# Bunny abode condo advice.



## bunnycarrot1 (Jan 1, 2013)

Delete please


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## Imbrium (Jan 1, 2013)

have you looked into building a NIC condo? you can build one at least the size of that condo for half the price or less 

http://www.guineapigcages.com/cubes.htm
http://breyfamily.net/bunnycage.html
best deal on grids for the cages: http://www.sears.com/stor-floor-sta...p-00913332000P?prdNo=1&blockNo=1&blockType=G1 (to get the best price, order online for the sale price and do site-to-store to avoid outrageous shipping charges)

here's my condo, it cost me about $150 to make (and that's only because I didn't know about the sears price on grids and, in retrospect, really over-paid for mine):


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## JBun (Jan 1, 2013)

Elliot is a real cutie  The only thing I wonder about the condo is the flooring might not be suitable to support the weight of an elop, as they can be quite big when full grown. You would need to put wooden dowels to support the floors. If your rabbit ends up being a big chewer, then it's most likely he will chew the carpet up, then you would need to remove the carpet so he doesn't eat any of it. I prefer to use carpet when I can, but it won't work if the rabbit is a chewer. I have a chewer. She's had linoleum tiles on a plywood base. It's slippery but it's the only thing she couldn't chew, or pee on and ruin. I recently found a thick vinyl fabric that she doesn't slip on and is easy to clean. I just had to secure the edge of it so she couldn't chew it. So far it's working well. Also the base floor looks pretty slippery. You don't want slippery flooring with growing rabbits as it can lead to the possibility of splay leg. So you would need to put something on the slippery floor. With an elop getting so big full grown, you may want to consider 2x4 panels instead of 2x3. And I find that ramps don't necessarily work all that well(and these may not support the weight of your rabbit without reinforcement). I prefer to do the levels low enough that the rabbit can just hop up to the level on it's own without a ramp, or you can even make a step for it to hop up on to get to the next level, but that takes up space to. You'll probably find with rabbits, that it's all trial and error. You try something and it doesn't work, so you have to try something else. Unless you have a very cooperative rabbit, you'll probably have to end up making all sorts of changes. Also keep in mind that this rabbit is most likely not litter trained, and if he doesn't take to it readily, he will probably end up peeing on whatever surface you have in his condo. Carpet can be a pain if you have to clean pee messes every day. It would be better to have some sort of slip resistant, smooth flooring. Or a lot of people will clip the fleece onto their floors, then you can just unclip the fleece fabric to wash it when it gets peed on or dirty.

Here's a condo design that I thought was pretty nice. I would suggest that you look at lots of peoples pictures of their condos to get different ideas of what you like the best.

http://rabbitcondo.com/lara-and-harrels-deluxe-wide-rabbit-condo


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## Imbrium (Jan 1, 2013)

now that there's a link to the condo in question on the first post... yeah, that's a glorified, overpriced NIC condo. it looks pretty, but the design is impractical. as I said, you can make something BETTER than that for half the price or less.

as Jenny said, I'd go with 4Lx2W for an elop. carpet's very iffy - there are better/safer flooring choices. dowels will be a must to keep the levels sturdy and even (I used a few on mine, they help TONS). that condo has doors that are only one panel wide - you definitely want a door on each level that's two panels wide (so your shoulders fit into the condo, making it possible to reach the back edges to clean). ramps are space-hoggers and are totally unnecessary for levels 1 grid apart - rabbits can easily jump up 14''. you also probably want at least one level of the condo to be two grids tall so he can stretch upright fully inside it.

I also agree that each rabbit is different and each condo ends up being different - pretty much everyone who's ever built one has made adjustments/renovations at some point, which is much easier to do with a condo you've built yourself compared to that pre-made and can pretty much always be accomplished with the spare bits you've got left over from the original construction.

if you want more cage ideas, check out this thread - http://www.rabbitsonline.net/f69/your-2012-cages-youve-made-64844/
tons of people have posted their cages in there, so there's a lot of variety.

a NIC condo really is stupidly easy to make yourself and almost everyone here with an indoor bunny has built one, so if you run into any trouble at all, you'll be able to come to us for advice/help


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