I'm new to rabbits and will bet setting up my rabbitry in a section of my bar. I know I'll need to put something up on the walls to protect the wood - is any type of plastic better than another? Clear painters tarp ok? Is there a better quality out there that will hold up to prolonged urine abuse?
It's a little spendy, but we used metal roofing to line the walls of our new barn. We built it in 2021, and so far it's seen a
lot of rabbit urine, but there's no degradation of the metal. An unexpected but nice feature is that it really brightens up the barn because it's slightly reflective. And, I don't have to worry about tearing or disturbing it when I'm shoveling out the manure (also, the rabbits can't reach through and pull it into the cage to chew it up!).
Here's what it looked like when it was new:
And here it is after four years:
The urine proteins build up and look unsightly, but actually I just knock it off in flakes with a shovel when I'm cleaning out under the cages. When it's power-washed, it looks almost like new (obviously everything needs power-washing in the photo above!
). Even the bottom edge of the metal, which is submerged in manure for some parts of the year, is holding up so far. So if you can afford it, I'd say it's a lot nicer than having to replace plastic sheeting every year or two.
