The white ones your talking about sound like Californians, those crossed with New Zealand Whites you get some pretty nice meat bunnies
Pen wise, you can use small wire hardware cloth. If you have a wire cage bottom, the rabbits MUST, ABSOLUTELY have something solid to lay, stand, or sit on. Some people use old pieces of drywall. If I have a wire bottomed cage, I prefer to put a nice layer of straw over it. That way everything's cushioned, and the urine and (most) of the poop falls through. Keeps the bunnies pretty clean. If you don't have something nice for them to sit on, you'll get hock sores. I've treated many a rabbit with hock sores and it's not a pretty sight. Imagine having a huge, open, (often infected) wound on your foot. Then stand on wire cloth thats up off the ground. OUCH.
If you have one bunny, you must at least have one other to keep it company. Some bunnies are 'unbondable', meaning they will attack, or even try to kill, other bunnies. I had a doe like that, so she kept my young chicks company. I never recommend having a bunny alone for more than a week, tops. Some just prefer to be alone (like my doe), but I've found that they do great with chickens. Fortunately, these rabbits are rather rare!
I have a blue Dutch Buck who is alone at the moment. I do have other rabbits (he's been alone less than a week) but they have Ear Cankers, so he can't come into contact with them until they clear up.
But, he lives in my chicken tractor with my 2 week old chicks! He doesn't pee in the top of the tractor where the chickens roost at night, nor have I found any bunny turds up there. The tractor is moved every couple days and he lives a pure 'natural diet' of grass (and water, of course). I've never seen him actually eat the chicken food, and he's quite plump and healthy.
If my rabbits are in a off-the-ground or in a 'grassless' pen, then they get 1-2 cups of Purina Show Rabbit grain, depending on the rabbit. They also need a good quality grass hay, and of course, LOVE dandelion and herb treats! DON'T feed Alfalfa hay, it's to high in calcium and will cause calcium buildup. Best to avoid it to begin with.
Pregnant or nursing does get more, as do growing rabbits. An extremely fat rabbit will have health problems, issues with breeding, and be generally miserable if kept outside. An extremely skinny rabbit has one foot in the grave. Your rabbit should have a glossy coat, clean ears, eyes, and noses, and shouldn't be squishy.
My bunnies are kept trim, but not skinny, if you can easily feel the backbone or ribs, or if their hindquarters well pronounced, your bunny is too skinny. If your bunny looks like a fur tube with ears, your bunny is too fat.
I like to be able to run my hand over the back of the rabbit, and NOT be able to feel the backbone. If I press a little, I'm able to find it, but it's not sharp or very pronounced. They have a nice 'padding' on either side of the spine and on the ribs.
Some breeds are NATURALLY skinny looking. Checkered Giants are more of a 'skinny' looking breed, with more pronounced hindquarters. They're more upright than your usual Dutch or Californian, so they look a lot thinner. Some older rabbits have a roll under their chins, this doesn't mean their actually fat. I had a very, very, neglected doe with one, and she was about three pounds underweight with a huge coat just to keep warm. She weighed in at roughly 2lbs, she was a 5-6lb rabbit.
If your yard is NOT securely fenced, do NOT let your bunnies roam! They are likely to take off and you'll be tearing your hair out by the roots trying to catch them again. My yard is chain-linked, and the rabbits have found approximately four ways to escape. My yard is now the rabbit equivalent of Fort Knox, thanks to my bunnies.
If you have an air conditioner, or any kind of wiring, do NOT let your bunnies roam! I had a doe and a buck roaming my yard, they went into the duck's house at night, and the doe at through the thermostat wire on the AC. Obviously a thermostat wire won't kill you, but my house got awful hot in the dead of summer. AND it blew the fuse on the motherboard because the wire then shorted out.
Babies are a completely different story
But if you just want pets, best get either a buck/buck pair or a doe/doe pair. My Dutch isn't cuddly per say, but he isn't aggressive either. Cuddliness really varies from rabbit to rabbit, you could get a Dutch that's a total lap rabbit, or you could have one that could care less about you, so long as you feed him!
