help to find good floor for bunny shed

[lilliean09]

Hey there, wondering if there may be a rabbit pro out there that could help me. I have beem waiting years to get a pet rabbit, waiting till my little girl was old and responsible enough to enjoy. she is ready i think and so am i, but haventrabbits since i was a kid lol! I have spent a week reading every scrap of information on rabbit care, needs, and the like. I am a animal lover to put it mildly and want to do right by our new friend, we have a dog and cat inside as well as fish!! Well as for our rabbit im familur with domesticated rats, hammsters as adult, and am now well read on rabbit care, but as for houseing we have chosen a outdoor home for our soon to be bunny and (prolly a mini lop and/ or a lionhead, not sure if better to have one or two? A lot of controversy it seems) but due to certainty of predators in our va wooded home we allso want them to have a large home. We can get in to play with them are turning our shed in to bunny home, and makeing a dog fenced gate sirounding it, which bunny can play with us on pretty days. BUT unlike most folks iv seen online we wish to give them free roam of the entire shed, and are making large fenced and screened windows for ventalation, building bunny beds that will basicly be bunny safe wood and filled with clean bedding covered for them sleep in. Instaling thermostate to activate fan flr them on summer if reacjes warm temps and heat in winter when low temps, yes, no cords ect, in bunnys reach, but now have problem! What is the best floor_ major controversy on wire floor i see, but thats impractical for the shed, its currently pressure treated wood so we have to remove and re instal new floor, but of what? Wood? Concret? Rubber stall mats? Dirt? I have been reading till my brain hurts! Some say use tile or linolium, others say if u jave a chewer its dangerous, some say concrete sanitary, but holds smells, but is tjat good for feet? No slippery surfaces and no hard surfaces and no carpet and wood unsanitary, what do u do??? Im a clean nut, and will be out to clean bedding and floor daily to every other day, i just need and. Idea for floor tjats good for rabbiyts, cant be eatten or at least sage if so, and sanitary. Want waterprrof if possible so it can be sprayed out, help!

 

[3mina]

You've come up with several things that will work. All of those things are used for flooring, I don't recommend the dirt floor in a colony since rabbits dig and you don't want to find Bunny FooFoo roaming free one morning.
I don't do colony myself but from what I've seen on here a deep litter system would work as well. My best advise is to go though the colony forum and do a search on flooring and deep litter. Hope that helps

 

[lilliean09]

Thank you! So it is called a colony to do it that way? Ill search that. I have seached alot to figure it out, i just seem to find so much controversy with each option, where one site says this is best, another says the same thing can kill your bunny! Im just trying to figure the best option for bunny safty and cleaness, if any recomendations let me know! Have you any experience with any of those floor options?

 

[Miss M]

Yes, that would be a colony. There is a whole section on here devoted to colonies, as 3mina mentioned: rabbit-colonies-f12.html

You can do some reading on there and in the rest of the forum, and I'm sure you will have more answers here tomorrow. There usually aren't a lot of people on this late... I'm getting ready to go to bed, myself. This forum hops during the daytime, though!

I don't have a colony setup, though I'd like to. It is pretty confusing to have one place say this is the way to do it, and the next place says that if you do it that way, all your bunnies will die! :roll: The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. There are quite a few ways to house rabbits, and they all have their pros and cons. There are lots of different options discussed here on RabbitTalk, so I heartily recommend taking a stroll through old threads in Rabbit Care and Rabbit Colonies.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

If you want to be able to hose off the flooring, then go with concrete- and rememebr to make sure you have a way for water to drain out of the building-- either a drain with the floor sloped to it all around, or the whole floor on a slight grade, sloped to a 'gutter'. make sure the walls of the shed are painted or otherwise waterproofed to prevent rotting/rusting.

Use deep bedding so your bun can dig, burrow, and generally have fun in it. Regular removal and replacement is a must-- but the use of certain bedding products, like straw, wood pellets, corn pellets, etc, will make for good compost for your gardens.

If you can smell ammonia-- it is well past time to replace the bedding!

Best wishes, and welcome to Rabbittalk---

 

[trinityoaks]

I agree that for the setup you're talking about, concrete floor would be best.

As for basic advice, whatever you do, DO NOT pay any attention to anything from the House Rabbit Society or many "pet rabbit" sites. They do NOT know what they're talking about.

 

[MaggieJ]

:welcome:

Think of all that conflicting advice this way: there is no one right or wrong way, only choices. With just one or two rabbits in a colony, I suggest you give them a litter box once they choose their potty corner. Don't use clay kitty litter in it... wood pellets or shavings are a good choice. It doesn't always work, but many rabbits will use the box most of the time and it will mean you do not need to do a full clean out as often.

