Building a house for a rabbit
A rabbit house is one of the most important things to do when breeding these cute creatures. Keeping eared ears at home is a rather troublesome task. By nature, animals do not have good immunity, so every little thing in the maintenance and diet is very important.
DIY rabbit house
Rabbit houses should be as comfortable as possible and create the appearance of natural living conditions.
What should be a rabbit dwelling
For pets to be healthy and feel good, they need to move a lot and live in conditions as close to natural as possible. Accordingly, the place to stay should be spacious enough. This fact is not taken into account in mass production of cells, therefore it is best to design a house for a rabbit with your own hands.
If this is a house for a decorative rabbit that lives in an apartment, then it is best that the animal be able to move freely around the house, and use the cage only for sleeping. In this case, the pet will be able to gain a certain muscle mass and will develop normally. Decorative rabbits that are constantly in cages are much more likely to get sick.
The arrangement of rabbit houses must be thought out to the smallest detail. In a cage that is too small, animals gain a lot of excess weight, become lethargic, and are often stressed. Today, making houses for rabbits with your own hands is not a problem. On the Internet, you can find just a huge number of all kinds of photos, which show detailed drawings with correct calculations. You just need to choose a simple option for design and get to work.
Crawl house requirements:
- the container should be so free that the eared eagle can stand on its hind legs in it: the dimensions are calculated based on the dimensions of their pets;
- an open-air cage should be attached to the cage, into which the eared eagle should have free access at any time;
- the internal arrangement of the cage consists of a drinker, a feeder and a toilet;
- in the corner of the structure, it is necessary to equip a place for sleeping, in which the animal will feel safe.
Cell device
To make a house for rabbits with your own hands, you need to study the main rules for the device of any design:
- when kept outdoors, the container for living rabbits must be at a height of at least 70 cm from ground level so that the pets are reliably protected from all kinds of predators;
- the frame and all supports must be made of wood;
- the walls are made of plywood sheets;
- to make the structure look beautiful, from the outside it can be sheathed with plastic panels;
- the rabbit house must be designed so that the owner can freely carry out all hygienic procedures for caring for the room;
- the roof is made taking into account where the cage will be located; if it is outdoor conditions, then it is advisable to use any waterproof material;
- the floor is often wood or mesh.
Rabbit cages must not be built from metal sheets. In the summer, the metal will be too hot in the sun, which can cause burns, and on frosty days, rabbits can freeze to the metal surface. Any detail must be carefully processed so that pets do not get injured while in the house.
Rabbit cage device
Cells are classified into several types. The simple design is the most common box with support legs. From the inside, the space is divided into functional sections for feeding and sleeping. Between these departments, a special manhole is made, leading to the open-air cage for walking. Drawings of the simplest design can be seen in the photo.
The next type of cells is Mikhailovsky cells. The design is considered to be very difficult to implement. It is practically a whole mini-farm. Such a house for rabbits includes a whole complex of manholes and shelves, is equipped with a ventilation system, electric heating, a function for self-removal of excrement and many other interesting innovations.
The next construction, which is used quite often, is the cage, the model of which was proposed by Zolotukhin. The view from different sides, as well as detailed drawings, can be viewed in the thematic photos. The author proposes to install structures in several tiers. The flooring is made of wood, and at the end of the cage, a small edge of the floor is made of mesh. The containers of each tier are installed in such a way as to be able to freely remove the waste products of the rabbits. There is no stationary mother liquor in the layout of such cells. The nest for the rabbit is installed only in winter, while in the summer, the female places her nest right on the floor in the hay.
How to create a home for eared ears
Building your own containers for keeping rabbits is pretty simple. The principle of building a complex and simple structure is the same. Let's take a step-by-step process using a simple single container as an example.
The first step is to determine the location. The rabbitry should be located in a place protected from direct sunlight and drafts.
The standard dimensions of a single wooden container are 150 x 70 x 70. Naturally, each owner can increase or decrease the size of the cage, depending on the breed data of his pets. Before starting work, a detailed plan is drawn up and drawings are made indicating the internal arrangement, additional functions and other things. Then, following their plan, a wooden frame is prepared.
Rabbit cage
The front of the container is set at a height of 70 cm, the rear is lowered slightly so that the roof is ultimately tilted. Any coating other than metal is nailed on top of the frame. The interior space is divided into 2 parts:
- nesting;
- stern.
