Rabbits and Chickens

[steinway]

Newbie here, I have not seen this subject covered in any other posts, hope I am not repeating something. I have two horse stalls that take up all of a small outbuilding, each stall is about 10' x 12', vented at the top with a couple of windows. I have started raising rabbits in one of the horse stalls, only 4 breeders right now and do not plan on getting many more. I plan on getting just a few (4 or so) egg laying hens for the other horse stall in the spring.

The two stalls are separated by wood up to 4 feet and then sturdy wire above that. I am guessing I will need to put chicken wire around the sturdy wire to prevent the chickens coming over to the rabbit side.

Any thoughts? Is this a good idea or a bad idea? Are there any health concerns you would have with this set up? Any other ideas? Thank you in advance.

 

[chickencrazylady]

I have 3 Roo's and 8 hens and 1 rabbit all living in an run and indoor coop. My rabbit, bugsey was very happy to be able to run around the chicken run and then jumped into the coop and made himself at home. So far and it's been 3 months now no problems, except that my 2 younger roo's that have grown up with Bugsey are a little jealous of all the veggie scapes he gets and they try to steal then from him. One big happy family, I am of the opinion that Bugsey will start to cluck any day now! Lol He really doesn't know he's a rabbit anymore.He has is sleep area in the coop and his toilet area, that I clean out weekly and place in more shavings. Bugsey even eats the chicken feed now instead of his pellets, so I make sure that everyone in the coop get lots of fresh veggies and fruit everyday.

 

[Marcymom3]

You should be getting royalties from Cadbury!! Did you see the commercial with the Easter bunny cackling and hopping away from one of their cream eggs?

 

[TheHalfWayCoop]

We have eight silkies and one flemish giant buck who all live together in the same run/coop and get along great. The only thing the rabbit doesn't like is stepping in chicken poop

but otherwise everything seems cool, and we're going on 6 months now. Then again our giant decided he's part house rabbit and will no longer sleep with the chickens, he comes to the back door instead (their coop is part of our garage) and 'knocks' with his head to be let in so he can sleep on my daughter's bed

 

[Blue]

Quote:
That's adorable!

 

[TheHalfWayCoop]

^^ It's really adorable when he sleeps with our 13mo old, they're the same size

 

[the-bird-man]

i have a flemish mix doe that lives with my girls and so far the only problem is her digging out so she has to be locked up in a cage in the coop now

the chickens give her space and they get along well. now i just have to find a way to stop the rabbit from digging

 

[The Little Country Farm]

I'm glad someone posted this! I've been thinking about getting some rabbits too but would have to keep them with my chickens till we can get them their own pen built. I don't think it will be a problem with space since our coop is 12x15 feet and our run is 15x25 feet and we only have 5 FBCM's right now. And as far as the digging the rabbit would have to stay busy because we have a layer of sand on top of the ground and wood shavings on top of the sand.

 

[Terrik]

Quote:
I wanna know how you house trained a rabbit. Inquiring minds want to know. LOL

 

[ccw2005]

Hi

I HAD all of my 7 rabbits in with my 8 chickens. I did this without any prior research. Our rabbits "were" all bucks but two changed and before you knew it I had 5 babies hoping around and a few more newbies underground. I am explaining this due to the main problem I have had with rabbits in the chicken run...THEY DIG!!!

If I knew how to post better photo's I would show the destruction. The run is 16x32 so I assumed there was plenty of room for all, and I guess in a sense there was plenty of room for everyone to get along well. All forms of greenery vanished within a month and no matter what seed I threw down, from rye to raking in bird seed, nothing would come up. Even with the bunnies n chickens eating the seed, I had a thought that the seed would be recycled and would grow when I put out pine shavings.

The chickens ruled the roost and took over the big 8x4 caged pen I made for the bunnies to lock em up if the need ever came up. I learned that chickens like rabbit food and rabbits liked the chicken food. My bunnies loved watermelon, tomatoes and other fruits and veggies but thankfully someone warned me to the fact that too many fruits might reduce egg laying since the "pecking" order in the run were that my chickens had claim to any and all food stuffs coming in.

Now there are only two bunnies in the run. This was due to the fact of the horrible fighting going on and with two bucks becoming bullies I had to start relocating rabbits. Funny thing now, out of the 7 there were two bunnies who were never attacked by the others...and we now know why. A doe can be a little witch to the bucks when they are pregnant. Bucks will become complete monsters when there is a doe around. We now rotate the rabbits out and since knowing the genders things are going better. I am certain many of you with bunny experience know what I am talking about. Boys will be okay with one another until you throw a girl in the mix. It was to the point that two of my rabbits literally had holes in their back from the horrible bites and attacks. Everyone is healed now and thanks to my insulin needles and buying antibiotics from TSC I fixed them all.

The digging is something I cannot fix and the danger comes for us that we have to watch our footing. The bunnies did most of their digging under the raised chicken coop, so going to collect eggs was like being on an episode of American Ninja or American Gladiator.

I guess in short, the bunnies and the chickens did get along. The chickens would peck at the rabbits if they were in the way of food. Even taking into consideration that rabbits are more active at night when the chickens are sleeping, you are dealing with two different animal types who do their own thing.

Keeping your bunnies in a horse stall next to chickens I would not think would create too much of a problem. As you know, the chickens are nosy and will investigate the bunnies home, but I do not think the rabbits would attack the birds. Honestly, I think it would be the other way around.

Good luck and I hope the rambling made sense!