerned about odor. I think he's overreacting but since neither of us has had rabbits we can't say for sure).

So, thoughts on inclement summer weather? Or barn design with regard to that?

We are located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and summers can be cool and damp..... or sometimes "hot" but not by the rest of the country's standards!


NEW QUESTION:

Predators. So should we add inside the building a layer of 1/2" by 1/2" hardware cloth? Then we'd have lattice layer, hardware cloth layer, and mosquito net layer. That's a lot of stuff. Better to somehow do a building with windows (covered with hardware cloth?)? But then I sacrifice my lovely summer ventilation.

I know we have had at least one little weasely-minky thing that moved into our horse barn last fall as a temporary home. He killed the mice so we didn't mind.

The outdoor grow out pen I used to have in the yard had lattice on the sides, and was open front and back. I live in Ohio, about 7 minutes inland of Lake Erie. Farther north than me, but Lake Effect can give you quite an artic blast. I had tarps I rolled up during good weather, and rolled down in bad weather, on the back and front, and a poly privacy cloth screen I rolled down the front when it was just a bit windy/rainy.

Rabbits generally do very well in cold weather. I do not heat any rabbit spaces, I've had them outside all winter, in the yard, in the unheated barn, in the grow out pen with no roof.

What I did was build half walls , rather than walls from the floor to ceiling. Open air on cinder blocks at the bottom with vents around the top and the half walls covering three sides.

So far so good .... But haven't been thru a South Texas summer with the current set up. I'm sure I need to add a fan or two to combat the 100 degree heat I'll face this summer.

I had to consider a variety of weather conditions while maximizing cage space when engineering my setup. A couple things were overlooked , like my choice of material (wood) being difficult to clean and when wet a breeding ground for all kinds of pests.

If I had it to do over again I think I'd do one of two things - A) Copy OneAcreFarm's set up or B) A climate controlled indoor rabbitry with a some sort of gravity driven waste disposal system that was made of an easy to clean material that would collect all waste in one location for disposal. I have idea's on this but haven't worked the bugs out yet.

If you do lattice sides, you can put up a wind/rain guard on the outside of it. Take a big piece of poly or tarp and a 1x1 board. Wrap the poly around the board a bit and secure it, and then attach the board to the top of the siding on the outside of the lattice. At the other end of the poly, you can do the same thing with another 1x1. Once secured at both ends, you can roll up the poly around the second board and use a couple of bungee cords or screws to hold it in place at the top when not needed. When needed, unroll it. The board at the ground end will help hold it in place, and being on the outside of the lattice will keep the wind from blowing it all over.

As to the cold, I am with Sky. Rabbits do much better in cold weather than they do with heat. One of my does had a litter January 31st, and the temps were below freezing. They did fine.

Yep, as long as you keep them out of the wind, rabbits can do cold temps no problem.

This is how we solved the airy/sheltered issue:



Climate: 8 - 9 months of 90* - 100* weather, and humid enough to safely walk your goldfish. 2 months of damp, cold, rainy weather. 1 - 2 months of highly variable weather.

The rabbitry is made of 5/8" fencing pickets, attached to the framing with ringshank and hurricane nails. Spacing: 1/4" (the thickness of one of my husband's squares) around the cages, 1/2" or 3/4" (can't remember) at the ends of the aisle. Front done in a double layer of wire (this is the north side). Weather has widened the gaps between the pickets a bit.

It breathes well, but keeps the buns dry. In winter, we put visqueen over the wire to keep out the wind, but it's still airy enough to breathe decently. We plan to extend it out the wire side, and do half walls -- pickets down to a couple inches below the level of the cage floors, then wire to the ground.

Pics of the building of my rabbitry are on pages 4 and 3 (it is in reverse order) of the "Equipment, Housing, and Setups" gallery: gallery/album.php?album_id=8

OneAcreFarm's rabbitry immediately precedes mine, and there are lots of other setups in that gallery, too. <br /><br /> -- Thu Apr 17, 2014 12:24 pm -- <br /><br /> That pic was taken right after it was done... trash bag has since been removed, LOL. And the cages are hung, not laid out on sawhorses.

We have since added a chicken coop to the near end, with access to the rabbitry, and a deep bed of pine shavings throughout. The chickens keep the bugs to a bare minimum, and they turn the shavings and waste into compost. Speaking of which, it's time to dig the whole thing out and put down new shavings. :razz2: At the same time, we added an expansion to the front of the rabbitry. We didn't think to do the half walls at the time, but it still breathes:



That's what it looks like now. The clotheslines are attached to the coop. That's my mom in the coop, talking to the chickens. The rabbitry expansion ends at the door, and we want to add another expansion (with the half walls) on the other side of the door. The sink is going next to our new well house, and the rooster on the outside is not ours. He comes over every day to flirt with our hens and provoke our rooster. :roll:

Oh, I like the expansion.

I like that too!

I like the idea of the hanging cages, but some of my bunnies like to jump around too much. I'd feel better with something more solid.

Miss M, your shed looks great! I went to the gallery to check out the rest of the pix there. Good ideas.

Bob Bennett's book on rabbit building was helpful for me in drawing up my plans. I *especially* liked his suggestion about making the "neighbor side" of the barn look like a garden equipment shed. That's one suggestion I'm taking to heart. I already have to hide my bees.

Miss M does the waste go directly to the ground or do you have some catchment system ??

Waste , wet weather & bugs has me really questioning the use of wood ...

