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Our Bunny Farm...
Note that the description below describes
our "bunny farm" as it used to be.
Most of our bunnies live outside in the backyard. We have a large pre-fab storage shed which has been converted into a bunny barn. The barn has wood shavings lining the wooden floor (to absorb...ahem... "moisture"), and a Plexiglass skylight (homemade). We also have electric lighting available and a small space heater hooked up to an electric thermostat that turns the heater on whenever the temperature in the barn gets down around freezing.
Bunny chow is stored in here in a huge, lidded container, and a bale of alfalfa can be stored here out of the heavy winter rains. The barn also houses a few multi-level cages, used for when a bunny is being antisocial (pregnant females are can be very unpleasant toward the rest of the group). Usually however, the cages are left open and the bunnies use them as their private burrows or club houses -- a place to flop out, snuggled up with their favorite bunny buddies.
When the bunnies aren't in the barn snoozing, they can run out into the attached pen, about 6'x12', which is fenced in with chicken wire. We used to have a problem with bunnies digging under the fence (as you will see, below), however we fixed that problem by lining the floor of the pen with chicken wire, then attaching it to the pen sides. (To learn more click here.)
The bunnies get their water from an automatic, self-watering, ultra large dog dish ("Yuppy Puppy"), that is permanently hooked up to one of our garden hoses. The dish is lined with stones to make it more shallow -- in order to prevent any babies from drowning if they should tumble in while drinking. The watering bowl has to be kept in a corner of the pen, so that most of it's hose sits outside the pen. This is important because bunnies gobble up rubber hoses the way kids gobble up twinkies. Enough of it could probably kill them (intestinal blockage) -- hoses, not twinkies.
For example, here we have spotted AlohMayla digging a very large hole -- under the fence!
The crafty little thing...
Uh oh! She senses she's being watched!
"You up there! What do you think you're looking at??"
Now who's caught in the act...?
Then comes the air drop of goodies -- carrots, vegetable peelings, apple cores. Come to think of it, it's a bit like "slopping the hogs". Oddly enough, bunnies can emit squealing and oinking sounds vaguely reminiscent of pigs... Hmm.... |
