X-pen help!

[MoxieMeadows]

So I wanted to build a new “home base” for Moxie. I wouldn’t feel safe with leaving her loose in my room (like she normally is. It doubles as her bunny room) or in a cage when I’m gone for long periods of time. I wanted to buy a couple x-pens and attach them together to form a home base. She’ll have a litter box, food & water ect in there. Here is my problem:

All of the x-pens I can find are too short and she could easily jump over them. So if I couldn’t find one tall enough for her, I was considering covering it. But with what? I can’t get any NIC cubes here, they are SOOO expensive for SO little, I might as well buy Moxie 5 xpens for the same cost to build her a home base with those. So any suggestions will be very helpful.

 1) How big are your bunnies?

2) how tall are your x-pens?

3) Are they covered? Do your bunnies jump out of them?

4) Do you remember the brand of your x-pens?

5)If you don’t have x-pens as a home base, what do you use? (besides NIC cubes)

 Also, would it be safe to build an elclosure myself with wire? I think Chicken wire wouldn’t be sturdy enough, so what other wires are there that I could use?

And lets remember this wouldn’t be where she lives. She’d still have free roam of my room most of the time. (at least 75% of the time!)

Sorry for all of the questions! And THANK YOU SO MUCH in advance!!

[JackRabbit]

1 — 3 lbs (nic condo), 3 lbs an 4 lbs (share 3 xpens attached together)

2) xpens are 48 inches tall

3) uncovered, don’t jump out (not even my jumper can jump these)

4) brand is Midwest. All 3 of our permanent xpens have the full door and the doors are the newer design (something like sure lock?) for easier one-handed opening. We also have a 36 inch xpens we got for bonding that has the double latch door, and our dog crates havevthe double latch doors. All of our stuff is Midwest. FYI, Petsmart’s store brand of dog crate and I believe xpens are made by Midwest. Alot of places carry Midwest — online, watch for free shipping and coupons!

I would definitely recommend xpens. They are easy to set up, take down, make into different shapes, etc. I would get as tall as possible, but if you must get a shorter one (36 inch is pretty short for Moxie) you can clip a sheet over it for a “fake” roof. With a NIC enclosure, you probably want to plan on leaving it set up (xpen — up or down in a couple of minutes). I don’t know anything about other brands, but we’ve been using Midwest products for 13 years with no problems.

[Tessie]

Bunnies are huge, I don’t know how much they weigh, I can’t remember!
Back when we used X-pens they were 42 inches tall.
Luna didn’t jump out but Theodore did, so we covered his. It was a pain in tha a**
They were called easipet

[MoxieMeadows]

JR— I’ll take clipping a sheet over it into consideration.

 

Moxie is a little over 8 pounds, and I’ve seen her jump over 2 feet high to get into trouble.  I found an x-pen that was 4 feet high but it wasn’t very big circumfrence-wise, had mixed reviews about not being sturdy if the puppy tried to jump out/was rough. Another downer was that it was $220 dollars and I wanted to buy 2 or 3. $660 is kinda expensive just for a home base. I’ll take a look at Midwest brands.

 

Tessie— May I ask what you covered Teddy’s x-pen with?

[Tessie]

That seems really expensive for an x-pen! Where are you looking? Mine were like £30 or something.  

Ummm we covered it with like, I’m not sure how to describe it… like a kind of netting. I think it was for gardening  so it was green – it looked awful!

[MoxieMeadows]

Tessie— I was looking on Amazon, I *can* find cheaper ones, but they aren’t tall enough unless I found a way to cover them.

Ha ha, I think I know what you are talking about.

[JackRabbit]

I got my three 48 inch tall ones from Midwest Pet Products (online store — not affiliated with the manufacturer Midwest Homes For Pets) and paid like $114 each, no shipping fees. Other places had them cheaper but I wanted the new door style and they were the only ones who had 3 in stock and could get them to me in 2 days (impatient!).

[JackRabbit]

The 48 inch ones are a little wobbly at the top (because of the height) once you start attaching more than one or two together and have a big rectangle, but my hubby made a couple of tall “bookends” with 1 x 2’s and triangle wood pieces and zip tied them to the xpen and its sturdy now.

