# Rabbit Troubles



## Taceas (Jun 19, 2009)

I've got 4 adult rabbits and currently eight 7-week old babies. They are housed in homemade hutches outside. The hutches' dimensions are approximately 30" wide by 48" long composed of 1/2" hardware cloth on 2/3rd of the enclosure and an enclosed plywood nestbox with solid bottom. 

These hutches are hand-me-downs that my dad handmade when I was a kid and doing rabbits for 4H. Aside from the tops needing to be replaced in a couple of them they're doing well for being over 14 years old. 

But since I started having rabbits again I am confronted by a problem I rarely had when I was a kid, they're all urinating and defecating exclusively in their nestbox shelters. I am going through pine shavings like crazy with changing them out every 3-4 days. And even with that frequency of litter changes I'm still getting cases of foot rot where they sit in the box on their own filth virtually all day. Especially with it being summer with the heat and humidity, not to mention the near every day toad stranger rainstorms, it almost feels like I'm fighting an uphill battle.

I've tried locking them out of their nestboxes to force them to utilize the outside and make it a habit, but even after a month it did little good. The rabbits from my youth all picked a corner of their outside wire part and used it as a latrine. 

Do you think the fact that the rabbits of my youth all came from professional breeders and were thus raised on exclusively wire bottomed cages made them more apt to feel comfortable using the bathroom outside the nest box? 

And along the same train of thought, the two males and one female I've got were pet store purchases and were being housed in a solid bottomed cage...and the other female is a daughter of the one and was raised in the nest box where her mother had a latrine. Do you think that creates in them a desire to utilize the nest box because that is how they were raised and what they're comfortable with? 

It gets difficult trying to maintain their nestboxes, especially when they have newborns, having to invade her nest and clean out around the nest. Otherwise the urine wicks up into the nest and gets on the babies. 

Short of cutting out the bottoms and attaching wire, do you think there is anything that could fix this problem? Already this year I've had my main male Charlie, get urine soaked all over his tail and genitals, making it sore. Then Rosemary my best female got foot rot and subsequently refused to nurse her babies and they were converted into snake food.

Granted they are food producers for our family, but they are well taken care of and loved and doted on. I would really like to find a solution to this to make it easier on my pocketbook and their feet.


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## RoachGirlRen (Jun 20, 2009)

Since it appears to be the preference of your rabbits to "go" on a solid surface, have you considered simply adding litter boxes to the cages? Most animals do not like to lay in their own waste, particularly animals like rabbits with sensitive eyes that would certainly suffer from exposure to ammonia. The problem is that most rabbits like to use a latrine spot, and in a cage with a wire bottom where waste falls through, it is hard for them to exercise this behavior. So, they choose the one spot where waste doesn't fall through the cracks. If you add a litter box with shavings, hay, or shredded paper, place the waste they are currently depositing in their nestboxes in the litter pan, they will most likely get the idea pretty quickly. It if that fails, perhaps put a small litter box in the most-used corner of the nest box so you are least don't have to clean out & disturb the whole thing.

Though, as a side comment, part of the reason you are seeing them remain in the box in their waste all day and develop foot problems may be the caging itself. Some rabbits just won't walk around on the stuff because it is painful for them, which causes that "constantly in the box" behavior you seem to be observing. Wire bottomed cages, though commonly used, are extremely rough on rabbits' feet and can cause sores, infections, and even broken toes/pulled nails. I realize you haven't much of a choice if you are housing them outdoors, but it should be understood that the housing may be part of the problem and thus difficult to correct.

Good luck, keep us posted.


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## arachyd (Jun 20, 2009)

What kind of rabbits are they? Some breeds are more prone to foot problems from wood. I would advise removing the bottoms from the nest boxes and replacing them with wire. Keep a bit of straw or hay with the mom's fur in there for bedding so the babies feet don't poke through the wire. The rabbits will still use it as a toilet but it will be a lot drier and the air circulation will help. Lots of rabbits don't even use a nest box even if one is available so you might want to consider removing the boxes altogether when the babies are big enough to hop around. This site has a lot of good information on keeping your rabbits healthy (it is not a pet-only site) http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/index.php


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## Mushroom Spore (Jun 20, 2009)

For the record, pine and cedar are toxic, especially to small animals that are living in and breathing the stuff.


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## Taceas (Jun 21, 2009)

RoachGirl: 

I've thought about adding plastic corner potties like our ferret used, but they chewed the hell out of those black rubber water bowls this winter, I really didn't want to pay $12 for another "chew toy". Besides, they're fancying themselves a bunch of beavers based on the wood chewing they've been doing.  

I have thought about the possibility of them not liking the wire, but they're out and hop on it all of the time, and they don't act afraid of it. Plus I honestly can't conceive of any other way to maintain them in an outdoor enclosure. If I'm cleaning out their nest box shelters every few days now, a whole enclosure with a solid floor would be insane. Taboo for pet rabbit fanciers or not, the wire stays. While I do care for them and their well-being, their primary purpose is to produce food for my family as economically as possible. 

