Photos of fox attack on rabbit accommodation (rabbits are fine, fortunately!)

[Confused_bun]

I've got one hutch and runaround spare at the moment, and the pipe and connector is strong enough to withstand my large goats jumping on it, even next to the connector. I've also tested it by standing on it and everything is fine :thumb:

Its not standing on it thats the issue. If you pull the pipe side to side or up and down a bit youll see what i mean - a goat wouldnt do this but a fox will.

 

[yaretzi]

Oh and Yaretzi - i dont think runaround have made any alterations to the way of fixing the pipe. The single door still looks like it only comes with the twisty clips and the one "banana". The double door has always had the two "banana's" hasnt it? Although runarounds main instructions tell you to use it with one "banana" each side and only very briefly mention that you can put the two "banana's" on one side and the four twisty clips the other.

No, absolutely not. You're mistaken.

They have released a mark 3 version which is shown in the bottom 2 pictures here: http://www.runaround.co.uk/products/runaround-door-1. The main picture is the mark 2 version, with 1 half moon shape and 2 swivel clips. It now comes with similar parts, but is connected together as the two bottom pictures show - with 2 half moon shapes on the outside and 4 swivel clips inside. On that page it also states ''This is the third version of the Runaround door which means it has a hinged top clamp and one wing-nut fixing for flexibility. Up-date your Mark 2 door with this fixing in Spare Parts.''

Runarounds main instructions for the mark 3 door tell you to attach it with the 2 moons on the one side, and the 4 swivel clips on the other side.

The main pictures of both the single and double runaround door are, sadly, deceiving. I might flag it up with them as if people think that's still the way it's sold, I can see why people would want to stay away.

 

[Zoobec]

Its not standing on it thats the issue. If you pull the pipe side to side or up and down a bit youll see what i mean - a goat wouldnt do this but a fox will.

You've not seen my goats then :lol: they are always ramming it from one to side and the other and they have horns that they like to use to hook on things. They are very strong, and my male one has knocked an adult over on 2 occasions a fox couldn't do that.

 

[yaretzi]

Just taken a picture of the instructions that came with my mk3 door when I bought it last year. The scanner wouldn't scan properly so I had to take a phone photo... and photobucket is being too slow to rotate them properly, so bear with me here:





And some pictures scanned from it:



And this is the main difference... one of the half moon bits has a notch out of it, which allows it to swivel up/down. Unless your door has a notch out like this, it's not the mark 3. You can still put it on in the same way if your nuts are long enough, but it's more difficult to fit as the notch allows you to angle it up/down:



I'm just emailing runaround to suggest they change the pictures on the website.

 

[Confused_bun]

The welfare hutch one is designed to be able to just undo the wingnuts with one hand and slide the wood out of the way. The runaround one is designed to need a screwdriver and a spanner to undo it.

The runaround mark 3 door only has one wingnut. It has never had multiple, and neither have any of the other doors. The mark 1 and 2 have had 2 swivel clips, but never have they had 2 wingnuts. (The 2 swivel clips on the mark 2 design are shown in the main picture here: http://www.runaround.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/runaround-door-1. The main picture is the mark 2 design, the pictures below are the mark 3 design - clamped totally on one side, and 4 swivel clips to hold the blocker plate on the other side). The only design to use a wingnut is the mark 3. Really not sure where you're getting your information from. Have you actually seen a mark 3 door in the flesh, or just the mark 2? You can get the runaround tube out of the mark 1 and mark 2 connector, as we've seen here. You can't out of the mark 3 connector, or if you adapt your double door to put the 2 sets of half moon acrylic pieces on the one side as Santa suggested in her original post. I am comparing the mark 3 door to the welfare hutch one, as only the mark 3 door is currently available - and runaround advise anyone with the mark 1/mark 2 to update to the mark 3 for this exact reason.

If the runaround wingnut is placed on the outside you still need someone holding a philips screwdriver into the screw in order to undo the wingnut, so how easily the half moon shape swings out of the way is irrelevant - it cannot be undone without a screwdriver and a spanner. The welfare hutch one is designed to be undone with no need to hold a screwdriver in the other side: ''it only take a couple of turns of two wing nuts and it's done'' A fox could get into that. A fox is capable of spinning things - as we've seen in this exact thread, with the old design runaround door. The entire reason Santa's pipe has come off is because it was the old door, with 2 spinny clips. Spinning clips are not an appropriate way to connect something that is supposed to be fox proof.

Plastic can snap yes, if a predator manages to get its entire jaw around the exact area where the pressure builds. However, notice there's no damage to the runaround door, even when the pipe is removed? The fox could get his jaw around it then. No damage. Yet the wood is completely messed up. There was no easy place for the fox to get its jaws around the wood on Santa's set up, yet look how much he's destroyed. The welfare hutch connector to a hutch looks pretty good in terms of nowhere for jaws to get around, but the mesh one is is a little more worrying as there's space to get their teeth under.

