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Designing a coop with rabbits in mind too?

grullablue

Songster
11 Years
Feb 27, 2008
326
7
154
Madison, Wisconsin
I hadn't planned this, but I have been going wayyyy back through posts by searching various things, and have come across several posts where people have been keeping rabbits in with their chickens. I have three rabbits, and how I would LOVE to give them more room and let them romp around in a large area too, rather than in cages!

Maybe with my animals it wouldn't work out, but I'd be willing to give it a try.... did you do something different with your coops to also accomodate your rabbits? Did the rabbits bother your chickens at all or vice/versa? I really would like to learn more about how you made this work! We are still in the beginning stages of building our coop, and have a ways to go yet, but once I started reading posts on this forum about rabbits and chickens cohabitating...a light bulb went off! uh oh.....

Angie
 
I am also planning to mix rabbit with chickens. I read about it on www.hencam.com , very nice blog and lots of info. She has a camera w/live feed inside and out of her coop. Her bunny is Candy.
 
Hello ,
So you can put rabbits in with hens ?

I was wondering about that . Do you have to worry about the hens eating the rabbits food ?

Thanks
The Newbie
 
I'm working on an article on this for Backyard Poultry -- summary:

-there are some diseases, potentially quite serious for rabbits, that can be caught from chickens. (NOT coccidiosis, though). You can probably mainly avoid them, though, by not putting rabbits with a flock that's had Salmonella, and keeping everyone very CLEAN and very HEALTHY and very UNSTRESSED.

-Rabbits mustn't eat much chicken food; chickens oughtn't eat much rabbit food; thus, thought must be put into feeder locations.

-Rabbits mustn't be put on softwood shavings, so if they will be in the coop (not just sharing a run), you need to bed with straw or something else like that.

-The safest thing is probably to have them share an exercise yard but not share 24-hr living quarters. That also reduces the litter type issues nad the difficulty of keeping each kind of critter eating the right kind of food.

-You will need an extra well digging-proofed floor/yard/fence, since rabbits are so much better tunnelers than chickens.

Good luck,

Pat
 
My rabbit lives with 20 or so chickens. That coop is half of a tin barn with a concrete floor. My husband split the barn lengthways and welded some upright posts and horizontal ones to attach the wire to. There is one pole that basically touches the ground and the wire is wrapped around it, so there is no way he can dig out. It's about 20' x 10' and he loves the space. He's been doing fine eating the hay that I use for bedding (the chickens like it too), and Flock Raiser. He snuggles with the chickens at night, but he does try to breed them too
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