Painting a hutch??

[Mike]

Hello, I want to make (or buy) a wooden hutch for my bunny, my question is, can I paint it to match the rest of the furniture in the room? The furniture is black and like an antique cherry stain. I would just want to paint the outside, I coule leave the inside natural I guess. Thanks,Mike

[Sindri]

From my experience with chewing bunnies I am not sure if you would want to paint it or use a wooden hutch all together. I haven’t had a wooden hutch before but I have had my rabbits chew baseboards and a bed. A lot of people build condos with NIC cubes or you could use a exercise pen to house them as other ideas for rabbit housing. perhaps someone on here that has experience with wooden hutches can help you. Best of luck!

[Hazel]

Our bunny lives in a wooden hutch, when we bought it we didn’t know about NIC condos and stuff like that. Ours has a run in front of it, is that what you were thinking of doing? Just a hutch by itself would be way too small. With that being said, it’s a pain to clean, especially with the run in front. I know a NIC condo or x-pen won’t look as nice or blend in with your furniture, but it is so much easier to deal with. If I could go back, I wouldn’t buy the hutch. It’s so much more expensive, too. Ours cost about $200, you could build a condo for $25. Even an x-pen would be much cheaper, at around $70.

I know this wasn’t your question, but I think if you go with a hutch, you will probably regret it. At least that has been my experience.

[Mike]

This is what I had in mind…

http://www.ebay.com/itm/48-Wood-Wooden-Rabbit-Hutch-Chicken-Coop-Hen-House-Pen-Cage-/351347605139?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51cdf2fe93

[Bam]

My Bam has a hutch exactly like that at my mother’s, but it’s way too small for a bunny to actually live in (Bam is about 4 pounds). Since he is a very well-behaved boy he can be free roam at my mother’s so we never close the hutch door, but he does like to go there to sleep and eat hay etc. If you choose this hutch, you really should give your bun an extra space in front of it, like an exercise pen.

You can of course paint its outsides. I have painted the insides of my outdoors hutch (only used occasionally in the summers) with white oil paint, you know normal outdoors paint, glossy, 3 layers of paint, because that makes the hutch way easier to clean. But if your bunny is a chewer, it’s perhaps not optimal. Where I live outdoors hutches generally are painted on the insides because they’d rot otherways (moist climate), but of course you def have to make sure the paint is like 2-3 weeks dry before the bun can have access to it.

[Mike]

The cage will be open just about all day, she’ll have pretty much free roam of the room the hutch is in. This will be pretty much to sleep, eat and go to the bathroom in. You say it’s way to small to live in? The one I am getting or building is 4′ long and 2′ deep.

[JackRabbit]

Kieko’s condo is made out of NIC grids and wouldn’t look bad at all in a room with black furniture. Honestly though, a black xpen should look fine and blend in, and is way easier to clean.

[Hazel]

If the hutch was to be open 24/7, I’d say it’s fine. But if she will be locked up in there for any extended amount of time (several hours), then it’s too small. Rabbits don’t necessarily sleep when humans do, so she shouldn’t be locked in there all night. I used to have a pair that had a pet store cage, which in and of itself would be way inadequate, but they were never locked up in it and had around the clock access to the room the cage was in, so it didn’t matter. They pretty much used it as a big litter box and hay dispenser.

If you can’t leave it open 24/7, you would need to add a run of some sort for extra space.

[Mike]

I thought 4 foot by 2 foot was the minimum size cage? That’s what I will have and now I’m being told thats to small… What is the minimum size if it went open 24 hours a day?

[Sindri]

If it was open 24hours a day and your rabbit can come and go it should be fine. If he has to be confined sometimes you could attach an exercise pen to it. I had to do that in the past with one of my rabbits until she had more space. Rabbits always seem to want and need as much space to run around as possible. If mine could they would take over the whole house.

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