And, as I've said before, the runaround door also is designed so that a fox cannot fit its head or shoulders through. So there's another layer of safety there too. The welfare hutch one is completely open - a fox only needs to undo a couple of wingnuts and chew through some wood and it can stroll straight in to the rabbits.

Wood is a far less safe material to use for connectors. It is simply too easy for a predator to get through as we've seen here. If the wood is wet, damaged or old it'll be a lot easier to get into, as well. As I said in my previous post, I have messed around a lot with both the cladding and mesh types of the welfare hutch connectors, and I also own both the mark 2 and 3 runaround connectors myself.

There's simply no contest.

Santa, if you read this and you have the time between trying to fix the enclosure, would you mind posting some closer pics of the damage to the wood and the damage to the pipe/runaround door (if any?)

i have the runaround connection kit BUT with two double doors rather than a single and a double. At first (prior to bunnies being put in) i connected as per there instructions (one banana and one pair of swivel clips a side) - this is 100% unsafe. I changed this over to have two "bananas" on the outside and all of the swivel clips on the inside (this idea was only very briefly mentioned in their instructions - i brought it late around August last year).

In op's case no the connector wasnt broken BUT thats becase it would have taken next to no force to remove it (so any force applied would have resulted in it pinging off). With both bananas on the outside there would be force onto the bananas (which are only thin perspex and still dont hold all of the pipe), those bananas are therefore at very high risk of snapping when under pressure especially as pressure is more likely to be exurted on oneside more than the other.

Also the wingnut on a runaround one CAN be undone withOUT a srewdriver (i do for mine (itake my pipe off every 2-3days when i move the run because one of the bananas nearly snapped when we tried moving the run with it still attached). That is only one wingnut and the pipe can easily be removed. The welfare one needs 2 wingnuts to be undone and is then still harder for a fox to scrabbling at it to move it and then remove the pipe which is still better held than a runaround one.

I have also seen a welfare one and had a really good play around with it. It is stronger (wood or not).

 

[yaretzi]

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[Confused_bun]

Just taken a picture of the instructions that came with my mk3 door when I bought it last year. The scanner wouldn't scan properly so I had to take a phone photo... and photobucket is being too slow to rotate them properly, so bear with me here:





And some pictures scanned from it:



And this is the main difference... one of the half moon bits has a notch out of it, which allows it to swivel up/down. Unless your door has a notch out like this, it's not the mark 3. You can still put it on in the same way if your bolts are long enough, but it's more difficult to fit as the notch allows you to angle it up/down:



I'm just emailing runaround to suggest they change the pictures on the website.

Mine does have that notch on one "banana" per connection plate BUT i definately did not get those instructions mine showed step by step pictures like yours does but the pictures and wording showed/told you to put one banana on the inside, one on the outside and there was a very brief mention at the end about the fact you could also set it up as two bananas on the outside and all four swivel clips on the inside. Wonder if i somehow got old instructions then?

If they have change the single door then they definately need that clearer on the website - i only briefly looked on my phone but it definately made it look like the single door was one banana and two clips.

 

[yaretzi]

Mine does have that notch on one "banana" per connection plate BUT i definately did not get those instructions mine showed step by step pictures like yours does but the pictures and wording showed/told you to put one banana on the inside, one on the outside and there was a very brief mention at the end about the fact you could also set it up as two bananas on the outside and all four swivel clips on the inside. Wonder if i somehow got old instructions then?

If they have change the single door then they definately need that clearer on the website - i only briefly looked on my phone but it definately made it look like the single door was one banana and two clips.

Edited my old post in light of this one, as it seems you have the mark 3 door but mark 2 instructions then. I guess you must've ordered in their cross-over period and they accidentally mixed the instructions up, which is a shame.

Hopefully they will change the picture on the website, as I do agree the swivel clip design is a lot less secure than the mark 3 version. It would be a shame if it puts people off.

If anyone wants me to take more detailed pictures of my mark 3 instructions I can, although I guess it's pretty self explanatory if you have the right parts

 

[Confused_bun]

Deleted no longer necessary.

So somehow i got the latest version of the kit but with the old instructions - confusing!!!

And yes they really need to update the pics because thats confusing too.

 

[yaretzi]

For some reason it wont let me quote the message where you slatted me for not knowing what version number i had BUT that is totally and utterly irrelavant.

From everything youve said mine HAS to be the version 3 - it had a notch out of one of the bananas for each double door i have. It also came with 4standard nuts and one wing nut per double door. The proper nuts cannot be loosened without a spanner and screwdriver but the wing nut can (even when done up very tightly).

Ultimately the version 3 is still flawed if attacked by a fox - it is not completely safe.

