what shall i put under hutch?

My lovely dad is building me a double hutch for Amber and Dexter The area where i'm going to put it currently is covered in gravel but the rabbits have pooed all over it and it looks horrible. I'm also worried about the amount of flies it will attract. I am currently removing the gravel and sieving the poo out of it which is going to take me ages :roll: but i'm not sure what to put in its place.
I suppose ideally some slabs would be good but i can't ask my dad to put them down as he has a very bad back and i can't see me doing it either!
I was thinking of putting the hutch onto the ground and covering the surrounding area with wood chips so that when they poo on it i can just dig it over and add more on top.
Or i could try to grow grass round it. Any ideas?

Does you hutch have a bottom to it, or will the buns be running straight on the ground?

It has a bottom to it and some little legs so its not touching the ground.

Oh right you can more or less do what you like. If it didn't have a bottom you would have to put somthing down to stop them digging out and if it did have a bottom you would have to put something down to stop it from rotting. All you need really is something cosmetic if it's on legs. I've got granite kitchen tiles under mine, if you want to put tiles/ slabs, you will need to flatten the area first. What the drainage like there?

In my experiance wood chips would possibly be better, if the drainage isn't good your grass will turn into a bog. My grass as gone because I'm constently walking on it in the bad weeather so it churns over plus the buns dig it up :roll:

I think the drainage is ok in that corner, the garden has a lot of clay soil so it tends to get water logged on the grass. My main worry is they will poo all round the outside of the hutch when running free in the garden and i need to be able to get rid of it! I don't want lots of flies round them.

Are you sure they will poo around it, my buns tend to go home for a poo, I rarely find poo in runs they go back to their litter trays. You may be worrying about nothing.

mine all poo in their runs - I had to put an extra tray there for them as it was so hard to clean! I heard on another thread that bark chips go really smelly and awful after a while - I would put pavers down - B&Q sell small ones that you could easily manage, for 99p each or something - I think they're about a foot square and not too heavy if you wear gardening gloves to protect your hands. Main problem is getting them level as they will break if they aren't on a level surface - I would leave the pooey gravel, rake it level, get a bag of sand delivered when they deliver the pavers (unless you have a car) and bung it all down and you're done then - nice and easy to clean.

SOAD said:

Are you sure they will poo around it, my buns tend to go home for a poo, I rarely find poo in runs they go back to their litter trays. You may be worrying about nothing.

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yes definately, they have already pooed there when Ambers hutch was there. Amber poos all round Hobbes and Phoebes shed so i presume they will do the same round her and Dexters hutch :?

I use chippings in both the runs, and find them great. I have to remove and replace about once a year, but it's not too huge a job. My bunnies mainly toilet in their litter trays, but they do leave poos in the bark, which can easily be dug into it.

with chippings, how do you know they're OK for the buns to eat?