Rabbits and Chickens Co-Habiting

[sarastamand]

As part of a school project, my step son got to spend the school year raising bunnies and learning about farm-to-table by working on a farm with his classmates. Now that we are at the end of the year, the students are provided the opportunity to bring home their own bunny or one of the babies that were born. Well, he talked us getting get one. Actually, we may have come home with 2 as we didn't want the one to get lonely. And also while we were there, we decided to get a male and female instead of just females as originally discussed.

So my question is, can these bunnies free range with our chickens? We let our chickens completely free range - no fence or anything. Will the bunnies return home at night? They are in the house with us for now in a dog kennel. However, we have been letting them run around the house for a little bit to get some exercise.

I may end up just getting them a hutch with a run, but if they could co-habit I'd love for them to be as happy as possible!

 

[Purple_grape84]

My experience is that chickens and rabbits can cohabit if not over crowded. However, rabbits WILL NOT come home at night as your chickens do, the rabbits will just disappear into the wild.
Also, if you make a run for them you need to put hardware cloth on the bottom or they WILL dig out, they are very good at digging.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Actually... using hardware cloth in an L shape on the bottom of the run facing inwards can stop the buns from digging out. It doesn't have to go all the way across as they aren't smart enough to back up a little to dig under... is my understanding at least.

 

[Mvan42]

We have our rabbits in a coop with run from tractor Supply.. we put them in the in closure at night. Our rabbit who is no longer with us learned to go in at night so we could close him in. We just go these new bunnies Saturday I think they will learn to go in also.. they have food and water inside also since rabbits are more active at night. Also you will want to keep them separate they will reproduce fast.. and the male will kill the babies...