Morning All,

My girlfriend would like to get another house rabbit, doesn’t like wire cages and would like to have an acrylic hutch instead. As she’s going away for a few days I thought it would be a good opportunity to build one with a wooden base and frame with acrylic sides and top.

I was going to use 25 x 25 baton for the frame with a 1200 x 600 base which works out around #45.

I’ve found a place online that does sheets cut to order which I figured would be save me some time and just leave me with the drilling screw holes and works out around #60.

The door was going to be a sliding up and out portcullis type affair, if that makes sense, which I was going to use glue for and then some casters on the bottom for easy trundling.

Any suggestions or advice on what materials to use or where to buy from?

Thanks all

Sounds cool, Just bear in mind that acrylic is soft so will take on scratches easily then looks a bit crap. I used to have an acrylic PC case ( sad I know) and it was like a scratch and scuff magnet

Drilling and screwing acrylic is a pain in the arse – it cracks like a demon when you drill it or screw too tight. Or if it flexes. The frame will need to be solid enough to stop the acrylic flexing, especially at that size. You can buy specific drill bits for drilling acrylic that help quite a bit. When screwing you want to spread the load as much as possible. A proper clearance hole through the acrylic then use a penny washer maybe, or a long thin baton over the top of the acrylic. I think I’d be tempted to use something like sikaflex 512 to bond the acrylic to the frame.

Also, make sure you don’t asphyxiate the poor little sod – A wire cage has the advantage of plenty of ventilation, or has it got an open top?

Couple of thoughts from making glove boxes at work…

It will be heavy if you build it strong. Joints are best designed to add strength to the bonded joint. Don’t use superglue as it will haze. Be careful when drilling (slow with light pressure) and I would bolt the attachments for the sliding door – or even better use knurled brass threaded inserts that you can screw into.

We just use a puppy pen for our rabbit. I got a pack of edge damaged laminate from B&Q for 50p and we got a black puppy pen online – has about 10x1ft long sections so you can assemble it however you want. You could make a plywood base and drill holes for the locking pins to fall into (they are longer than the sides are high so you can secure them into the garden if outside. One section has a door we can open and let the rabbit go in and out for food/toilet and the whole thing can be dismantled.

I guess you could do something similar with acrylic instead of the puppy pen but it soon add up as it’s not cheap.

Puppy pen also means we can hang a water container and hay rack off the side.

Going back to acrylic, assuming you are going for an open top so it doesnt end up like a heat box you could make a wooden lower frame with slots that the acrylic fits into so it’s not sat directly on the base. You could also make slotted upright s for the corners that are fixed to the base so the acrylic sheets just slide into for easy removal for cleaning or if damaged.

if going for a design with a roof you will need some mesh somewhere for ventilation.

Make sure it is easy to clean out. We have a hand held battery powered vacuum next to the rabbit pen to clean up sawdust and errant poos every day. You don’t want hard to get into sharp corners that can harbour old wee etc as it will be salty and a hard to remove residue will build up quickly.

Ours is like this: http://www.petplanet.co.uk/product_group.asp?dept_id=774&pg_id=1920

another thought, you can make slotted acrylic uprights and base from strips glued/screwed together to keep the look.

Also look at polycarbonate – a lot tougher than acrylic but more expensive.

And consider that cleaning will need to be done gently to avoid scratches.

Or house rabbits live in a double height hutch from pets at home. It’s lasted 4 years and can be assembled in an hour with an electric screwdriver.

What’s not to like?

Actually, I’ll tell you what’s not to like, the cages with the mesh for the doors sitting in a groove along the for frames. They’ll get eaten in no time and the mesh well fall out. Buy one with the mesh attached to the inside of the door.

🙂

Our house rabbits live in a double height hutch from pets at home. It’s lasted 4 years and can be assembled in an hour with an electric screwdriver.

What’s not to like?

Actually, I’ll tell you what’s not to like, the cages with the mesh for the doors sitting in a groove along the for frames. They’ll get eaten in no time and the mesh well fall out. Buy one with the mesh attached to the inside of the door.

🙂

EDIT: THOUGHTS if the buns have pink eyes they need shade, the iris is useless all blocking light. Also the oven effect. Also acrylic is really fragile, slippy and generally pants. You may know this already, but the height and length of the hutch is important, check the RSPCA guidelines, and have a dig/scrape around on rabbit.org for other advice.

Rabbits are very susceptible to heat stroke so need a very well ventilated cage, ideally out of direct sunlight. I’d worry that solid acrylic would be a bit like putting it in a greenhouse, even more so if you have any kind of heating in that room.

If it had to be acrylic I would put 1″ holes through it about every inch. Although I wouldn’t use acrylic as it is a pain to work with (if you must use it use really sharp, preferably new drill bits, very, very slowly). Fine emery paper works well to take the sharp edges off but you will need to use the finest grit you can find to avoid an obviously scratched finish

If you have the skills why not make the whole thing out of wood and use thicker (vertical – makes them harder to chew) metal rods every inch or so to produce bars that are more decorative than chicken wire?

And please don’t put a wire floor in, it makes cleaning easier but can badly damage the rabbits feet.

Correx, like they make estate agent signs out of, is popular in the guinea pig world. Easy to work with and tough. It needs mesh walls though as it’s obviously not see through.

Most plastic cages from shops will have a mesh top to.provide ventilation. Make sure you do something similar, and remember to think about water bottle mounting points (a few ideally as a change in the bottle position, along with everything else in the hutch, every now and then is good for them).

Are you wanting to build one to save money or for extra space? If saving money it’s not usually viable but I know most hutches are too small (we have two guinea pigs in the biggest single storey rabbit hutch and even that looks small, I can’t imagine two rabbits in it) in which case it’ll be worthwhile.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utgpkOxTVWM[/video]

Any excuse 🙂

Warning – best turn the volume down

My experience with acrylic type (technically they were made of ‘Noryl’) stuff for rabbits is of noise problems – it’s like having a drum in the room, every scrabble or flinch booms round the room like the back of an unlined transit van.

You plan on keeping a rabbit in a fish tank in the house? Wouldn’t smacking it in the head with a mallet be kinder?

my wife and i live with rocket and mabel (two rescue rabbits) and have had house rabbits for years (ui and lola both made it to 14).

we use a big hutch from pets at home which totally comes apart. its essential so that it can be properly cleaned (especially as being in the living room, you don’t want anything to get smelly (other than me after biking). anything chewable all be chewed at least once and there stomaches are very fragile.

cover up any floor cables with garden hose of similar. once they buns have a routine and set corners with litter trays they are great fun. they stretch out in front of the fire and run to the fridge everytime we open it. both very much fans of 29ers and all my weird biking/music opinions as well.

Rocket boy 😀