Cages and ages

[LPH_NY]

At what age would you comfortably put a bunny in a cage that has a spacing of 1.5" x 4" for the top half of the cage? (Bottom half has same spacing + 1/2" x 1/2" hardware mesh) These are meat rabbits. I'm planning on using these cages for nursing does with kits, but how hard will a kit try to escape through the wires if he/she has to climb first?

 

[Dood]

In my experience, if they can reach the wider wire with their front feet they will try to escape throught it.

 

[TwoAcreDream]

Please do yourself and the rabbits a favor.
At least 1 by 2 inches for the sides and a top.
Anything with a bigger opening is just begging for trouble.

I am currently trying to stay ahead of a mink. He attacked
yesterday and got 3 rabbits, and a young laying hen. A few days
before that, he also got another hen. He couldn't figure out how
to drag them back out the 2 by 2 inch hole he came in through.

If your rabbits are inside a garage or a very solid barn, then you
stand a chance with larger hole wire.

Any cages I build in the spring for use here are going to be 1 by 1 inch.
Then the bottoms are 1/2 by 1 inch. I will be redoing some of my
current stacking cages I put together last fall. A mouse or small rat
may get in, but hopefully no more mink. I thought hanging cages
were more safe than stackers. I no longer think that. The one triple
hanger I have, I am either going to make a second floor under the
original one by at least 1 inch. And or tear the cage apart and make a
stacker out of it.

We also have coyotes, shunks, possum, and foxes. I don't feel I
should let my rabbits and chickens be a free meal for them. That's
just not happening.

The mink got 2 adult does from my hanging unit. He chawed up their
paws and they bled to death. The baby rabbit he got in the drop
pan in my stacker and was eating it after pulling the leg through the
floor wire. I know it is a mink, becaue I saw the black rascal run
across the driveway later in the morning headed for the dead chicken
we had put on the wood pile. We have some serious traps waiting
for him. He will stick his head in the wrong hole , soon enough.

 

[ckcs]

I wouldn't be so concerned with an adult meat rabbit getting out but would be very concerned about a predator getting in.

 

[LPH_NY]

I'm not saying that predators aren't a concern... but the shed where the bunnies, chickens and ducks are kept is pretty tight. I will definitely take it into consideration and perhaps run the hardware mesh all the way to the top and put a hard top on the cages. I was just wondering at what age or weight bunnies escaping though wider gaps is no longer an issue.

I'm very sorry for the mink attack, TwoAcreDream. I see you are in New York as well.