This is just my opinion......
The use of wood is actually a really nice option cause it doesn't heat up like other materials when the sun hits it. You can treat/paint wood to lessen the damage done by bugs and the weather. I like Linseed Oil on the outside of the building. I would keep any treated wood away from where your critters can chew it since it IS toxic to them.
You can use cement blocks to create a wall to catch the waste in inside. If it is a bare floor the worms will come up to help clean up the waste and create great compost that you can either use or sell.

Sagebrush":2dm92y7z said:

This is just my opinion......
The use of wood is actually a really nice option cause it doesn't heat up like other materials when the sun hits it. You can treat/paint wood to lessen the damage done by bugs and the weather. I like Linseed Oil on the outside of the building. I would keep any treated wood away from where your critters can chew it since it IS toxic to them.
You can use cement blocks to create a wall to catch the waste in inside. If it is a bare floor the worms will come up to help clean up the waste and create great compost that you can either use or sell.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the idea .... I may try this.

I'll second the lattice + tarps will probably be fine in your area in winter. Buns handle cold pretty well, and after a couple years, YOUR buns will handle the cold YOU get a lot better. The joys of fast generations, right? Heat's a lot trickier.

NEW QUESTION:

Predators. So should we add inside the building a layer of 1/2" by 1/2" hardware cloth? Then we'd have lattice layer, hardware cloth layer, and mosquito net layer. That's a lot of stuff. Better to somehow do a building with windows (covered with hardware cloth?)? But then I sacrifice my lovely summer ventilation.

I know we have had at least one little weasely-minky thing that moved into our horse barn last fall as a temporary home. He killed the mice so we didn't mind.

mothergoosemagic":2fhbr5t3 said:

Miss M, your shed looks great! I went to the gallery to check out the rest of the pix there. Good ideas.

Click to expand...

Thank you!

mothergoosemagic":2fhbr5t3 said:

I like the idea of the hanging cages, but some of my bunnies like to jump around too much. I'd feel better with something more solid.

Click to expand...

I understand that... mine will occasionally get a bit too excited and bounce their cage off of a hook. I'd like to improve that.

Many have their cages connected in "banks". You can do this by having one long cage structure with dividers to break it up into individual cages, or by having fully independent cages that are connected to each other -- I think someone on here runs a rod through the upper back of the cages to basically connect them into one long structure. The movement of individual rabbits is absorbed by the larger structure. I would be more comfortable with something else holding them together as well, so they couldn't slide against each other much.

mothergoosemagic":2fhbr5t3 said:

Bob Bennett's book on rabbit building was helpful for me in drawing up my plans. I *especially* liked his suggestion about making the "neighbor side" of the barn look like a garden equipment shed. That's one suggestion I'm taking to heart. I already have to hide my bees.

Click to expand...

That is an excellent idea, and one of our members has done this with her shed. Can't remember who. :thinking: You would not be the first person on here with a stealth rabbitry. Ours started out that way.

Ramjet":2fhbr5t3 said:

Miss M does the waste go directly to the ground or do you have some catchment system ??

Waste , wet weather & bugs has me really questioning the use of wood ...

Click to expand...

So sorry I didn't see your question sooner!

We have a deep bed system, consisting of about 6" of pine shavings. In our rabbitry and chicken coop, it takes 10 or 12 bales, because we have to do the entire floor, not just under the rabbits. This is because our chickens have run of the rabbitry, and they keep the shavings turned, eat the bugs, and turn it all into compost. You're supposed to shovel it out twice a year. We did that recently. It had been... um... a good bit longer than 6 months. But the garden loves it. And the job turned out to be not nearly as difficult or stinky as we expected.

Galadriel was going to make nosegays for the smell, but it turned out that it got stinky only when we hit a pee corner. We needed dust masks for the dry areas, just to be on the safe side. And the non- side. Just the idea of what the dust is...

As for the wood, well, our bunnybarn is treated wood. Of course, it's also only about 18 months old. The cages are about a foot in front of the back wall, but they are closer on the sides. We do get a little waste accumulation on the horizontal wood there. Then, of course, there is the contact with the deep bed at the bottom. Will it last, with the weather and the waste? My husband thinks so, and he's been in construction and maintenance for a long time, so I'm confident he's right.

Bugs we don't have to worry about very much, because they all get eaten by chickens.

Sagebrush":2fhbr5t3 said:

You can use cement blocks to create a wall to catch the waste in inside. If it is a bare floor the worms will come up to help clean up the waste and create great compost that you can either use or sell.

Click to expand...

This is a great idea for a rabbitry without chickens. And you can put shavings inside there, too, if you like, which would help keep the smell down. Before we started the deep bed, it was just bare floor, and it got really smelly in there pretty fast. Your climate can affect that, though.

Brass":2fhbr5t3 said:

NEW QUESTION:

Predators. So should we add inside the building a layer of 1/2" by 1/2" hardware cloth? Then we'd have lattice layer, hardware cloth layer, and mosquito net layer. That's a lot of stuff. Better to somehow do a building with windows (covered with hardware cloth?)? But then I sacrifice my lovely summer ventilation.

I know we have had at least one little weasely-minky thing that moved into our horse barn last fall as a temporary home. He killed the mice so we didn't mind.

Click to expand...

I know that here I would most definitely have wire on the inside. You have weasels and mice, and possibly rats. Hardware cloth is probably enough to take care of that. If you have to keep large neighborhood dogs out, or panthers, then something heavier is in order.