Finding the Best Rabbit Hutch Plans on the internet is nigh on impossible. Over the course of this blog posting I plan to convince you that these really are the Best Rabbit Hutch Plans Ever devised by man. And then, I’m going to blow your mind by offering you these plans – and a How-To Ebook that I am practically giving away. If you are hoping to build your own hutch, I guarantee you that I just saved you hours and hours of pointless searching. I know, because that’s what I did. I searched high and low looking for this page. But it didn’t exist then, and now it does.
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Best Rabbit Hutch Plan Ever – seriously
This post is so far outside what I normally post that it is stunning. Like, I am actually wondering who I am exactly as I post this. But sometimes, you do things just to better mankind. And that is what this post is – a bettering of mankind. Because right now I’m a little disappointed.
How did I get here? Well, 
I’ll tell you. I happen to have 2 of the cutest daughters ever to grace the planet. Seriously. This is a quantifiable fact. I have data, and charts to support this argument. Really. Regardless, they were given Lion Head Rabbits for Christmas – and it threw me into a cauldron of chaos and anxiety almost immediately. On Christmas day I promised to build them a nice Rabbit Hutch that would replace the temporary one we initially presented them in. Right? So now I’m MORALLY on the hook to my daughters to build their rabbits a new home.
Obviously enough I started by running around on the interwebs looking for Rabbit Hutch Plans, designs, drawings, specs. ANYTHING. Something that will give me ideas on how to build a Rabbit Hutch that is worth a darn. Well, I can’t find anything. Nothing worth looking at anyway. You try it. Its terrible. And most links I find are actually undercover sites to try and sell you Rabbit Hutches. So I went and looked at what it would cost to buy one as opposed to building one. And for what I wanted in a hutch I would have paid somewhere around $400. Seriously. And seeing as though I haven’t landed my Internet Start Up multi-million evaluation yet, I wasn’t going to be paying any $400 for a rabbit hutch thank you very much. Not gonna happen.
So I created one from scratch.
What I have done here is – I’ve walked you through the benefits – and I have also given you the detailed architectural diagrams I used. I will also sort of detail out some of the potential problems with these plans as well as some ideas on how to change the plans to make them different depending on your own needs. So yes, this is my bettering human kind by giving something back. Now, I believe these plans are so good that I originally planned to charge a ton of money for them. But because the internet plans are just so terrible, and the options out there for you right now are so sketchy I am practically giving them away now. So, without further ado, The Best Rabbit Hutch Plans Ever – Seriously.
Tabla Rasa –
With absolutely nothing to go on, no experience with Rabbits or the unique problems involved with owning rabbits, I throw myself at the task at hand. I took a sheet of paper, a pen, and I scribbled out my first sketch of what I wanted. Several days later I probably had 50 or more sketches of ideas. I then interviewed owners of rabbits and past owners of rabbits for what they would want in a rabbit hutch if they could do it right. Then I lined my drawings up against products for sale on the market today. And 50 more drawings later I had a couple of pretty strong candidates. And then I ran them by my wife – an ex-rabbit owner herself… who completely overhauled my drawings entirely. And once we’d come to an agreement we locked the drawings down and I made my first trip to Home Depot.
Rabbit Hutch Requirements –
There were a number of things I learned pretty quickly about rabbits – I’ll list a few of them here real fast. And just know that each item played into the design of this hutch.
- Rabbits poop. Like a lot.
- Rabbits chew. Tons.
- Rabbits need space.
- Rabbits need shelter from cold.
- Rabbits need shelter from heat.
- Rabbits poop… no really. A lot.
I literally took each of these items and made them into design requirements for the drawings. Now, if you just want to raise rabbits to eat… this isn’t the hutch for you – but you know that already, because you began laughing the moment you first saw the first drawing. You probably keep your rabbits in a 2 foot by 2 foot cage and call it good. But these lionheads are pets – and my daughters love them dearly… so that played into the requirements as well though not written down. So let’s break down the requirements one by one and how I handled them with the design.
