Winterizing your outdoor rabbits hutch

 Do you live in cold winter climates? I live where the winter can bring any where from  the 60°'s to -20°'s. We have wind, rain, snow and friged temps.  I am not able to move my hutch inside a barn or garage, that is recommended.  This is my solution for  wintertime and outdoor rabbits. 

Rabbits live outside all year in the wild, they just need to find shelter, holes underground, and brush piles in well covered areas are preferred.  They like 60° weather down to 40°. Under 40° to 20° for short times they are ok if they have shelter that is protected by the  wind.  So it is totally fine to keep your rabbits outside, just give them protection from wind and cold.  I have saved bubble wrap to enclose and insulate my hutch, other recommendations are tarps or blankets, but with blankets it is recommended to cover with plastic sheeting.

It is important to leave a area open so there is always fresh air. It is common sense to leave your door area open for easy access for feeding.  I clipped the end with a reg office paper clip and stapled the wrap together to get the correct length.  I doubled for extra protection and stapled the pieces together.  Then tightly wrapped around and clipped again on the other side. I then wrapped the top of my hutch, I first covered  the open door using a hand towel.  I put a few blankets inside my hutch for the rabbits to nest in. Then wrapped the top with a simular method, with no wire I stappled the ends together and then stapled to lower wrap to keep it from blowing off.

I also will up my feed in the winter and add a 3 or 4 sunflower seeds 🌻when it will be extra cold.  Sunflower seeds are great to help with heating their internal temperature. They will need the extra calories to keep warm.

I hope this helps you to have happy bunnies this winter😉🐇🐇

Update, we had 3 days of temperatures below 20° and the rabbits did very well, the water did freeze, so it is important to check and give fresh water often. I also filled a milk jug with hot water to set beside the water bottle, this helped to keep the water unfrozen longer.

Exercise your rabbits

 Hello, Its been a few since I posted.  I recently attached a exercise pen to my hutch. The purpose was to make the living space larger, now that they have gotten full grown. It also gives them ample room to run laps. I was hoping they would have had fresh grass longer but within a few days they had munched ALL of it.  

I let them out into pen a few hours a day.  Anytime you can help your rabbit to stay heathy by getting exercise is so beneficial. When it is raining or snowing I leave them in the hutch. Rabbits are susceptible to respiratory diseases getting wet can lower their immune system. 

This is how I built my pen.  I started out trying to purchase just a pen to attach, but I was having trouble finding something that would be functional for my space.  So I seen this pen and ordered it thinking that it would work with no extra changes.

I put it together opened the hutch it seemed great, then Copper my male rabbit got his head and front paw through the openings!  OOPS! This is not for my size rabbits.  To fix this I got a roll of chicken wire.  With my husband's help we wrapped it around the outside of the pen. Then we secured the wire into place with some post.  It has been up for a few months now and has worked great! I hope this helps someone who is also looking to make more living space for their rabbits.

Please leave me comments and if you also raise rabbits and have a blog leave your link to your blog in the comments I love learning from others.