Housing

Indoors vs. Outdoors
Many people have the misconception that rabbits are smelly and belong outdoors. However, this is definitely not the case, and in fact, we recommend that you keep and house your bunny indoors as much as possible.

Cages and Enclosures
A variety of options exist for housing rabbits in either a cage or other type of enclosure. Although pet stores market cages specifically for rabbits, some of these cages may be too small to comfortably house adult rabbits, particularly larger breeds. From the HRS Housing FAQ page , "A cage should be at least 4 times the size of your bunny when he's entirely stretched out--more if he is confined for a large amount of the day. Cage sizes also should be decided in conjunction with the amount of exercise time and space the rabbit has. One guideline to go by is at least 8 square feet of cage time combined with at least at least 24 square feet of exercise space, for 1-2 rabbits, in which the rabbit(s) can run and play at least 5 hours per day." If you don't have enough floor space to give your buns too much room, you can also try to build vertically with multiple story condo cages.

Exercise Pens
An alternative to a traditional cage or NIC cube condo is an exercise pen, usually marketed for puppies and sometimes called an X-pen (eg ). Advantages over a traditional cage include:


 * Extremely portable (great if you Travel with your rabbit)
 * Easy to reconfigure and move around the house
 * Can also be used outside (always with supervision)
 * Lots of room for litterbox, hideyhouses, toys, etc.
 * X-pen walls are easy mounting locations for bottles, hay racks, toys, etc.
 * Lots of space for your money

The X-pen represents an intermediate step between a completely free roaming rabbit and a caged rabbit. Perhaps it is best suited to a bunny who can free roam under supervision, but still needs to be confined at night. Exercise pens are much more portable than a traditional cage, and do not require as much up-front work as an NIC cube condo. The downsides are that you need to provide hidey-houses besides the X-pen itself, and this can take away from the portability somewhat. It should be stressed that the combo of an animal carrier and an X-pen to set up at your new location is probably the easiest way to travel with your rabbit. Bringing a large enough cage to comfortably house a rabbit in the car is difficult, but because the X-pen folds it can easily fit in the trunk of a small car.

A decent size X-pen can be had for anywhere from $50-$100. They can be found online and in most pet stores. Exercise pens really outcompete cages in terms of square footage per dollar.

Another handy use of an X-pen is to keep a free-roaming, fully trained bunny from getting into certain areas. Perhaps bunny only has unsupervised access to the kitchen or the laundry room. You can use an X-pen to block off access out of these rooms, or keep bunny away from the TV stand or similar cord jungle.

Tips

 * Set up your pen against a wall to maximize the space you get
 * Buy cheap vinyl flooring to put under the pen and bunny can even live in a carpeted room
 * Use an X-pen to confine a free-roaming rabbit when you're out of the house, cleaning, or the door is open
 * Attached accessories like water bottles, hayracks, etc. directly to the X-pen

Free Range Rabbits
Untrained rabbits should be kept in an enclosure during the night and while you are away from home.