A hole with a diameter of about 20 cm should be made in the partition between the compartments. To prevent the animals from gnawing the partition, the hole should be knocked off from all sides with tin strips. Having completed all the work on the manufacture of the walls and the arrangement of the interior space, they proceed to the upper part of the building. The boxes are covered with a removable roof in order to have free access to the cage.
If you plan to keep outdoors, and there is a lawn with lush grass next to the cage, you can equip a special hole from the cage. Ladders are attached to the hole leading to the street so that the eared one can safely go out and enter his box. An animal can be released into the street only in a place protected from the penetration of other animals and predators.
Female containers
A house for a rabbit, or a mother house, will be slightly different from a regular rabbit house. It is necessary to keep females together with the offspring separately.
Some people mistakenly believe that females do not need separate apartments with special arrangement to reproduce offspring. However, in an open cage, the rabbit will be constantly stressed due to harsh sounds, smells and will not be able to fully fulfill her maternal duties. In addition, babies are born completely unadapted to life: blind, deaf and naked. In the first few days, the rabbits need particularly careful heating and stable nutrition with breast milk, which may never appear if the animal is constantly under stress.
According to the drawings, the house for the rabbit is no different from the simplest single cage. To keep the rabbits together with the offspring in the winter, the containers are isolated and insulated. Foam sheets or mineral wool are used as insulation, and on top they are sheathed with an additional layer of wood.
House for a rabbit
Internally, the box for the rabbit will differ in the presence of a mother liquor in it. It is another small container. It is very important that its dimensions are not too large, otherwise the female, deciding that this is another cage, will defecate there. Too small area of the mother liquor will not allow the female to fully cover the nest with wool and equip it for the appearance of babies. The sizes are selected in accordance with the characteristics of the rabbit breeds.
It is important to remember that first-born females may forget to cover the nest with fur, confused. To do this, it is necessary to make the cage in such a way as to be able to independently lay hay and cotton wool into the nest. So that the wooden flooring on the floor does not rot, reacting with the waste products of the rabbits, it must be covered with galvanized sheets. But in this case, you will need to make a flooring of straw at least 20 cm, otherwise, in frost, the droppings will simply freeze on the cold floor.
You should not build a rabbitry for females from freshly cut trees with a pungent smell: the woody aroma can scare off the female, and she will not use the nest for its intended purpose, in the worst case, she may completely abandon rabbits. If you are going to breed rabbits for sale, then this design is ideal for a household. It will allow you to reproduce offspring all year round.
Summary and helpful tips
It is not easy to keep rabbits at home, but they need constant care. In addition to adhering to vaccination schedules, you need to take care of comfortable living conditions. Building a box for a rabbit is a feasible task even for a novice farmer. You can buy a house in a store, but in such dwellings the natural needs of animals are completely ignored.
In their natural habitat, animals lead a very active lifestyle, therefore, the cage should be free and spacious. Best of all, when 1 rabbit lives in the cage, this makes it possible to protect the livestock from infection with various diseases. The size of the cage should allow the pet to stand on its hind legs at full height and feel comfortable at the same time. You can view the standard drawings in the photo on the Internet and add or remove a centimeter or two, depending on the size of your animal species.
Tips for keeping rabbits
The containers for keeping rabbits with offspring and decorative individuals will be slightly different. However, at the heart of any, even the most complex building, is the principle of a simple structure designed for solitary confinement. In the manufacture of a home for eared ears, it is important to take into account their need for freedom of movement. If there is a possibility of free walking in a fenced area, a special manhole must be made from the cage, which will allow the rabbit to independently go out into the street to nibble fresh grass.
Special nests are installed in containers for rabbits, which the female independently equips before giving birth, laying her fur and hay there.
When building, it is necessary to take into account the fact that young individuals may forget to equip the nest and then they will have to do it on their own, so a person should always have access to the cage. In addition, after the birth of the babies, it will be necessary to check all the offspring for viability and remove the dead individuals.
Properly equipped dwellings are the key to good rabbit immunity. The room should be made so that the owner can freely carry out all hygiene procedures in it. Most often, the flooring is made of wooden planks, and a net is placed against the extreme wall. Rabbits defecate most often in the far corner of their home, so doing this will help keep the boxes clean and make cleaning easier.