Poorly chicken

[BethanyRose]

Hi all, my little buns are 11 weeks now. They have the Eglu hutch and 2 metre run in a shady spot in the garden. They also come out into their playpen once a day. The problem I'm having is what exactly to put inside their hutch? I've tried so many different combinations be of things: lined with newspaper and litter/bedding pellets, pellets then straw, pellets then hay. I put their nugget bowl in there morning and evening. I split their feed into the 2 feeds for the amount they're allowed. Problem is they are poo-ing everywhere in the hutch (which is good as I don't want them to poo in the run, because of the silly design of Omlet, I can't easily sweep out the run as access is difficult!). So really I need them to sleep, eat and poop in the hutch. However they seem to sleep in a litter tray bowl in the run instead of the hutch. I was thinking of putting this type of bowl in the hutch to make it more cosy to sleep in, but plastic on plastic I'm scared it will slip over trapping one of them. What exactly do you put in your Omlet hutch? I also had to get rid of the hayrack as one bun kept jumping in it. Now they have a bowl that I fill with hay but I feel like that takes up a big area plus they scatter the hay everywhere. Guess what I'm getting at is ideally I'd like an area to poop, area to eat, area to sleep but it's not working. Can I see some of your set ups. Sorry for the long post xx

[Cat tails]

On 9/29/2021 at 11:15 AM, BethanyRose said:

Hi all, my little buns are 11 weeks now. They have the Eglu hutch and 2 metre run in a shady spot in the garden. They also come out into their playpen once a day. The problem I'm having is what exactly to put inside their hutch? I've tried so many different combinations be of things: lined with newspaper and litter/bedding pellets, pellets then straw, pellets then hay. I put their nugget bowl in there morning and evening. I split their feed into the 2 feeds for the amount they're allowed. Problem is they are poo-ing everywhere in the hutch (which is good as I don't want them to poo in the run, because of the silly design of Omlet, I can't easily sweep out the run as access is difficult!). So really I need them to sleep, eat and poop in the hutch. However they seem to sleep in a litter tray bowl in the run instead of the hutch. I was thinking of putting this type of bowl in the hutch to make it more cosy to sleep in, but plastic on plastic I'm scared it will slip over trapping one of them. What exactly do you put in your Omlet hutch? I also had to get rid of the hayrack as one bun kept jumping in it. Now they have a bowl that I fill with hay but I feel like that takes up a big area plus they scatter the hay everywhere. Guess what I'm getting at is ideally I'd like an area to poop, area to eat, area to sleep but it's not working. Can I see some of your set ups. Sorry for the long post xx

I think the Hutch is too small for what you envision. Rabbits normally have separate areas for all these things, but spread over much bigger area. Wild rabbits also have a poop area, but this almost always above ground, away from the burrow. 

Even if you find the perfect combination, you’ll need to change it every other day, if not daily, depending on weather, bunny size and amount of water they drink.

[BethanyRose]

True! Currently I'm doing newspaper (so it's easy to pick the whole lining up to change), topped with back to nature pellets, topped with straw. I think I prefer this as poo falls through the straw better than hay. It tends to just sit on top off hay once the hay gets flattened. They then have their hay in a bowl in the corner, although I stuff in quite alot so naturally it gets pulled everywhere. I guess as long as they're not pooping in the run then I'm happy. I suppose I can't expect them to keep leaving the cosy hutch to poo outside if they're eating in the hutch. They are kind of keeping to one corner-ish. I just had dreams of a nice neat litter bowl 😆