As soon as I saw that you had the half moon with a notch out I realised that you must have the mark 3, so deleted that post as it was unnecessary. Which version number you have isn't irrelevant, it's totally relevant...but you have a mark 3 so that's fine. It'd just be unfair to **** runaround off based on the mark 2 door if that was what you had, since they no longer sell that and advise you to upgrade.

If you feel that the mark 3 is flawed because of the wingnut, you could just put the 4th nut on that they include with every mark 3 door. Then, as you say, they couldn't be loosened without a spanner and a screwdriver and it'd be safer. Also, if you put the wingnut on the inside of the hutch/run/shed too, a fox wouldn't be able to get to it so it shouldn't be a concern. It might be worth emailing runaround to see if they'll send you a replacement wingnut - I've noticed in the 2-3 years that I've had runaround their screws/nuts/bolts have improved in quality a lot. You might've got an old version or just one that's not quite as tight - worth a try maybe?

 

[bunny babe]

Hi happybun,
I'm looking at getting an aviary and instead of the wooden framed panels I'm looking at metal ones. Firstly I thought they would last longer than the wooden ones, and less maintenance, but now I've seen this thread I think they will be certainly fox proof. They may not look as nice, but I'm sure with a few carefully placed bunny friendly flower troughs and hanging baskets they will be fine. The website I'm looking at is weld-mesh.com, the cat or bird run panels, these have smaller holes in the mesh. They are quite pricey but what price for peace of mind.

Hi Santa,
I'm so glad your bunnies are ok, and I hope they are not too shaken up by this. Hope your ok too.

Santa - that is so scary how they have pulled at all the wood and ripped things out.

Karen - Just had a look at their site and that looks like a good option providing they can be secured well.

 

[Santa]

Santa, if you read this and you have the time between trying to fix the enclosure, would you mind posting some closer pics of the damage to the wood and the damage to the pipe/runaround door (if any?)

Your wish is my command - have taken a couple more pics today. The runaround pipe is a bit damaged too, I didn't notice yesterday. The runaround door isn't damaged, I think the fixings simply worked loose while the pipe was being yanked around - something I always suspected was a possibility (it's not really any different to having a twist catch on a hutch door and I wouldn't have those!) which is one of the reasons I never left it unsupervised.

Here are a couple of closer photos of the damage to the shed door:

And to the mesh. I think this shows the importance of fixings at very regular intervals, had these been wider apart it is possible that the fox would have had a chance to get a better grip and bend this out and force it off. I think that a mixture of u-nails and staples at intervals more regular than these, and with the fixings set at different angles, would be helpful. I reckon putting them at different angles would make it harder to peel the mesh back if the mesh is being gripped in a different way by each fixing.

Similarly, this one shows that multiple fixings provide extra reinforcement if one fixing point snaps under the force. This area is usually covered by pieces of wood, which were forced off, exposing the fixings and edges of mesh. You can still see the nails which held the wood in place - the wood was simply forced off through the nails. In future I think I will put bolts all the way through the structure, with large washers on both sides to make it harder to force it through the wood.

 

[yaretzi]

Wow, those pictures are fantastic! I'm so glad your bunnies are okay. I'll certainly be taking your advice/suggestions on board in regards to staple/nail intervals on mesh, and different angles too.

How are you going to go about repairing all that damage? Looks like a major job, and totally unexpected too which is even worse

 

[midori1999]

I've just found this thread after seeing the one about runaround offering to upgrade doors for free. :shock::shock::shock:

Santa, I am so glad your bunnies are safe and I thank you for posting this thread as we are soon moving to an area where foxes are a real problem and although I'd known I would need to, I am going to have to take extensive steps to fox proof the accommodation and I'm now reconsidering allowing the bunnies 24/7 access to the aviary, as it will be connected via runaround to their main accommodation, which is a kennel and run. I may think about attaching the runaround to wood instead of the mesh.

Very scary how determined foxes can be.

 

[Milo+Fizz]

I will quote this thread every time someone questions chicken wire not being safe! So glad your bunnies are okay and I'm also glad that my set up has everything that has no doubt saved your buns! Thanks for sharing.

 

[LittleEskimo]

Looks more like a bear attack! Glad the buns are alright, they must have been a bit shaken up hearing it scratching around outside. Quite glad I have decided to bring the rabbits indoors now!

And yes cubbing season is on us and vixens will do whatever they can to feed their cubs. I hope everybun keeps safe.

 

[Alison Marie]

it really has done a lot of damage how are you feeling about keeping them outdoors?

after seeing this thread i have decided my buns will not have permanent access to their run, i am just too scared of wht might happen. we have allotments and open fields etc across the road from the back of the house where the buns are so there could well be foxes about. :shock: gonna see about double meshing the run. whats best to put under runs to prevent something from getting in? slabs?