Did I discover something new?

[bitbyter]

I'm still in the process of figuring out how I want to build my hutches/cages for my small backyard rabbitry. I've been digging through the forum, YouTube and other resources trying to learn from those with experience. Flooring seems to be the number one consideration when figuring out a design. After considering the options I'd found I concluded that there had to be better options out there as high-quality wire is prohibitively expensive and does eventually need to be replaced. I thought to myself...which country in the world is the number one producer of rabbit meat (the answer if you didn't know is China)? After some quick Googling, I think I've found a product I really like the potential of. Depending on shipping it might even be cheaper than high-quality wire flooring (keep in mind I'm in Canada so I don't have access to the economic advantages of a U.S. citizen).

Behold...plastic rabbit flooring commonly used in Chinese rabbit product facilities:

Floor Panel with built-in nest box (50 cm x 60 cm - about 20 x 24 inches)
Standard Floor Panel (50 cm x 60 cm - about 20 x 24 inches)

The holes are 16 mm (slightly over 1/2 an inch) and I think they should do a better job of preventing hay/straw from dropping through the floor than the rectangular shape in welded wire flooring.



I think I'm going to design my hutches around these panels in such a way that they rest on a ledge of some kind and can easily be added or removed. The fronts/doors will most likely still be 14 GA wire. I may even use these panels for the back of the hutches as well. Not sure yet what I'm going to use for the top (if anything other than the roof).

Lastly, can anyone see any issues I may run into using these for outdoor hutches?

 

[tambayo]

For outdoor hutches i wouldn't want them to be the only thing between bunny and anything curious/hungry.
I can get something like this here that can handle weight, no-cut to size restingboard like pattern. But i will have droppans under them so something pushing them up for instance won't be a problem.
Also i found that plastic tends to get brittle with cold, indoors they'd be fine i suspect, but outside?

 

[bitbyter]

For outdoor hutches i wouldn't want them to be the only thing between bunny and anything curious/hungry.
I can get something like this here that can handle weight, no-cut to size restingboard like pattern. But i will have droppans under them so something pushing them up for instance won't be a problem.
Also i found that plastic tends to get brittle with cold, indoors they'd be fine i suspect, but outside?

I think these would be strong enough to protect against anything that would try and get to the rabbits in my urban environment (a raccoon would probably be the strongest animal). As for brittleness, I believe they are made from the same material as plastic water bottles (going to confirm this) and are a lot thicker. While I can see them potentially getting more brittle in winter, I don't think they would be put under enough stress for that to be a concern.

 

[Alaska Satin]

I agree with @tambayo's concerns about brittleness in the cold, which could become an issue with heavy rabbits moving around irregularly/abruptly, at least as experienced on the floor, but possibly the sides as well.

My bigger concern would be that every solid place in a hutch - even the ceiling - tends to get covered in dust and hair, and anything on the floor collects poo. Even wire can build up poo, but those panels look like they would be a mess fairly quickly. Rabbit poo isn't all small, hard, uniform balls that will just roll into and through a hole, and shed hair makes poo collection (even on wire) happen that much faster. I would expect these plastic ones to collect smooshed poo, and then everything else, fairly immediately. In China's big industrial rabbitries, there are probably a lot of (poorly paid) workers who can weekly or even daily pull these panels and wash them, but since I do all my own work, I want something as low-maintenance as possible. Time and again, I come back to wire as the easiest thing to keep clean.

Over the years I've even moved away from even having anything under the cage. I had cages resting on pipes and even those rounded surfaces collect hair, poop and urine. Now I hang all cages and use galvanized 1" x 1/2" wire for the bottoms. Yes, wire has to be replaced eventually, but we're talking years for that. And I cannot imagine you wouldn't ever have to replace these plastic ones.

Another issue with plastic is that little scratches in it become excellent breeding sites for bacteria, which are quite difficult to clean. That may or may not be true of wire, but wire offers a lot less area for it. I am not looking to create a germ-free rabbitry, but I'm also not anxious to grow more bacteria than necessary.

