Ideas for replacing ramp in hutch

Took all my rabbits to the vet this week for vaccinations and a health check and found out that the other half of my pair, Logan, is now developing cataracts on top of Sylvester's cataracts being much more advanced. As this means that both of them are losing sight I'm in need of ideas for replacing or adapting the hutch ramp up to the top floor in order to make it easier for them whilst they still have enough sight to adjust. Unfortunately completely new custom accommodation is out of budget for now otherwise I'd go that route.

So far I've tried a Runaround tube today with results to be seen this evening on how happy they are with the idea but connecting it at the top and perhaps getting a bunny stuck halfway and not wanting to move means that I'm not 100% sure that's the answer. Is it possible to get a ridged tube that's a semi-circle? I'm also not sure where to get one of those pipes as I'm reluctant to sacrifice an existing Runaround tunnel if I can avoid it.


Any suggestions or even successful changes that have been tried out that I could take a look at at all? Suggestions for connecting to the top floor would be welcome as well.

Bumping up for you :wave:

They already know their way round their area, so should be fine if it just stays the same. With cataracts, they will gradually lose some vision but I would expect them to cope just fine.

If you are really worried about the ramp, can you make it wider and / or put some sides on it? Or maybe some rungs across to give more grip.

Many rabbits find 'steps' easier than a ramp - so a 'block' of something to jump on, in as many / few stages as needed (eg breeze blocks, plastic tub, etc). It doesn't need to be a proper staircase.

We use a single large brick at the bottom: we have a lot of old bricks hanging around from a demolished wall and they're 130mm tall which is plenty for all our buns to jump up through the hole, but our hutch is teeny tiny and they jump into the side of it. Our run has high-level exits (we think it was originally assembled upside down) so we put brick steps in.



Aboleth's sat just next to the brick for them to jump up on here:

Well, when I put them to bed last night they ran up the Runaround pipe so fast for their pellets it was like they had rocket propelled shoes on and this morning were just as quick coming down once the pipe was in place so that seems to be an option they like. Will need a connection for the top though if I go this route if anyone has any ideas?

Putting side rails on the ramp and some more rungs is an option as well but thinking back over their behaviour for the last few months, and for Sylvester especially, they're getting less happy with using a ramp so would need something else to increase grip as well. Any suggestions of something that's fairly easy to get hold of? Sylvester has very fluffy feet to the point his nails don't wear down easily so it needs to have a lot of grip.

HouseOfRabbit said:

Will need a connection for the top though if I go this route if anyone has any ideas?

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We use garden wire/wire ties to fashion something but all ours go through mesh/similar. I do have a (what was the alternative to Runaround, with the wooden connectors?) knockoff I made using plywood and butterfly nuts over long screws, that mostly worked when we tried it but we actually never used it properly! The tube into the playhouse has forever just been rammed into its hole and sat on the playhouse floor, never properly secured :lol:

Any suggestions of something that's fairly easy to get hold of? Sylvester has very fluffy feet to the point his nails don't wear down easily so it needs to have a lot of grip.

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I dunno if carpet would work? Relatively non-dense, medium-pile?

keletkezes said:

We use garden wire/wire ties to fashion something but all ours go through mesh/similar. I do have a (what was the alternative to Runaround, with the wooden connectors?) knockoff I made using plywood and butterfly nuts over long screws, that mostly worked when we tried it but we actually never used it properly! The tube into the playhouse has forever just been rammed into its hole and sat on the playhouse floor, never properly secured :lol:

I dunno if carpet would work? Relatively non-dense, medium-pile?

Click to expand...

Decided to take the ramp away today to see how they got on and they're happily using the pipe. That means that it's just the hole at the top and securing the pipe safely that just needs solving now and that wooden connection sounds like what I need.

Thought I'd update this to show the final solution that I come up with now that it's been secured properly. Please excuse the mess, I took the video before before I started cleaning out.

[video]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_G9OVVndS2Gc60Ow4MAunpgYxhsL8HDB/view?usp=sharing[/video]