Housing large rabbit and small rabbit?

[bunnnnnnie!]

So this is a bit preemptive, but I want to get thinking on these things now.  I’m wondering about some of the logistical stuff about housing a large bun (Zeus the Mini/French Lop cross, 10lbs) and a small bun (West the Dutch/Netherland Dwarf cross, 4lbs but fat!).

– What size cage will I need for them both?  Zeus’s cage is currently about 12sq ft.  Will I need more room than that?

– How will feeding work?  Zeus gets 1/3 cup daily, but he kind of grazes on it throughout the day.  West I’m weaning down from pellets, and will probably get only like 1/8 cup, and she eats all of her pellets in one sitting.

– How will greens work?  Zeus gets a lot of greens, and I don’t know if that amount of greens available to little West will be a good idea or not.

– Litterboxes?  Zeus has a deep litterbox that West cannot get into easily.  West has a shallow corner box that I doubt Zeus could fit in. .

Any other possible challenges you guys can think of when housing two buns of a rather different size?  Here’s hoping their bonding goes well when the time comes!  They’re doing great through the cage bars.

 

[Sam and Lady's Human]

I’ll have similar issue soon enough. I plan on having their pen be about 4x12sq ft ish. For feeding, I haven’t quite decided. I may need to separate them during feeding, at least until Lady isn’t free-fed anymore, then I might just get another slimcats ball and hope that they each go at one themselves. Greens, its 2 cups per 6lbs of bun, so obviously Lady will have more, but I’ll probably just make a giant, 6 cup pile of veggies and see how they do on their own for a few weeks.
Litterboxes, well bunnies jump, so I don’t see an issue with a deep litterbox unless its like, 18in deep. Then I’d just add a couple “step” boxes near it.

[Stickerbunny]

Mine are not quite as different in size as yours, but they are still quite different.

Stickers eats all her pellets in one sitting too. What I did was just lower the amount ( I give what I usually would have given Powder, the larger one, solo) and Powder gets less than he did solo, but he eats a lot of greens, so not worried about it. Otherwise Stickers eats too much and will get fat. lol

For greens they get their salad together, but since West is sensitive to greens, if she stays that way you could give Zeus a second salad in a different room. My two don’t mind being away from each other a little during the day. Sometimes mine have their salads separate if they are feeling like being in different rooms a lot that day.

For my litterboxes, I have two in their room – one is HUGE and one is smaller, Stickers tends to use the smaller one.

For cage, no idea… I am horrible at picturing what measurements look like. as long as they both have plenty of room to run around, multiple litter boxes, can both stand up etc I would think it’s ok.

[bunnnnnnie!]

Giving this thread a quick bump.  I’m thinking about combining the two cages I have for the duo, so they’d have a total of about 18 sq ft.  Would that be enough room for 2 buns?

[Monkeybun]

Should be good They’d have play time anyway.

[Sam and Lady's Human]

Once they are bonded, that should be an ok amount of room. I thought Zeus was a house bunny? Is this for all the time?

[bunnnnnnie!]

Posted By Sam and Lady’s Human on 01/11/2012 07:22 AM
Once they are bonded, that should be an ok amount of room. I thought Zeus was a house bunny? Is this for all the time?

 

They’re both house buns, but they’re in their cages when I’m sleeping or not at home.   Once bonded they’d get at least 5 hours of out of cage time daily.. on the weekends they get more like 8 hours+.

I’m really hoping to have a bunny room sometime in the near future (moving out of a studio apt into a big house with my parents, wahoo!), or if not a bunny room a very large xpen covering most of the room.  But for now we share my bitty studio apartment, where the bun cages take up most of my space.

[Sam and Lady's Human]

Ahh gotcha! Yeah, 18 ft should be ok, I mean if you set it up and they are complaining then you can try to make it bigger or deal with it then. Lady let me know at 7 weeks her 4x4fft cage was unacceptable by constantly trying to jump out and rattling the bars hah. Once I made it bigger she stopped rattling them

[Author]

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