Finally, microplastics are a growing issue and I'm not looking to add any to my/my rabbits' environment. I do use water bottles during the warmer months, but am also moving away from plastic to glass (glass being more expensive, it's taking a while).

 

[eco2pia]

Over time they will likely need replacing, but so will most kinds of flooring. It does seem like they could clog up...

In an urban environment racoons are the most strong things that can climb...Dogs are much worse. If your yard is not fenced with a 6 foot dog proof fence already, you will want a second floor of heavy 1x2 wire mesh 3 inches under your primary floor. This will prevent dogs from coming up underneath.

I lost my whole first herd to a pair of german shepherds in the middle of the night. The worst part is that of course they don't kill the rabbits, just maim them, leaving you to finish the job on a bunch of terrified broken bleeding animals. Worst rabbit memory ever.

 

[bitbyter]

Over time they will likely need replacing, but so will most kinds of flooring. It does seem like they could clog up...

In an urban environment racoons are the most strong things that can climb...Dogs are much worse. If your yard is not fenced with a 6 foot dog proof fence already, you will want a second floor of heavy 1x2 wire mesh 3 inches under your primary floor. This will prevent dogs from coming up underneath.

I lost my whole first herd to a pair of german shepherds in the middle of the night. The worst part is that of course they don't kill the rabbits, just maim them, leaving you to finish the job on a bunch of terrified broken bleeding animals. Worst rabbit memory ever.

hmmm, that's something to consider, though in the 15 years I've lived here, I've never seen a loose dog just wandering on its own. There is also only one narrow access gate to my backyard.

 

[bitbyter]

Over time they will likely need replacing, but so will most kinds of flooring. It does seem like they could clog up...

In an urban environment racoons are the most strong things that can climb...Dogs are much worse. If your yard is not fenced with a 6 foot dog proof fence already, you will want a second floor of heavy 1x2 wire mesh 3 inches under your primary floor. This will prevent dogs from coming up underneath.

I lost my whole first herd to a pair of german shepherds in the middle of the night. The worst part is that of course they don't kill the rabbits, just maim them, leaving you to finish the job on a bunch of terrified broken bleeding animals. Worst rabbit memory ever.

Do you think a slat style (they make those as well) would be better than this style with the holes? In the hutch design I'm playing with, I've incorporated a hide/nest box area. I figured I could shut them in that area briefly and hose the rest of the cage down with a pressure washer. I'd have to use really hot water or find some other solution for when things freeze in the winter.

 

[Her Farmstead Rabbitry]

I think it would be really hard to clean it and it would get gross really quick. And you can't torch it like wire flooring.

 

[Preitler]

My last iteration on rabbit hutch floors are wooden slats, with ca. 13mm gaps that widen downwards. This helps cleaning, most stuff falls through when I pull the wasted hay out. What gets stuck can be raked out with a sturdy wire hook.
This time I made sure that the slats rest on crossbeams at the front and rear, not somewhere in the middle. The front of the slots is open, covered by the door, so I can more easily pull anything out without getting snagged at the end.
I can take out panels of slats for cleaning, do that about twice a year.
I soaked the wood with vegetable oil, it needed to be painted with rabbit urine after that to not become a snack, but it holds up very well with that treatment.

I feed forage and hay, lots of it, so the floor is always covered with it and it becomes kind of deep bedding with drainage at times, but if only pellets are fed or the hay is limited to a small area I think that plastic things would work fairly well, 16mm holes are pretty big, and they can be easily removed for cleaning. Also how the holes are shaped looks like there was some thought behind it. I would expect hair to get less easy tangled than around wire, but I have zero experience with wire floors.

