xArthurRabbitx
New Kit
At the end of last year my partner and I built a very large purpose built pen for our then rabbits (now sadly just "rabbit" not plural). It's area is 45 square feet. I was pretty proud of this and pleased with the large size of it.
I am however a little bit confused. My partner and I were looking on various rescue websites, rabbit welfare organisations and house rabbit societies etc, we noticed they say you should have a minimum of 60 square feet of space lol ... Am I missing something? I have seen the various x pen set ups, dog crate conversions, NIC sets ups and cornered off rooms etc on this forum and none of them could possibly be 60 square foot. What I found baffling is, I would have thought most normal homes are physically unable to provide 60 square feet of space permanently. The rescues etc get to 60 square ft by saying 24 square ft for the "hutch" and 36 square feet for the run which should be permanent.
My concern was, I wondered how many rabbits are unrescuable from some of these places as house rabbits, if some rescues are saying they must have access to 60 square feet of permanent space as a minimum.
As far as my set up goes, there is nearly always someone in, while someone is in our rabbit is out 100% of the time and free roams around the entire place which was rabbit proofed meticulously (it took many months to do). So the total square footage on an average day available to her is about 500+ square feet. Most days she will spend 12 + hours out, today for example she has been out since 7am and its now 6pm .
Despite that however, I would technically not be able to meet the requirements of some of these rescues as the permanent space is only 45 foot squared, which just seems absurd.
I understand promoting the biggest space possible is the correct thing to do, but if some rabbits cannot be rescued to wonderful homes such as those from people on these forums, then clearly something is very wrong. I could also see a negative side effect where people who want a rabbit would just go to a pet shop (NOT SOMETHING I WOULD EVER DO) and buy a rabbit instead of rescuing.
I just wondered what the folk here think about this. Thank you in advance for your replies
Dave & Sandra
I am however a little bit confused. My partner and I were looking on various rescue websites, rabbit welfare organisations and house rabbit societies etc, we noticed they say you should have a minimum of 60 square feet of space lol ... Am I missing something? I have seen the various x pen set ups, dog crate conversions, NIC sets ups and cornered off rooms etc on this forum and none of them could possibly be 60 square foot. What I found baffling is, I would have thought most normal homes are physically unable to provide 60 square feet of space permanently. The rescues etc get to 60 square ft by saying 24 square ft for the "hutch" and 36 square feet for the run which should be permanent.
My concern was, I wondered how many rabbits are unrescuable from some of these places as house rabbits, if some rescues are saying they must have access to 60 square feet of permanent space as a minimum.
As far as my set up goes, there is nearly always someone in, while someone is in our rabbit is out 100% of the time and free roams around the entire place which was rabbit proofed meticulously (it took many months to do). So the total square footage on an average day available to her is about 500+ square feet. Most days she will spend 12 + hours out, today for example she has been out since 7am and its now 6pm .
Despite that however, I would technically not be able to meet the requirements of some of these rescues as the permanent space is only 45 foot squared, which just seems absurd.
I understand promoting the biggest space possible is the correct thing to do, but if some rabbits cannot be rescued to wonderful homes such as those from people on these forums, then clearly something is very wrong. I could also see a negative side effect where people who want a rabbit would just go to a pet shop (NOT SOMETHING I WOULD EVER DO) and buy a rabbit instead of rescuing.
I just wondered what the folk here think about this. Thank you in advance for your replies
Dave & Sandra