We went with 24 deep, because I have a hard time reaching that extra 6 inches..I'm...erm...uh...vertically challenged, shall we say? LOL There should be plenty of room in the 24 x 36 for a mama and litter till the litter is weaned. I will be putting in a hanging pot like MSD does to let mama have some space off the floor, though. I figure to wean at about 4 or 5 weeks so they should only just be starting to get crowded; at that point, the kits will move to their own cage. We do have an extra we used as a QT cage, so if we need more room, it'll do in a pinch. Our rabbitry area is on the east side of the house and about 8 feet wide and 25 feet long, so we're putting ours all on one level. If in the future we need more cages, we can put another row on the fence side. I'm sure we will, since rabbitosis acquireosis tends to run rampant
We looked at stacking, but felt the upper ones would be too high and the lower ones too low to reach comfortably. Plus, with just the one level, we don't have to do anything special about poop patrol...it can just fall to the ground where we'll scoop it into the wheelbarrow and then to the garden or compost pile. DH is making stands out of re-bar to set the cages on...2 cages per stand. We have one stand done and he's working on the other now. After that, we just need to get the roof on and the dirt back there tamped down and it'll be pretty much complete...can't wait! Hopefully will have pix within the next couple weeks.
I did, and still do, check Craig's List daily. What I was finding locally wasn't terribly impressive. Most of the cages/hutches available were, imo, over priced for what they were, most all of them had some wood components, and nobody had an idea of what gauge the wire was. I shied away from wood because it's so absorbant...I worry about disease lurking in it and it's so difficult to clean/sanitize. Sometimes I read posts, here and elsewhere, where folks have managed to find someone who's getting out of rabbits and has a lot of good equipment they're willing to sell very reasonably, but of course, that doesn't happen every day. You might check your local feed store(s); if they have a bulletin board, they may have something posted, or you could post and if anyone has anything they could get a hold of you. If there's a rabbit show in your area, I'd urge you to attend...there are always folks there selling things, and even if you don't buy it's a great place to make contacts.
When we went to a show in our area, the cages were already on order, so we didn't seriously look at what they were selling there, though the prices seemed about comparable...even with the shipping. Our main reason for going was to see the rabbits
I hadn't been able to find a local source for SF's but there were 2 breeders at the show, so that's where we got our breeding stock.
