Potential bunny housing plans

[telken]

Hello my lovelies!  

Having not had a rabbit in about 10 years, and recently having reached a stable living/financial situation, I’m considering adopting a rabbit in the coming weeks/months!  Before I go anywhere near a living creature, though, I’ve been planning and working on creating a home for the little buggers.  I’m here today to basically pitch my plan, and see if anyone has any suggestions or critiques~

For a primary housing, I plan to have a 6’x4′ rectangular pen with 32″ walls and an open top.  Within this enclosure, a 22″x30″x10″ area in the corner would be enclosed (with entry openings on two sides) to act as a hide spot (always a good thing, I think).  

For materials, I’ve been planning to primarily use pine wood for framing.  The floor would be a layer of plywood (atop my carpet), and then a layer of coroplast to provide waste-proofing.  The coroplast would be primarily topped with towels, with perhaps an untoweled area to provide a choice of substrate.  The walls would be machine cloth (mesh) framed by pine wood.

If all of that sounds good, a few questions to follow up:

I know rabbits are traditionally social creatures (to an extent), but in the past I’ve only ever had one rabbit at a time.  Would I be best served adopting a pair, despite likely not being bonded yet (depends on the shelter)?  Would the space I propose be suitable for a pair?

The rabbit(s) would be in the same room as my parrot.  He’s small and relatively quiet, but it’s not uncommon for him to do a high pitched, decently loud whistle/call intermittently after I leave the room without him (he wants me back).  Would this be unreasonably stressful for rabbits?

To follow on with the parrot, he is fully flighted and has a few perches around the room, so it wouldn’t be especially uncommon for him to fly over the rabbit(s) and/or their enclosure from time to time.  As prey animals, would this stress them?

The room this enclosure would be in is approximately 12’x16′ and carpeted.  Will this be suitable as an exercise run, once they’re fully litterbox trained?

For rabbitproofing, what’s the best way to protect cables?  Plastic tubing slit on one side to fit over the cables?

As you can tell, there will be a whole lot of exposed (sanded) pine wood, which the rabbit(s) could potentially chew.  Is that something to be worried about?  They’re not beavers… is there any worry that they’d chew through a 2″ thick board in less than, say, a year?

Thank you, lovelies!

[Bambi]

That sounds like a great house plan, your buns would love it I’m sure! If you want more than one bun, I would suggest getting a bonded pair. I think they would still have a bit of room in the hutch together. The parrot might stress them at first or if he squeals but they will get used to it. It might also scare them a little with him flying around, so I’m not sure about that. And my bunny has been in her hutch for probably a month and has never really tried to chew on it, so I wouldn’t worry about that. But it sounds great!!

[Author]

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