[JackRabbit]

Also, have you considered an xl dog crate with an xpen attached to it? You can even put a shelf in the crate for a second level in part of it and still have the open xpen to run around in. An xl dog crate (Midwest) is something like 48 inches by 28 or 30 inches. We still use one of crates as the “kitchen/bathroom” within our xpen area. It has two xl cat litterboxes and 2 hay feeders in it.

[Kyrkogrimr]

I currently have my boys in crates and a pen with supervised time in the rest of the living room. Our 24″ (not my purchase, but free, so no complaints) pen is high enough for Puck but laughably ineffective for Theo unless the top is covered too. We have NIC grids from when Puck was in a NIC cage, but if we’re hopping in and out, we use a fleece blanket and clothes pegs which works just fine.

[Deleted User]

Just wanted you to know I read your thread Moxie – I have NO suggestions, ooop’s! Sorry!
If I ever had to get one for Henry??? Good Greif!!! Good luck Moxie!

[MoxieMeadows]

Ha ha ha ha, thanks AH, and Henry would probably just eat his way out?!

[kirstyol]

I got mine of amazon, it was ridiculously cheap considering its huge I think it was something silly like £20 I would say its somewhere around the four feet mark in height, it comes right up to my chest and I am only five foot four so somewhere in the region of four feet seems about right. its also really long like maybe six feet or more and I would say maybe four feet length ways. Try searching ‘rabbit playpen’ rather than x-pen on amazon that’s what I did and it returned loads of results a lot of which were quite expensive but this one was quite cheap, its really secure although Bramble can rattle it which is a little noisy so I have just attached cable ties to it to stop the rattling noise which seems to be working, he has never knocked it over or jumped out, not for a lack of trying on his part!

[MoxieMeadows]

Ok thank you Kirstyol, I’ll have to try typing “rabbit playpen” instead.

[MoxieMeadows]

So I found this “playpen” that was 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. It also had a metal roof. It had a door on it’s side so Moxie could come and go. Does that sound like good demensions for a home base?

[kirstyol]

I’m sure Bramble’s is somewhere around that size, maybe slightly more square more like 6x5ish but yeah that sounds like plenty of space for a home base. Bramble is in his pen for a good few hours most days just now because I am on a slightly different schedule than normal for the next few weeks and he seems absolutely fine with it, in fact when I opened the door when I got in about an hour ago he didn’t even bother hopping out, until I went to the kitchen for coffee and he thought there might be food!

[MoxieMeadows]

Ha ha, thanks Kirstyol!

[LongEaredLions]

I’m a bit late, because it sounds like you found something great, but in case….
1) How big are your bunnies?
1lb, 4lbs
2) how tall are your x-pens?
28 inches (Mine are NOT jumpers, ha ha ha)
3) Are they covered? Do your bunnies jump out of them?
No and no
4) Do you remember the brand of your x-pens?
Not an xpen
5)If you don’t have x-pens as a home base, what do you use? (besides NIC cubes)
not an xpen

Well my replies aren’t very helpful… Sorry Moxie! Do you have a pic of the pen you were considering?

[MoxieMeadows]

LEL— This is what I was considering, although I haven’t decided yet. (I wouldn’t be using that green cover, because she doesn’t need to be shielded by wind/rain)

   

 

[MoxieMeadows]

And there’s a door on the side so she could come and go as she pleases, but she could also be locked in there during an emergency/when guests were over that don’t like rabbits…(who doesn’t like rabbits???)

[kirstyol]

That looks very similar to what I have, only mine doesn’t have a roof at all. There is a door for Bramble to hop in/out of and its handy to be able to lock him in when I need to since he is not able to be out unsupervised (naughty, chewing everything in sight bunny) and occasionally I have to do mean things like brush the floor, for some reason Bramble hates that (hey I made all that mess on purpose, stupid human!)

It also folds right down if I need to put it away, like when the landlord visits (he knows we have a bunny but I always put him in his cage when he is here so that the place looks less messy and Bramble isn’t running about mad)

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like rabbits, how could you not? Although I guess some people have allergies.

[MoxieMeadows]

Yeah, I know a few people who don’t really like animals… Although my house isn’t the best place to go if you don’t like animals!

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