Hi Everyone!
I have had my two rescue mini lops for just over a year now and just wanted some advice on housing.
Currently my buns are house rabbits, and while we have had a few hiccups with chewed cables and ruined fabrics, we have finally bunny proofed the house, the only problem we persistently have is that Coco, my female rabbit, loves digging!
Over the year I have tried everything to find an outlet for her desire to dig, dig boxes filled with shredded paper (she scoots her bum up to the edge and chucks all the paper out spreading it everywhere) patches of carpet for her to scratch at, cardboard boxes filled with digging material, she's even dug through my duvet and bed sheet, which we now have to cover with old towels to protect, she just has such a strong desire to dig at everything.
Their main room is my bedroom, where they sleep underneath my bed, which has little tunnels and hide boxes underneath to create a type of burrow for them, but with coco's insisent digging I've had to sleep with earplugs in for the past 6 months and it looks like a bomb has gone off in my room every evening with the amount of litter she chucks everywhere, it's gotten to the point where I've decided they'll need to be somewhere where they can have a space completely of their own, which unfortunately the only room we have free is the garden.
What I needed help with is deciding the best way to do this, clearly I wouldn't move them until the weather is a bit warmer (is spring time best?), but what I'm unsure of is the enclosure. We have a small brick garden which is surrounded by a high wooden fence, there's no chance of the rabbits digging out and I've never seen a cat/fox in our garden, so I was curious if they could have free range of the garden with a playhouse/shed as their safe house? Also, is it best practise to lock them in at night? I've never had an outdoor rabbit so unsure how to approach moving them from inside to outdoors, so any help would be appreciated!
I have had my two rescue mini lops for just over a year now and just wanted some advice on housing.
Currently my buns are house rabbits, and while we have had a few hiccups with chewed cables and ruined fabrics, we have finally bunny proofed the house, the only problem we persistently have is that Coco, my female rabbit, loves digging!
Over the year I have tried everything to find an outlet for her desire to dig, dig boxes filled with shredded paper (she scoots her bum up to the edge and chucks all the paper out spreading it everywhere) patches of carpet for her to scratch at, cardboard boxes filled with digging material, she's even dug through my duvet and bed sheet, which we now have to cover with old towels to protect, she just has such a strong desire to dig at everything.
Their main room is my bedroom, where they sleep underneath my bed, which has little tunnels and hide boxes underneath to create a type of burrow for them, but with coco's insisent digging I've had to sleep with earplugs in for the past 6 months and it looks like a bomb has gone off in my room every evening with the amount of litter she chucks everywhere, it's gotten to the point where I've decided they'll need to be somewhere where they can have a space completely of their own, which unfortunately the only room we have free is the garden.
What I needed help with is deciding the best way to do this, clearly I wouldn't move them until the weather is a bit warmer (is spring time best?), but what I'm unsure of is the enclosure. We have a small brick garden which is surrounded by a high wooden fence, there's no chance of the rabbits digging out and I've never seen a cat/fox in our garden, so I was curious if they could have free range of the garden with a playhouse/shed as their safe house? Also, is it best practise to lock them in at night? I've never had an outdoor rabbit so unsure how to approach moving them from inside to outdoors, so any help would be appreciated!