# keepng bun warm outside



## Rosy (Oct 5, 2019)

winter is coming... (at least where I live) and this is the first year my bunny is living outside. how do I ensure that he stays warm? it can get pretty cold. any tips?


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## Hermelin (Oct 6, 2019)

Fill up the living area with straws and give lukewarm water. At least one of my bunnies, when it get cold outside will be picky with her water. 

So during the night she will not drink that much. But I always fill up with lukewarm water and she will gulp down the water as if she haven’t drank anything for a long time. 

You will be need to change water 3-4 times everyday when winter truly kicks in. But if it only 32 Fahrenheit (0 C), I change water twice. 

They get thick winter fur but you can also warm up or fill a bottle with warm water and lay it in the cage. So the bunny can lay next to it, or buy a heating pad, laying it under a blanket. 

My outdoor bunnies often sleep out in the snow than the cage. So they prefer the cold more than sleeping up in the cage on a heating pad [emoji5]

You can isolate one small part of the cage and put a warm bottles in there, it will keep the heat and stay warmer. But it can also backfire with being colder than outside if it dosen’t get a heating source / warmth.


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## JenGibs (Oct 6, 2019)

Rosy said:


> winter is coming... (at least where I live) and this is the first year my bunny is living outside. how do I ensure that he stays warm? it can get pretty cold. any tips?


Why outside this year? How old is bun?


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## Niomi (Oct 6, 2019)

Rabbits can take the cold better than they can take the heat. Make sure rabbits are sheltered from the winds. The most dangerous time for an outdoor rabbit is in the spring. If there is any snow in their cage, it will melt and the rabbit can get wet and catch pneumonia. A hutch placed next to a building will shelter it from the wind, but care needs to be taken so that snow and ice won't fall from the roof of the building and land in the hutch.


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## Rosy (Oct 7, 2019)

JenGibs my parents don't want him living indoors anymore. he is around 1 year old


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## Rosy (Oct 7, 2019)

ill post a pic of his cage later


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## Rosy (Oct 7, 2019)

hermelin, what kind of straw? where can I buy it from?


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## Hermelin (Oct 7, 2019)

Just normal straw which you can buy from a normal pet shops or farmers. 

Don’t really now, how to explain. Because it’s called halm in my language, I buy straw that are a bit thicker but still soft. My bunnies love playing and bedding with it. 

Make sure when it’s snowing wet snow, that your bunny it’s locked and secured in the hutch out from the snow. 

They get extremely wet and cold, if he’s like my bunnies that rather sleep in the snow than their hutch during winter [emoji5]


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## Rosy (Oct 7, 2019)

something like hay?


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## Hermelin (Oct 7, 2019)

Yeah it look a little like hay but not something bunnies will eat and have a softer and larger than normal hay. 

Don’t now if they have different name, just Google straw bale and information about it will come up ^-^ 

It’s the same as the 3 little pigs story, one built a house of straw :3 

It’s quite common as bedding for animals.


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## Niomi (Oct 7, 2019)

You should be able to buy hay at a farm and garden store.


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## Rosy (Oct 8, 2019)

ok, so once I have the hay, what do I do with it? fill up the hutch with it? build a straw house  ?


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## Rosy (Oct 8, 2019)

do I have to worry about mites or stuff in the hay when purchasing it?


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## Rosy (Oct 8, 2019)

sorry i meant in the straw


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## Rosy (Oct 8, 2019)

how much straw will I need? how often will I have to replace it?


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## Hermelin (Oct 8, 2019)

I never had any problem with straw or any mites. I now mices can like building houses in it if you get really unlucky. 

You just fill the cage with straw and it will be good [emoji5]


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## Rosy (Oct 10, 2019)

This is his enclosure. ik its not a beauty but its a work in progress...


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## Hermelin (Oct 10, 2019)

That won’t be good for winter if you have real winter with snow. 

You will need to build a hutch raised at least 1 meter above ground. To keep the cold away. 

Takes about 1 to 2 days of work to build a hutch.


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## Rosy (Oct 10, 2019)

Hermelin said:


> You will need to build a hutch raised at least 1 meter above ground.


any tips on building the hutch? what materials do u think is best for this? how would i build it off the ground? how would i connect it to his current enclosure? why would higher up be better at keeping the cold out?


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## Hermelin (Oct 11, 2019)

Rosy said:


> any tips on building the hutch? what materials do u think is best for this? how would i build it off the ground? how would i connect it to his current enclosure? why would higher up be better at keeping the cold out?



The ground get’s a lot colder than what the air gets, during winter time. It’s also true that underground will be a lot warmer than above the ground. 

So building a hutch standing on legs (1 meter above ground) will make sure that predators won’t get in easy and also work a little like isolation from the cold ground during winter. Also when it snow, the hutch won’t be coverd and disappear.

Myself built my hutch with plywood walls and did a frame for the hutch. It’s quite sloppy and not really good because, the hutch was built in one day. The hutch have tin roof that go a few cm outside the hutch. The roof need to have a slight tilt going backwards. So the water and snow runs to the back of the hutch. 

You can also buy a hutch that someone else have built. Store bought aren’t good because they are often really small. 

Myself have one store bought and the hutch I built. Feel bad for my bunny that live in the store bought hutch. Because it’s really small and he can’t really move that much.


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## Rosy (Oct 11, 2019)

thanx for all the advice @Hermelin . gonna start working on it. what size do u think is adequate? i know bigger is always better, but what is decent? also, can he stay in the run enclosure most of the day, and just go into the hutch at night?


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## Hermelin (Oct 11, 2019)

I let my bunnies have access to the run most of the day and during night time I lock them in. 

I have foxes in my area, so my bunnies have to be locked in the cages. 

I would say a decent size on a hutch would be length 180, wide: 80 cm. Smallest size for a holland lop would be 150*80 cm, which my indoor cage have that size. 

The hight of the cage, should be so high that your bunny can stretch fully on the back legs without bumping into the roof. 

In the picture you can see the size compared to my holland lop mix: 





My hutch it’s on the bigger side because it’s (length:260cm, wide: 115 cm), really not a smart idea being so wide. Because it’s really hard cleaning the cage, the arms are too short [emoji23]

Make sure the whole front can open with doors, easier when you clean. Myself did many mistakes on my first hutch ever built but at least it taught me what to think about next time. While doing the new adjustments to fix those mistakes.


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## Rosy (Nov 9, 2019)

hi guys. the weather has dropped considerably here in the last couple of days!! Currently, it is 29 degrees Fahrenheit. tomorrow, it will warm up to 56 degrees Fahrenheit... the question here is: how cold is TOO cold? Should I bring him inside for the night? I know that sudden temperature changes are not good for rabbits. my parents don't want him in the house permanently though so i would have to bring him back outside tomorrow morning. please give me advice! thank you!


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## Hermelin (Nov 10, 2019)

-4 Fahrenheit you will have to think about how to fix a warmer place for your bunny. So they at least can escape the cold. 

Myself have outdoor bunnies and sometimes during winter it can be -4 Fahrenheit’s but a lot of straws, protected from the wind and off the ground with a little warm bottle will keep them happy. At my place it rarely happens, but sometimes it can spike down to that temperature during winter time. Often when it happens it’s during night time.

If I lived more north I would have to isolate the cage so the warmth won’t escape ^^

I’m pretty sure your bunny have winter fur. So taking him in would make him overheat instead and that’s more dangerous. Bunnies handle cold better than warmth most of the time. Don’t think he’s like my indoor bunny that hate the cold and will sleep on the heating element while getting super warm.


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