The ones that sit in their nest boxes the most are the ones that are more timid and are the ones that came from a pet store that allowed everyone and their brother to poke and prod them. The friendlier ones go in to poop and pee in their box, but spend most of their time out in the wire portion of the cage doing whatever it is rabbits do.

I also utilize a homemade "rabbit tractor" which they get put in to graze in our lawn, weather permitting, so they don't spend all of their lives on wire. 



Arachyd: 

I don't know what breeds they are, mutts as far as I know. An unrelated male and female (and their resulting 8 babies) look like Siamese cats, they're seal pointed and large bodied. Another adult female is just a plain-jane brown rabbit, also large bodied. 

I was actually thinking of removing the board in the bottom of the nest boxes and replacing it with wire. But having a board cut to size that would fit inside the nest boxes, covering the wire when I was expecting a litter. That would cut down on drafts and the chance of a baby getting its foot caught in the wire, both of which could spell doom for a baby rabbit. Additionally it would enclose the box giving the female the sense of privacy she needs at that time.

The nest box is part of the hutch, I cannot remove it. It's not like the small nest boxes you see in the rabbit section of a farm store at all, but an actual enclosed box that is built into the hutch. 



Mushroom Spore: 

As a reptile keeper I am well aware of the purported dangers of using pine and cedar shavings. Again, these are meat rabbits I raise for human consumption, I do not see the logic in buying $15-$20 bales of aspen shavings for them when I'm going through two $7 bale of pine shavings a week as it is. The pine shavings I buy are soft, kiln dried, and dust free, they have no pine odor to them at all that I can detect. If I can smell it or if it seems dusty I don't buy it. Also, their cages are well ventilated being outdoors and composed mostly of wire. They also don't live long enough to be too terribly affected at any rate.

Other beddings I have tried and that aren't suitable for reasons I illustrate below:

Straw - Tends to mat in a crisscross fashion and makes one big mat that is hard to clean out. It also doesn't absorb much liquid waste nor keep odor down. Also has a tendency to mold extremely quickly in hot and humid climates. I don't feed them moldy food, why would I house them on moldy bedding they can ingest?

Hay - Cost prohibitive. See also: Straw

Pelleted Beddings (recycled paper and/or compressed sawdust) - Cost prohibitive.

Corn Cob Bedding - Rough textured, non-absorbative, tendency to mold. The females refused to give birth on it.


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## arachyd (Jun 21, 2009)

Good going with the rabbit tractor. I wish I could set one up for my little herd. My dogs wouldn't be able to resist it and the rabbits would not be safe. There should be plenty of ventilation with an outdoor hutch but for rabbits, wood shavings are usually avoided as they tend to absorb and hold a lot of urine odor and moisture. Drafts are bad in very cold weather but not during the rest of the year. Wire flooring is not bad for rabbits but they do need something solid to rest their feet on. Mine have wire bottomed hutches with a piece of plywood to sit on if they want to. They won't use nest boxes even if I provide them so I make sure there is plenty of hay for when the babies are born to keep them above the wire so feet don't get stuck. As they grow I put in less hay-a bit more than they eat. It does have to be kept clean but even meat rabbits have some basic requirements to keep them healthy and your rabbits will only be dirtying the hay in the nestbox. Unless it's a huge nestbox it is worth the cost of hay, which isn't that expensive compared to the cost of a piece of good beef the size of even one rabbit raised to fryer size. Hay is also good insurance against GI Stasis as it keeps their digestive tract clear. If it is truly impossible to resolve the problem you should clean the nestbox out faithfully every day. They don't abandon their babies like wild rabbits do just because you handle them and the shy ones will benefit from frequent handling.


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## GailC (Jun 22, 2009)

When I raised rabbits, the whole cage was wire bottomed, the only time they got a nest box was when expecting a litter and in the winter. The nest box was removable and just big enough for mom to get in and turn around in. 
I kept it filled with hay/straw and if it got too dirty, it could be thrown away and a new one built.
To prevent foot problems when a nest wasn't being used, all cages had a large piece of flat wood layed in the middle of the cage that the bunnies could sit on.

Your white bunnies with the siamese marking are most likely Californians or Californian crosses, they are a very common meat rabbit.


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## Taceas (Jun 22, 2009)

Here are a few pictures of them..

Charlie, a male of unknown breed picked up at a pet store:


Rosemary, prepping her nest. Got her from a local farm store.
 

Lavender as a young lady. She is my other adult female who is actually an offspring of Lavender and another male now deceased. Her father looked exactly like her.
 

Lavender and Charlie's babies. 


Lavender has had terrible luck with litters. These three were hand-raised by us. She'd nurse them for about 2-3 weeks and then stop all of a sudden, no rhyme or reason. Her current litter of 8 now is her first successful full raising of a litter in 4 tries. I really wanted to succeed with her because her and Charlie are so large and meaty.


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## arachyd (Jun 22, 2009)

Charlie definitely looks like a Californian. Purebred or not, it's considered one of the best meat breeds. The best in my opinion. They tend to have good, large-bodied crossbred babies too. I wish I could find them around here.


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