Onto a new era… moving outside

[Paradigm]

I’m terrible with keeping up with forums, ahg!

George, Charlie and Albus are all well and happily bonded. They’ve become quite the munchkins with their indoor pen. George is usually happy to stay in, but will sometimes crawl underneath the barrier if Charlie wedges it up. Albus can jump over the top and slip under in the time it takes Charlie to rattle it up. And Charlie, well, Charlie has learnt not only how to wedge the pen panel up and jump over the top… he can also bite onto the mesh and run across the room with the pen!

Our days at our old studio are now up and we’re in the process of moving to a new place with an outdoor area. The landlord has requested that the rabbits stay outside the property. We’re both anxious about having them out but hoping it will go well. I’ll miss waking up to find naughty Charlie boy nuzzled up in my bed (when he ought to be in his pen!).

We’ll probably have to carefully supervise them indoors until we can afford a decent run (moving from a furnished to unfurnished place has really hit the wallet!). Our “garden” is weirdly shaped which limited the hutches we could buy and neither of us have an ounce of DIY skill.

We’ve ordered one of these play houses – it’s 5x5ft and just over 4ft tall. So we should be able to sit in there with them. Just got to make a few renovations – which will be interesting because I’ve not put shelves up before and lack pretty much every skill involved, eek.

[Sam and Lady's Human]

Thats an amazing outdoor house!!! A playhouse is a great non conventional bunny house

[jerseygirl]

That’s a neat looking home for them. Is it called a Wendy house? I see those are popular in the UK. Ive don’t know how they came to be called that though.

[Bam]

Hi Paradigm! Good to hear from you, although I’m sorry Albus has been poorly. I hope he’s better today.

Really nice playhouse! Even I can put up shelves, use a bubble-level. But if you don’t get the shelves perfectly level and all, the buns won’t mind. Buns are easy-going in that respect =) They might want to modify your carpentry anyway, f ex by adding nice decorative chewing-marks.

I’m sorry you can’t have your buns inside with you, but they have each other so they’ll still be happy and that has to be the most important thing for now.

[Vienna Blue in France]

Jersey – we can thank JM Barrie and Peter Pan for the term ‘Wendy House”…. we learn something new every day !

A prop house was created by Barrie for the first stage production of the play in 1904.
It was constructed like a tent so that it could be erected quickly during a song which Wendy starts with:

I wish I had a darling house
The littlest ever seen,
With funny little red walls
And roof of mossy green

John’s hat was used as a chimney and a slipper was used as a door knocker.
Toy manufacturers soon created replicas of the stage Wendy house, which have become a standard toy found in British gardens ever since

[Vienna Blue in France]

Just be careful, so careful in the UK with foxes roaming freely night and day.
Add a second lock (Foxes are cunning devils) and make sure any runs are covered safely.
Surely you could have the buns in an inside x-pen… no? The landlord can’t enter the property unannounced…

[jerseygirl]

Oh wow, thanks VB. I love the name Wendy House even more now. : )

Ditto on the fox proofing. Crafty creatures!

[Paradigm]

Hi Vienna, I’ve put a padlock latch on the top and a bolt on the bottom. Should keep foxes out. There’s an x-pen panel blocking the bottom half of the door from the inside (mainly to keep them from escaping while I open the door) held in place by safety cup hooks.

They’re really quite a destructive and messy group (more so than Fred and George or Mr Roger, even adjusting for their being three of them) and very good at escaping their x-pen. It was quite a lot of stress hiding them with our last landlord, so I’m not too keen on doing it again. Especially as my disabilities make it difficult for me to clean up after them at speed.

I do think they miss us as Charlie, especially, was very clinging when he came in so we could clean the house out. (And then kept them in for a few more hours for exercise and also because we didn’t want to put them away.)

[Bam]

Are the windows glass? If they’re just open, you need to put welded netting in them or sneaky animals can get in. Like cats and foxes and ferrets and crows etc. You could also put welded netting along the whole base of the (adorable) house, so rats and other unwanted critters don’t make themselves a cozy home underneath it. Wild rabbits like that sort of spaces too, and although they are lovely to watch, you don’t want them too close to your buns because of the risk of contagious diseases.

[Paradigm]

The windows are styrene. One of the reasons I chose a house was to make it harder for predators to get in.

I don’t think we’ll be getting any wild rabbits as we’re not rural enough for that!

There isn’t really much space under there at all because the bottom is wedged among the pebbles rather than on top of it. Suppose it wouldn’t stop a mouse, though.

[Author]

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