Why do hutches belong outside?

[TARM]

I’ve done a lot of reading but I haven’t found the answer to my questions.

Why have people kept domestic pet rabbits outside in hutches instead of inside the house?  I don’t understand what the point of owning a small animal is if it’s going to be kept in such an inconvenient place.  Even people who spend a lot of time outside don’t necessarily spend it in the back yard.

When did people start bringing their rabbits inside where they belong?  And why are so many people resistant to the idea of keeping them inside.

If we know that commercial cages are too small and too expensive…and we’ve written letters to manufacturers ASKING for the right thing…why aren’t they readily available?  Why do we have to be creative in order to make the best home for our bunnies?

Why is most commercial food a mixture of inferior pellets, seeds and corn?  Why wouldn’t pet food companies think that manufacturing food that’s actually formulated to keep a rabbit healthy will make money?

Even the ferret community has more manufacturer compliance when it comes to making housing, food, and accessories available.

Who’s butt does a bunny owner have to kiss to make these things available?

[Lightchick]

I don’t think hutches belong outside.  My hutch is inside.  Lizzy LOVES her hutch!  Her hutch-door to her pen is always open, and if I’m home, the door from her pen to the living room is open, too.  Still, most of her day is spent in her hutch, of her own volition.  (I know I’m answering your literal subject-question, and not the others, but it’s the only question I have an answer to…&#160

Although, my mother had ferrets for several years, after I moved out, before they all got a weird ferret illness and passed away after thousands of dollars of surgery failed…so I never really knew them, but…it seems like ferret-people are a little more…vocal?…than rabbit-people.  That’s the nice way of putting it anyway…  Maybe we’re too resourceful and laid-back.  I’m thinking of the recent Target NIC-structure issue.  Target probably has no idea their product is used for an alternate purpose.  If one of the pet-supplies companies had any idea they could be making money off of us, I’m sure they’d make these things, too!  Everyone on this site is a GENIUS at cardboard and do-it-yourself, though, so maybe only the silly people buying Easter bunnies buy some of those things.  I have to admit, most of the things Lizzy turns her nose up at are the things I bought for her before I found this site, before I got her, before I had acquired 1/2 a clue….I’ll only admit to having a 1/2 a clue currently…you all are the experts!

Hutches belong inside.  Here you go.

Lizzy has a whole rug-lined pathway around the entire front part of the apartment…At least the colors match, if not the patterns! 

[minnieservis]

OMG I love your set-up!!!! I so want it! It’s soooo nice! My bun would be so jealous if she saw lol

[TARM]

OK, that? Is freakin awesome. I am totally copy catting you. I’ve seen so many set ups that I really like but haven’t felt that lightbulb go off until just now.

Where did you get that hutch?

[Lightchick]

Craigslist. I spent more on the gas to get to Ventura than I did on the hutch! But seriously, the hutch is sold online by…Petsmart? I think? Could be PetCo, but pretty sure it’s Petsmart… Some stores actually have it onsite. It’s the only one that has the side door as a ramp. And the whole top lifts up, although I rarely use it. The biggest down-side is that the big living area only has a wire-bottom, which bounces a lot when bunny hops on it. But I work in theatre, so there are many set-building-people more than willing to cut me a scrap of wood for a new bunny-floor. I’m pretty sure it’s less than $100 new.

Now I feel like an advertisement.

But if I’ve solved some of your problems, YAY! I’VE DONE SOMETHING USEFUL TODAY! Other than sit in meetings. Blech.

[Lightchick]

As a sidenote, the underneath area of the hutch, where there is no rug, is where Lizzy decided to set-up camp as Attack Bunny, and launch her militant attacks against human-kind. ie, she’d lunge out growling and bite at me. So I took her rug away, and since she’s afraid of the slippery hard-wood floors, I took away the area she was protecting, thus, no lunging. She hasn’t been territorial at me about anything in a couple of weeks, so I’m contemplating giving her rug back… But if you go for something like this, it seems like my bunny, at least, likes the dark covered area beneath best, and may use it as a “burrow”.

EDIT:  Also, the partition inside is removable.  I leave mine in place, because the only thing Lizzy fears is the vacuum.  When I vacuum, I close the hutch door and she hides in there.  Normally that litter box is under the coffee table, so otherwise, it’s wasted space.  But she FREAKS if she doesn’t have someplace to hide when the vacuum’s on!

[osprey]

We have two adoption shows each month at a big Petsmart, and I have to buy crickets to feed our anole, so I am in PetsMarts a couple of times a month at least.  I always check out the rabbit stuff there, and it is apalling what they sell.  Toys that bunnies do not play with, alfalfa food with seeds and stuff in it, mineral blocks, wire bottomed hutches, all kinds of things that are not safe for bunnies.  Part of the problem is that Kaytee has the big box stores pretty much sewn up, and they are the worst offenders in terms of selling foods to attract buyers rather than ones that are good for rabbits.  Most people still think of rabbits as either an outdoor backyard pet or as food.  I was at For Other Living Things today  waiting to deliver a baby bunny to his new foster home.  This friendly older lady proceeded to tell me that she had no idea that people kept rabbits as pets, and that she raised them as a child for food.  There is still a lot of education to be done out there.

 

[BinkyBunny]

So frustrating, I know. There is so much information now that there is no reason that these unhealthy foods and poor habitats should still exist.

