How to beat the heat ???!

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Ramjet

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I have my hutch in a shaded , well ventilated area , with the exception that it gets a bit of afternoon sun which when I think about it , is probably the worst since they have already endured the heat of mid day. I'll likely move it to another location to avoid that afternoon heat.


I came home yesterday and found my buck dead , I assume to the heat as he was healthy otherwise with no marks on his hide. The high today & yesterday was ~98 , Friday was awful hot too.


I did a search and every "Heat" in the search seemed to be associated with a doe being in heat .... rather than hot heat.


What are some of the ways others deal with heat short of bringing your bunny's inside ...

Obviously being in South Texas , heat is going to be a long term issue for me , I better get it figured out fast.

Thanks
 
I lost a doe yesterday too from the heat.

I pour water on them (literally POUR) and I give them frozen jugs. Their ears get extra soaked too as that is where they circulate their blood. I didn't do that yesterday so I lost one. If you don't have frozen jugs, I also use cold beer cans from the fridge.
 
My rabbits are in sheds and there are openings for ventilation that I have hung doubled over sheets to block the sun but allow air. I have also put soaker hoses on the metal roof. I have multiple fans that I turn on any day I expect the temp to be above 70. If I expect it above 80 then I also turn on the hoses and let the water drip down onto the sheets. the fans then blow that cooler air for the bunz.

I have also filled wash tubs with water in an emergency heat spike situation and put then bunz in the water. This save a few lives when we had unseasonable 105 last year.
 
Most people use frozen 2 liter bottles. The problem is that they melt pretty quickly in the kind of heat we get in TX so you have to swap them out often and that can mean needing LOTS of freezer space to keep bottles in.

We have our rabbits where they can get into boxes (like rubbermaid tubs and some are actually old ice chests) that are burried in dirt to insulate them. You can put a frozen 2 liter in one of those and it will stay frozen all day long, so you only need one bottle per day per rabbit. Much easier. We all work during the day so nobody would be home to switch out bottles. So this system was a life saver for us (or for the rabbits).
 
I have found slabs of marble to be excellent...it draws the body heat out and doesn't melt. :) You can possibly even get them cheap, many home improvement stores will sell chipped or damaged marble tiles inexpensively. :)
 
I have both the ceramic tiles and the frozen water bottles. The tiles can be put in the fridge to really cool down before being put out for the buns.

I am assuming you have a roof over your buns. If the roof is metal, I would consider setting up a hose to water it in the worst of the afternoon heat.
 
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Well , I put 2 gallon ice bottles in the cages today , they melted between noon and 8pm.

It was only 94 today .... even with the ice my one of my two does looked a bit stressed. I cant wait for the temps to drop a bit.


Thanks for the tips ..
 
I give frozen watermelon rind to help cool and hydrate them. I also have extremely heat tolerant rabbits (I just got lucky honestly...) My hutches are in the shade for all of but 2-3 hours a day, and tend to catch a nice breeze. I work 9:30 to 2 and just give a rind to them when I get home from work on the hot days, no other precautions. I will pull kits in during the day if I need to though. Last week was between 98 and 105 all week, only one of my bucks was showing a little tiny bit of heat stress, and the rind helped him right out.

If I needed to though I would put a ice bottle in an insulated box for them....maybe cut a hidey hole and hang it off the back of my hutches...like a old cooler or something. Cut hole in back of hutch, hole in side of cooler, attach cooler to hutch, put ice bottle in hutch, secure ice cooler lid with latch. That way they have a way to get out of the heat into their own little air conditioned "room" so to speak....heck, that sounds like such a good idea I might do that anyway! LOL

also just found this! http://www.3bunnies.org/bunnyAC.htm
 
LOL Tegan... I'm one step ahead... I already have two of the foam coolers. :D They don't work very well.
 
I'm with Kyle!!! I have left over tiles from when I did my living room..And the buns got a tile each, and they lay on that tile constantly,(they have all have 5x3 hutches so there's plenty other room for them to lay) so I'm guessing its def. helping.

Aldo

Also on hot days you can throw some tiles in the freezer and rotate them
 
I use frozen water bottles and fans to cool them
Down. I had a buck with heat stroke the other week
So now I'm extra careful. :)
 
I use a reflective roof with a shade cloth a few feet under it. There are misters that point to the shade cloth and make a sort of swamp cooler. There are two fans for circulation, but the main cooling effect is when the wind blows on the wet shade cloth. The temps inside the rabbitry stay about 10 degrees below ambient in high humidity and can go as far as 30 degrees lower in low humidity.

That keeps everyone happy in temps up to about 100 degrees. If it gets to about 103 or higher with high humidity, I take ice out to the bunnies. I haven't done that in over a month.
 
A week or so ago we had temps in the 90's almost every day. What I did was I bought a small rubbermaid style storage tub, a bathroom fan, and a length of 4" plastic tubing. I cut 1" holes in the sides of the tub near the bottom and then mounted the bathroom fan inside the tub about 3" from the top in a corner with a 4" hole in the side of the tub so the exhaust port on the fan could push through to the outside.I hooked up the tubing to the fan port and attached it to the back of the cages about 12" off the cage floor. I cut holes in the side of the tube so the air would blow inside the cage and duct taped the end of the tube so all of the air would have to go out the new holes in the tube. I then filled up every milk jug, gatorade bottle etc. with water and froze them. The next morning I filled the tub with frozen bottles and plugged in the bathroom fan and whalllaaa bunny air conditioner.
I have since also upgraded the system to incorporate a timer so the fan turns on and off on its own. All I have to do is retrieve the bottles in the evening , put them in the freezer and return them in the morning frozen. It works pretty well. I also placed a marble tile in each cage that I got from home depot at a cost of about $2.00 ea. Even if the bottles are totally melted that light breeze keeps the rabbits and the tile cool.
 
landscaping. Trees/shrubs make superior cool shade better most structures. There's an evaporation effect from plants that helps cool the air (there's a term for it I forget what it is called) I keep my rabbits under a large sawtooth oak and then have a wood fence that blocks the sun from the west. The East sun is blocked by a large row of privet (not very close on the other side of the yard). There is maybe an hour between 9-10 am where they are subject to some direct sun.

I've used ice bottles but they do melt quickly and I'm not around to give them out when they would really need it so landscaping was the better option. When it's really hot I have a 42" barrel fan that I use for circulation - It doesn't blow directly on any one cage but down the isle. So the rabbits can get in or out of the breeze it creates. I've only lost one elderly rabbit and that was a day were it got much hotter than expected and I didn't have the fan running.
 
Have mine in an open dirt floor run where they can tunnel, and misters in the run. Work good 100+ days haven't lost anyone. It is kinda strange walking out into the run and not seeing any rabbit around :eek: , all underground.
 
Ralph":1hccm3hd said:
Have mine in an open dirt floor run where they can tunnel, and misters in the run. Work good 100+ days haven't lost anyone. It is kinda strange walking out into the run and not seeing any rabbit around :eek: , all underground.
Click to expand...

I thought about something like this , since that's how they would survive the elements in the wild .... Start up costs , space requirement and the amount of effort required to construct a system that kept them in place might be prohibitive.
 
It wasn"t bad I have and inside and outside run contected together. Iside about 12 X 12 counting the bucks inside, Outside is about 12 X 17. Dug down approx 20" to 30" burried sheet tin as a dig barrier. Rabbit are happy :bunnyhop: :bunnyhop: lots of room to run and be rabbits. The space is large enough I don't have to worry about grow out pens. Let the little ones stay in the colony until they are about 3 mo then off to freezer camp.
 

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