Moving house with an outdoor bunny

Hi.

Firstly some background....

Our rabbits started like in a hutch plus run but for many years have enjoyed freedom. Our garden is surrounded on all sides by a big stone wall so I just had to build a small fence to keep them contained. Once puberty hit, they dug a nice big burrow and dont tend to bother much with the hutch. Since then we've had a couple of births and deaths but we're now down to one old lady.

In a month or so, we're moving house. The garden will be much bigger (> 1 acre) so I plan to build some fences to keep her contained in one part of the garden. The obvious thing to do is to keep her in the hutch to start with (I havent worked out the fox situation yet) then let her out gradually. We also plan to buy her a friend or two but didnt think this was worth it just before we moved.

Does anyone have any tips? Everything I've seen online assumes you keep the rabbit inside.

Cheers

I think you'll need to be very careful with foxes and a garden that size, particularly as she's getting older. I'd suggest having a look at large avairy style houses for rabbits/chickens. That's a full height pen you walk in which can be as big as you like, and is designed so they can dig in but not out of it. If you've got some DIY skills you could build it yourself, either as wood-framed mesh panels that screw together or for larger spaces use fence pots and then wrap wire around them and over the roof (with a door at some point obviously!).

I think she'd probably be upset to be confined to a hutch after all that space, but you need to keep her safe too.

In future I'd suggest neutering before adding more rabbits as you're lucky the population didn't explode!

Are you in the US? There is a project that looks for homes for groups of feral rabbits (outdoor pet rabbits that live in groups in semi-wild conditions) and that might suit you if you'd like a bigger group. They also give advice on housing.

No, I'm in the UK. We had a near miss from exploding populations but managed to remove the male kittens in time. We're planning chickens too so maybe they can live together!

I don't think it's a good idea to mix them - they tend to get a bit defensive over their territory but you could certainly have them next to each other and similar housing would work.

If you go to your local rescue they'll have pre-neutered rabbits and give you advice on housing too