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sharing runs

lottielouise

Wise Old Thumper
One of my neighbours, who I am friendly with has just got a freecycle rabbit.

It is in a rather small hutch, They have been round to see mine and realise that it is much too small. They are going to get him vacc'ed and hopefully neutered, but at the minute he is a timid little thing, but looks like he will come out of his shell. He was a child minders pet, along with another, his partner bit a child she was looking after and it went back to pets at home :( so he is one lonely little bunny. This didn't resolve things for the parents and they said they would withdraw their child if he wasn't rehomed :(

They only have a back yard to thier house and whilst they let him out of the hutch I was thinking of offering them my garden and run for their rabbit to run around in for a few hours.

What I want to know is are there significant risks? I mean their huches are within 100 yrd of each other, surely that would cause more of a risk. I have just bought two more glavanised runs from zoo plus which means I will have 2 big ones and a medium run for on the grass. The whole idea of this is that I can use the panels to make my garden bunny friendly and they can't go under the hutches etc for hourse on end!
 
I would keep them separate - if the Freecycle bun isn't fully vaccinated or is carrying any disease I believe some of them could be spread to your buns by sharing grass areas or runs as well as by direct contact of the animals.

If you do want to let him out to run, I would not reuse that run/pen for your buns without thoroughly disinfecting & do not let them use the same area of grass as you can't really disinfect that.

Perhaps look at the threads on quarantine posted by people like Honeybunny or Angie65, and the other rescues and fosterers - they have lots of good advice on this matter.

Sorry to be a bit negative on this one - it's a kind idea:wave:
 
Rabbit diseases can lay dormant in the soil for up to 6 months.

It is the main reason why the rescue rabbits here don't ever go on the grass.
I don't have enough space to be able to rest it between each animal coming and going.
Much easier to disinfect slabs and concrete.

I do know of at least one rescue that lets their rabbits out on grass in shared runs they regularly have an outbreak of cocci or similar and have on at least 2 occasions had to remove all the turf disinfect the soil underneath and then re-turf.

If it was me I wouldn't take the risk unless it's an area that you can keep your rabbits well away from.
 
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