Durability, that sure depends on what material is used, especially in cold temperatures. PP gets very brittle just around freezing, PE, PET etc. not that bad. It's not going to sit in direct sunlight either and it's pretty thick material.
IMO they should last longer than my plastic watering cans that are outside for 10 years now.
Not everything from china is low quality and bad, stuff they use more themself than produce for cheap export can be quite useful.
Im used to wood hutches, so torching isn't a way to clean stuff anyway and it's a whole other level of "gross" compared to plastic.

The reasons why I, personally will never use them are mainly two: I try to avoid plastic where I can, every pound produced is one too much. Second, If there are any options I try to not buy simple, cheap stuff in China and have it shipped half around the world. This is just such a level of decadence we are so used to today,

 

[bitbyter]

I feed forage and hay, lots of it, so the floor is always covered with it and it becomes kind of deep bedding with drainage at times, but if only pellets are fed or the hay is limited to a small area I think that plastic things would work fairly well, 16mm holes are pretty big, and they can be easily removed for cleaning. Also how the holes are shaped looks like there was some thought behind it. I would expect hair to get less easy tangled than around wire, but I have zero experience with wire floors.

Durability, that sure depends on what material is used, especially in cold temperatures. PP gets very brittle just around freezing, PE, PET etc. not that bad. It's not going to sit in direct sunlight either and it's pretty thick material.
IMO they should last longer than my plastic watering cans that are outside for 10 years now.
Not everything from china is low quality and bad, stuff they use more themself than produce for cheap export can be quite useful.

I think these could be quite easily cleaned weekly with a good stiff brush or even a pressure washer and bleach water. With the design I'm working on, they will be easily removable so they can be deep cleaned/soaked when needed (I am aware of the calcium buildup from rabbit urine). I'm currently trying to think of a way to engineer a small gap to allow the sweeping out of loose hay but it's interfering with how I want to mount them for easy removal but still secure from predators.

The design of the surface and the holes is to prevent chewing. The slate design floor panels seem to be cheaper and of older stock so I think they were often nibbled on by the rabbits and thus this new design was made. I can definitely see that as being a problem to avoid.

With the min order amount, I would easily have enough to rotate them in and out of use and probably still come out cheaper than if I built entirely with wire.

I totally understand the reservations about plastic but in certain situations, it's still a compelling option. I'm going to see if I can get some samples sent before committing to this product.

 

[tambayo]

Vinegar breaks down calcium, and bugs & friends don't like it. So rather then bleach to clean urine build up with, should save on scrubbing.

 

[eco2pia]

I think these could be quite easily cleaned weekly with a good stiff brush or even a pressure washer and bleach water. With the design I'm working on, they will be easily removable so they can be deep cleaned/soaked when needed (I am aware of the calcium buildup from rabbit urine). I'm currently trying to think of a way to engineer a small gap to allow the sweeping out of loose hay but it's interfering with how I want to mount them for easy removal but still secure from predators.

The design of the surface and the holes is to prevent chewing. The slate design floor panels seem to be cheaper and of older stock so I think they were often nibbled on by the rabbits and thus this new design was made. I can definitely see that as being a problem to avoid.

With the min order amount, I would easily have enough to rotate them in and out of use and probably still come out cheaper than if I built entirely with wire.

I totally understand the reservations about plastic but in certain situations, it's still a compelling option. I'm going to see if I can get some samples sent before committing to this product.

I think with a pressure washer they will be fine...but I cannot picture actually moving all my rabbits and pressure washing my whole set up every other month, let alone weekly. Where would I be putting them? It is lucky if it happens annually in the heat of summer, definitely not doing it in winter, nothing would ever be dry again in Seattle!

If you have it so that they can pop out and you can clean one space at a time, that might work well, but it still sounds like a lot of rabbit moving to me.

The key is knowing what YOU will be comfortable with. I am well acquainted with my own laziness/busyness. I know how to work with that, instead of against it.

My advice will work well for similarly lazy/busy folk--I front load my effort a lot, so I make things expensive and or difficult to build once, because I know that when the garden is producing, and it is crunch time at work, and I am working 50h a week, and then a dog gets sick, and a car breaks down, I am going to be too busy to do much else, so the buns/chickens/ducks need to be able to be clean and fed and watered with minimum input from me when the stuff hits the fan in my life.

