Rabbit Cages

Since we were going to be bringing home 3 new rabbits to add to our rabbitry, we needed more cages.

Granted once the current Silver Fox kits are processed we'd have enough housing, but.... we would be right back to square one when we breed the adult silver foxes in the future.

So.... I decided to make cages... or at the very least repurpose some.

I had picked up a large 'indoor type' rabbit cage on a garage sale site for $10 but it was quite large for 1 little mini-rex rabbit and it didn't have a 'floor' that allowed the rabbit urine and droppings to drop down into a tray.

To counter this and be cost effective, I decided to make it into TWO cages and add a floor.  It's SO much easier to clean rabbit cages with floors.  Just ask my kiddos.  Having the waste plummet into a removable tray is a real plus.  Not to mention it eliminates the poor little rabbit sitting in it's own droppings.

Win, win!!!

The rabbit duplex complete.

To do this, I added a wire shelf panel in the middle of the cage to divide it into 2 separate cages.  It was slightly too short width wise so I added a small strip of hardware cloth zip tied to the panel to complete the center divider.  I zip tied the whole divider to the front, back and top of the cage.  I also measured and cut with wire cutters 1 1/2 in hardware cloth to make the 'floor' of the cage. I used J clips to fasten this across the entire bottom of the preexisting cage.  The center divider was then zip tied to the floor as well.  (There will be no sneaking into each others cages in this fortress.)  The original door was smack in the middle of the cage, so I secured it closed and cut openings on each 'side' of the two cages.  I then fashioned a new door out of some of the hardware cloth remnants. I fastened them to the bottom wire of the cage with J clips so they'd 'swing down' to open.  We'll use a clip of some kind at the top to keep the doors closed.  The whole speal fits atop the original base of the cage making it easy to simply lift the top portion off for cleaning.

Voila!!  One cage made into two for a couple of our new rabbits.

You can see the divider; the 'new' doors'; as well as the hardware cloth floor in this photo.

I had been looking for another cheap, used cage at the thrift stores, on Craig's list, and garage sale sites to no avail.

The rabbits would be coming home soon so I was worried about where we'd house them until I found another cage.

Originally I figured we'd just use one of our carrier cages with the divider removed -- temporarily.  It's a decent sized cage once the divider is taken out and it would suffice until I found a 'real' cage, at any rate.

However, as we were cleaning out our garage I came across a pile of 'extra' wire storage rack panels.  You know -- the ones you put together to make cubes to hold CD's, baskets, etc?  They were popular at one time with the college/newly married crowd because they were cheap and pretty easy to assemble.  ;-)  (Gee, I wonder why they were stashed in our garage?  LOL)

The single rabbit cage out of metal shelf 'panels'.

I brought them in and began planning HOW to turn these wire panels into a rabbit cage.  Once again, I used zip ties to connect the cube panels together.  I decided to make them 1 panel wide and 2 panels long.  We had the exact number of panels necessary to make the front, back, sides, and top of the cage.  (In addition to the one I'd used as a divider in the larger cage.)  As I was assembling the pieces, I determined that keeping one panel in the front detached on all sides but one could make an awesome door.  Measuring, cutting, and attaching the 1 1/2 inch hardware cloth for the floor resulted in a much more secure and solid structure overall.  I added a 'cage' under the floor with left over hardware cloth to insert a tray for collecting the rabbit droppings.  I'm not sure how well this 'final touch' will work so if it fails, I can simply cut the zip ties and 'set' the whole cage on top of a tray of a similar size in the future.  I just didn't have such a tray at my disposal just yet.

The 'fab' door opened to showcase how easy it'll be to get a rabbit in and out.
Still need to find a 'tray' to go underneath.  The wire 'base' may or may not stay.
This cage may end up sitting on top of a tray similar to the green cage above.

The cages turned out fabulous.

We now have THREE cages for our new rabbits.

The double cage cost $10 plus a portion of hardware cloth (which we had already purchased last year for adding 'flooring' to other cages), some J clips, and fasteners to keep the doors closed (which we also already had on hand).  The second was free (but for the hardware cloth and zip ties - although the purchase of both had happened long before this construct.)

Not too shabby for three rabbit cages -- especially since I had just priced new ones at the feed store.  A new cage about the size of one side of our 'duplex' with no tray would have been approximately $40; a small one with tray close to $50; and the large one that I spent $10 for was close to $80 new.

Wow!

A little creativity, ingenuity, and hard work saved us quite a bundle and resulted in three one of a kind cages for our new mini-rex rabbits.