I figure it has to do with really the short amount of time that rabbits have been seen as pets and not as food.   The House Rabbit Society has only been in existence for 20 years, and though that may seem like a long time, compared to cats and dogs as “house pets”, rabbits have a long way to go.   So many people don’t know  that rabbits can be litter trained.  Many see them as smelly pets that are untrainable and that will ruin their house.  They have told me rabbits are “smelly” and even when I explain that they are not smelly they give me that “uh huh” look.   I let them know that they may have gotten that idea from the old backyard “hutch” memories, or fairs, but you put a cat, or a dog in small cage, and let him sit there near his pee pad/litterbox day after day, you will associate that animal with being smelly. The animal him/herself is not smelly, just the environment he’s forced  to stay in is.

I even had one woman sort  of “snarl” at me,  “you have them IN your home?!”   She was thoroughly disgusted.  Didn’t matter that I explained how they can be litter trained, that they can be spayed or neutered.  She just thought I was some nutjob.  Most people are surprised though, not disgusted.  

Also, every single time I tell someone I have house rabbits, they feel the overwhelming need to tell me the most god-awful stories of when they were kids and what happened to their rabbit, or that they raised them for food. What is with that? Right there is a mentality that house rabbits have a very long way to go to be fully accepted… It’s not like you hear the same things when you say you have a cat or dog. People are more likely to spare you some horrible past detail, but with rabbits, many still don’t see them as feeling creatures that people can bond with.

The high fat diets were originally made for rabbits bred for meat that used to be housed in outdoor cages where they had to endure extreme weather changes, more stress, breeding.  They didn’t have to worry about long-life, and so I think they just stuck with what they figured  worked at the time, even when rabbits started to become pets.   And  now that rabbits are being cared for inside, less extremes, less stress, the diet needs to be much less rich. The industry pretty much caters to the “old tried and true” and hasn’t adapted well to house rabbit care and needs.

I just hope that in time, with all the great resources out there that keep emerging, things will continue to change and the life of domestic rabbits will eventually be held in higher regard.

[Beka27]

i know within the past two generations or so, dogs and cats were not really “housepets” in a traditional sense either, at least as my experience has it. my dad had many dogs growing up, and none of them were indoor dogs. same with my maternal grandparents. they had several outdoor, unaltered cats that would roam the property. they’d come in the house (bring the fleas) grandparents would get mad, and then they’d be banned to the outdoors again. a few times a year one would come inside and have babies. the babies would be given away, they’d keep one, throw that one outside. like BB said, 20 years is not a long time. it kinda sucks to wait when you want acceptance and equaility RIGHT NOW… but we’re doing what we all can, person by person.

[kimberleyanddarren]

i dont think hutches are for outside either, i personally dont think they are built strong or safe enough to be outside, i have one its the base of my condo but they like it indoors (its abit like the pictures above)

[TARM]

Ooohhh K&D…do you have any pics of your set up? I can’t get enough of those! It’s almost like house hunting, only on a much smaller scale.

[Steve Parker]

That is a great bunny home!

[Scarlet_Rose]

Awesome set-up! Yay bunny hutches inside!

Lets face it, rabbits started out as food, rather than a pet or companion and have hopped their way into many hearts and into the status of companions. I know that sailors brought them aboard ships and had to contain them in some manner without having to clean up after them and so perhaps wire was used (that’s just my thought, not necessarily researched truth). Otherwise my other notion is well, they are still considered stock animals and most stock animals, like chickens are confined to wire cages. So when farmer Joe picked up a rabbit, it was generally for food and they are about the same size as a chicken so it sort of evolved in that manner to a hutch when their kids decided they wanted the rabbit as a pet instead but the rule was, they are an “outdoor” animal and not to be brought into the house.

[Deleted User]

OMG I am SO moving my hutch inside (it’s out the buns in…during the day…) yup I am gunna copy…..yes yes yes… my bun chases the vacuum…

[Ashley]

Yep – I have the same pen.  its at http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2751752 

The wood isn’t that great of quality – feels light and cheap, but the pen itself is VERY cute! 

[JK]

Sorry I missed this post a few days ago.  That hutch set-up is really great!  I actually like that better than mine! Looks very orderly and neat.  I like that!

[(dig)x(me)x(now)]

BB- I have the same problem with people wanting to tell me about any horrific bunny story they have. What is that??

[Alicia Conklin]

Well I think maybe just maybe there is a bit of hope somewhere!  At my local petsmart up until a month ago or so there was guinea pigs for sale there…now there is NONE..not rats either!  I think that’s a big improvement since now people would maybe look to alternative means of getting them….such as rescues.  Of course, nothing is stopping them from going to another pet store..but still.

Also, they used to sell all those rabbit foods with the seeds but they have stopped!! Their shelves were bare and there was stickers there saying that they had been reduced for quick sale..which I assume means they’re no longer be selling them.   They seem to be getting more actual bunny safe things there!  It’s exciting.

 

Also, I too had been looking online for ideas of cages and stuff and I happened across ebay and saw that people WERE selling NIC condos.   Alot of neat ideas there with elaborate set ups and coroplast and such, it was pretty neat and I never had thought about someone actually making them for profit! So it might not be the manufacturers themselves capitalizing on it but individuals sure are!  And, while they are insanely marked up they are atleast giving people who aren’t creative enough to do this on their own the means to buying an appropriate cage for their bunny rather then the ones the pet stores have. 

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Hey, that is a really cute setup! I love it!
Yea my Petsmart sells guinea pigs and rabbits. Thankfully they are from the shelter lollypop farm though, All the Bigger animals are. Phew. Um.. I have a question. If Kaytee Brand is so bad.. is their hay ok? I have Oxbow Pellets but Kaytee hay is that ok? I thought that even though I do not trust Kaytee treats or pellets the hay would be ok. What do you think? I have found no mold or bad stuff on it, It smells good and looks pretty green. Fern likes it. What do you think..

[Author]

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