Rabbits can handle a lot of cold as long as they are dry and out of the wind. Very few of us heat our rabbitries but a fan on really hot days is a good idea.

I know of one member who uses stall mats and many have concrete floors. My colony is on a wood floor with deep litter and it is not ideal. If you decide to stay with wood you will want to seal it very well.

A couple of things I'd like to mention for your future posts. Please do not interrupt other people's threads to draw attention to your own. It is distracting. And try breaking up long posts into shorter paragraphs. They are much easier to read than a huge block of print and it will help you to get more answers. I know it takes a while to get used to a new forum, so please treat these comments as suggestions not criticism.

 

[Dood]

I agree with a concrete floor, it will also be cooler in the summer. The rabbits will pick a corner (or several) to pee in and you can place a metal tray there as a litter box to prevent the cement from being constantly wet. I dont use deep bedding but just a dusting of wood chips or sawdust as they will likely poop everywhere but the pellets are very dry and easily swept up daily to keep the floor clean.

A metal shed can be a sauna in the summer so I would recommend insulating the roof and south facing walls as well as painting the outside white or with the special heat reducing paint. This will help prevent the cooling system from being on all the time in the summer.

I would definitely recommend two, or more rabbits especially since you have a small breed. It is easier for them to keep warm in the winter if they have a companion and rabbits really are very social and enjoy playing, grooming and cuddling with each other. Since you are giving them so much space I doubt you will have any fighting. I have two small intact female house bunnies that share a 36 x 24 inch two level condo and dont have any fighing, it helps if they were raise togeather from young kits.

For the winter I would have an enclosed bunny house that is insulated and will hold body heat to help keep them warm and the roof or a wall that is completely removable so it is easy to access to clean.

 

[lilliean09]

Wow! Thank you to everyone! I have never been on forum before, and had no idea how it worked so im sorry for the book last night, lol! I searched the term colony rabbit and its exactly what i needed! Thank you thank you thank you! So i think concrete floor with slope in floor is the way to go then, then hay covered. We hope to have happy healty bunnys<br /><br />__________ Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:42 am __________<br /><br />Ill plan for two now, thank u for advice! It helps to talk to people who have been there.

 

[coffeenutdesigns]

All the people I know who have rabbits all have different set ups (and you can tell from looking at all the different set ups here) different materials, and different ways of doing things, and they are all fine.

My friend has a backyard bunny that she just lets run around the yard (they have a privacy fence) and it has a little door to go in the garage when it wants and a little play house to get in when it wants or if they need to contain it that is about 9 feet long and 3 feet wide with a section about 3 feet that has enclosed sides. They also let it run in and out of the house. The rabbit just goes outside to poop and pee in the yard, mostly in one area. He was a "stray" New Zealand if you can imagine such a thing! It wandered into their garage one day when they had the door open and none of the neighbors claimed and and nobody ever came forward as the owner. So weird.<br /><br />__________ Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:07 am __________<br /><br />Oh, and if I could put any floor, I would put rhino lining, lol. Actually I would like that in my boys' rooms and bathroom! Since that probably isn't practical, I would go with concrete, too.

 

[lilliean09]

Haha! I hear you there! I wish we could just let it have free run of the property! To many dogs and cats live nearby , including my dog and cat indoors! I dont know how they would do with it! My dog does well with small critters, cat not somuch! So i guess this will be next best thing. We r puting up dog fence around shed and when we r with bunny will play within fence, is this enough outside time, daily weather providing, or should we make a run for her to go out in on her own?

 

[WallTenter]

Hey I was at a show this weekend heard someone say they had a shed they put like 1ft+ of sand in the bottom, this way when the rabbits try to dig out the sand fills back in so they can dig all they want it just keeps filling back in the hole.

 

[AnnClaire]

Lilliean,

YES, YES, YES, give the bunnies free access to the outside, but be able to lock them in when you need/want to, as long as the top of the run area is enclosed too. Cats will climb a chain link fence, rats can get through a chain link fence (may want to add chicken netting or hardware cloth), martens and weasles can get through/under/over fencing.

Also, you don't mention what you are going to install to keep the buns from digging into the floor of the outside pen ... I buried chain link bottoms in my runout pens. Some folks get by with burying an "L" shaped wire around the inner perimeter of the pen which keeps the buns from digging out. What I have found is that if you put a piece of log in the middle of the pen, that also invites the buns to dig there, rather than at the perimeter.

Oh, and I forgot, raccoons are deadly around domesticated rabbits. Anything they can get their paw through, and get ahold of the rabbit, they will pull through the opening and eat. Skunks too. So, you may want to pen the rabbits in the shed at night and while you are not home. And rabbits are very active at night, so you might want to include some items inside the shed for the buns to climb on and run around, over, and under.