If I were you I would get one or two of those and stick it in a cage with a rabbit as a floor mat and see how badly they clog. maybe we are all paranoid. If they really are used in production facilities in china, I can't imagine they are too bad, that seems like it would make them pointless pretty quick otherwise. Commercial operations usually prioritize efficiency, right?

 

[bitbyter]

Vinegar breaks down calcium, and bugs & friends don't like it. So rather then bleach to clean urine build up with, should save on scrubbing.

I was thinking of a weekly bleach scrub/spray just to help with sanitation in general and once a month swap them out totally and soak the dirty ones in vinegar solution.

 

[bitbyter]

I think with a pressure washer they will be fine...but I cannot picture actually moving all my rabbits and pressure washing my whole set up every other month, let alone weekly. Where would I be putting them? It is lucky if it happens annually in the heat of summer, definitely not doing it in winter, nothing would ever be dry again in Seattle!

If you have it so that they can pop out and you can clean one space at a time, that might work well, but it still sounds like a lot of rabbit moving to me.

The key is knowing what YOU will be comfortable with. I am well acquainted with my own laziness/busyness. I know how to work with that, instead of against it.

My advice will work well for similarly lazy/busy folk--I front load my effort a lot, so I make things expensive and or difficult to build once, because I know that when the garden is producing, and it is crunch time at work, and I am working 50h a week, and then a dog gets sick, and a car breaks down, I am going to be too busy to do much else, so the buns/chickens/ducks need to be able to be clean and fed and watered with minimum input from me when the stuff hits the fan in my life.

If I were you I would get one or two of those and stick it in a cage with a rabbit as a floor mat and see how badly they clog. maybe we are all paranoid. If they really are used in production facilities in china, I can't imagine they are too bad, that seems like it would make them pointless pretty quick otherwise. Commercial operations usually prioritize efficiency, right?

So I think each hutch will be 3 floor panels wide ( so ~ 2' x 6'). The third panel will be in an enclosed hide/nest box area. I was thinking on floor panel exchange day the rabbit(s) would be briefly shut into the hide while the first two panels are swapped out and then do the opposite to swap out the hide panel. I am wanting to design the front so the whole top half of the front will hinge up and slide onto the top of the cage allowing for full access and easy removal of the floor panels. Like this: YouTube Link

If not shut into the hide area, maybe a brief time in a run or holding cage in a garden wagon while I swap the panels out.

Winter will probably be more of a challenge and may mean swap-outs more frequently instead of in situ cleaning.

 

[MaggieJ]

I'm still in the process of figuring out how I want to build my hutches/cages for my small backyard rabbitry. I've been digging through the forum, YouTube and other resources trying to learn from those with experience. Flooring seems to be the number one consideration when figuring out a design. After considering the options I'd found I concluded that there had to be better options out there as high-quality wire is prohibitively expensive and does eventually need to be replaced. I thought to myself...which country in the world is the number one producer of rabbit meat (the answer if you didn't know is China)? After some quick Googling, I think I've found a product I really like the potential of. Depending on shipping it might even be cheaper than high-quality wire flooring (keep in mind I'm in Canada so I don't have access to the economic advantages of a U.S. citizen).

Behold...plastic rabbit flooring commonly used in Chinese rabbit product facilities:

Floor Panel with built-in nest box (50 cm x 60 cm - about 20 x 24 inches)
Standard Floor Panel (50 cm x 60 cm - about 20 x 24 inches)

The holes are 16 mm (slightly over 1/2 an inch) and I think they should do a better job of preventing hay/straw from dropping through the floor than the rectangular shape in welded wire flooring.

