Monday, July 14, 2008

Rabbitat problems

There are many problems and inconveniences with having animals outdoors 24/7. I will spare you the gory details as to why rabbits should not be outside and just go into the rabbitat issues.

In the winter I have a hard time keeping them warm. I put up walls, but it's so dark; we do have windows, but maybe need more. It rains a lot, sometimes the rabbitat floods. We did recently install gutters and a rain barrel, which has helped a little. The water bottles freeze. Blankets and straw is damp. Not to mention that it sucks to be outside in the freezing cold for over an hour for cleaning...

Summer poses other problems. Mostly bugs, spiders, fleas, flys, mosquito's and everything else. I don't use any bug killer at all in the rabbitat. Shoot, I won't even allow my husband to use toxic fertilizer because I track it into the rabbitat and house! I figure the spiders in the rabbitat help control the fleas and mosquito's. It also gets too hot in the rabbitat in the summer. It's always 10 degrees warmer. For example, on Monday it was about 71, when I checked on the buns at lunch time it was 80 in the rabbitat. A friend suggested putting white shingles on the roof, of course that suggestion is a bit too late. The bees or wasps (what ever they are, I don't know) love the rabbitat. We eliminate nests via a shop vac. Here is the current one hanging around.

2 comments:

d. moll, l.ac. said...

Rabbitat; a living work in progress.

RG said...

Yup .. those mud wasp nests get to be everywhere .. have to watch where I stick my hands about this time of year.

Are the fans working?

Hey .. why not just let them live inside??? :<)