View attachment 38174 View attachment 38175

I think I'm going to design my hutches around these panels in such a way that they rest on a ledge of some kind and can easily be added or removed. The fronts/doors will most likely still be 14 GA wire. I may even use these panels for the back of the hutches as well. Not sure yet what I'm going to use for the top (if anything other than the roof).

Lastly, can anyone see any issues I may run into using these for outdoor hutches?

Hi Bitbyter,

You've put a lot of thought and investigation into planning your rabbitry, but I do have some concerns about the plastic nest-boxes.

My set-up was in Southern Ontario too, and you need to consider how hot and humid it gets, particularly from mid-June to mid-August. Kits in those poorly-ventilated boxes are going to swelter and you may have losses. I don't know how they make this work in China, unless they have climate control of some kind. Indoors this would not be impossible but please do think this through before proceeding.

Wishing you the best of good fortune with your venture. I applaud your careful planning!

~ Maggie

 

[bitbyter]

Hi Bitbyter,

You've put a lot of thought and investigation into planning your rabbitry, but I do have some concerns about the plastic nest-boxes.

My set-up was in Southern Ontario too, and you need to consider how hot and humid it gets, particularly from mid-June to mid-August. Kits in those poorly-ventilated boxes are going to swelter and you may have losses. I don't know how they make this work in China, unless they have climate control of some kind. Indoors this would not be impossible but please do think this through before proceeding.

Wishing you the best of good fortune with your venture. I applaud your careful planning!

~ Maggie

Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't sold on the panel with drop-in nestboxes either (but for different reasons). I just posted that picture to show that the style of panel and box is available. I hadn't thought of their limited airflow in the summer for the kits. Knowledge such as that is exactly why I posted here in the first place.

In the days to come, I will have other questions about the challenges in dealing with Southern Ontario's varied climate (mainly dealing with water in winter and protecting them from the heat in summer).

 

[Scooter1A]

I'm still in the process of figuring out how I want to build my hutches/cages for my small backyard rabbitry. I've been digging through the forum, YouTube and other resources trying to learn from those with experience. Flooring seems to be the number one consideration when figuring out a design. After considering the options I'd found I concluded that there had to be better options out there as high-quality wire is prohibitively expensive and does eventually need to be replaced. I thought to myself...which country in the world is the number one producer of rabbit meat (the answer if you didn't know is China)? After some quick Googling, I think I've found a product I really like the potential of. Depending on shipping it might even be cheaper than high-quality wire flooring (keep in mind I'm in Canada so I don't have access to the economic advantages of a U.S. citizen).

Behold...plastic rabbit flooring commonly used in Chinese rabbit product facilities:

Floor Panel with built-in nest box (50 cm x 60 cm - about 20 x 24 inches)
Standard Floor Panel (50 cm x 60 cm - about 20 x 24 inches)

The holes are 16 mm (slightly over 1/2 an inch) and I think they should do a better job of preventing hay/straw from dropping through the floor than the rectangular shape in welded wire flooring.

View attachment 38174 View attachment 38175

I think I'm going to design my hutches around these panels in such a way that they rest on a ledge of some kind and can easily be added or removed. The fronts/doors will most likely still be 14 GA wire. I may even use these panels for the back of the hutches as well. Not sure yet what I'm going to use for the top (if anything other than the roof).

Lastly, can anyone see any issues I may run into using these for outdoor hutches?

I bought a few of these panels to put on top of my wire. My rabbits didn't like them. They didn't chew on them just kept moving them out of the way. They were expensive.

 

[bitbyter]

I bought a few of these panels to put on top of my wire. My rabbits didn't like them. They didn't chew on them just kept moving them out of the way. They were expensive.

Where did you get them?

 

[Scooter1A]

Where did you get them?

it was either walmart.com or amazon. no way you could use these as a floor by themselves.

 

[bitbyter]

it was either walmart.com or amazon. no way you could use these as a floor by themselves.

Then I think you're probably talking about something else. These are specifically designed as a flooring system. You might have been using rest mats. They manufacture both and they do look similar.