Rabbits Like To Poop:
This was a tricky one… and I considered it probably the longest out of all my requirements listed above. At the end of the day though I decided to leave the bottom level underneath the wire mesh open. I could have just as easily put a tray under there, but I figured I could hose under the cage just as easily. I also put a tray in between the layers that smack up against the back ramp so that any pooping or peeing up top wouldn’t translate into totally gross rabbits in the lower level moments later. Where this got really tricky was that some rabbit owners said that their rabbits never pooped or peed inside their enclosures. And others said theirs did. I couldn’t get a straight answer on this one. So when I decided to enclose an area for protection during the cold I just totally closed it in instead of leaving the bottom meshed. This proved to be a mistake. (But I’ll get into that in the things I’d change section).
Rabbits Chew:
I thought about not using wood at all in the construction – but in the end decided would be the most durable outside in the long run. So I went with it anyway – but just chose not to treat the wood at all. I also didn’t use a wood that would kill them instantaneously if chewed. And ultimately besides the overall weight of the hutch, was a great decision ultimately.
Rabbits Need Space:
We chose to give the girls two male lionheads for one KEY reason. I’m sure you guessed why already. But that choice came with one other problem we had to sort out. That was that males love to get after each other. Even brothers with great relationships can get ugly. Before we put them in this larger cage, or two best friends became so cantankerous with one another that we began hearing SCREAMING coming from their cage at odd times of the day. Who knew that rabbits screamed? Right. So in the building of their new hutch I decided we needed it to be significantly bigger than the space they were coming from.
The schematic I have included for download here is probably somewhere in the realm of 24 square feet of living space. Something like 6 square feet of sheltered space and 18 square feet of unsheltered space. This has been plenty big enough to stop the screaming and fighting between these two little guys. So this was a huge huge win overall and was worth the effort by itself.
Rabbits Need Shelter:
We live in colorado – which is more temperate than say Minnesota… but it still gets plenty cold in the winter. The past 2 winters we had cold snaps in the negative 20 realm for fairly extended periods. Now that isn’t normal – but I needed to make sure I didn’t inadvertently turn the lil guys into rabbit-pops if I didn’t design the hutch correctly. And it can get extraordinarily hot in the summer, sometimes in the realm of 105 or so? So the extremes are pretty in tense. And so to take this into account I built a sheltered area (double insulated even) for the winter and an open well ventilated area in the summer. I also put a nice shingle on the roof in order to give them shade and protection from the elements. Which I attached with hinges in order to make the roof open-able.
Things I’d Change:
There are surprisingly few things I’d change about this Rabbit Hutch. Seriously, and not just because I designed it. I was fairly surprised out how few things I thought of after the fact to change on this design. But there were a few. The first big one is weight. This hutch fully assembled is heavy. Like four young guys to move heavy. I can shimmy it here and there on my own. But if I really wanted to move it – it would take four guys. Its heavy.
Another one is that it is pretty deep. Too deep for the girls to get the rabbits out when they don’t want to come out. Normally this isn’t a problem. But it is a bit too deep. I’d probably take six inches to a foot off the depth of this hutch if that is a show stopper for you.
Also, keep in mind the width of wherever you put this thing. Think about the width of the gates or access areas nearby. For example, for me, I really don’t think this thing is going out the gate of the backyard if we move. I’ll either need to disassemble the gate or the hutch. It COULD go over the gate of course – but then you are talking about 6 to 8 guys to lift it over. That would be an epic effort. One I definitely don’t look forward to. So, if I were you, just take a look around and consider the entry ways near by and size to account for said restrictions.
Most disconcerting to me, is the fact that the rabbits DEFINITELY DO poop in their inclosure. Definitely. And actually, that is what they use it for primarily. But, in a stroke of genius, I outfoxed the little buggers by making the roof open thereby giving much better access into their “clubhouse” (as the kids call it). Which allows me to just flip open the roof, and hose out their enclosure every now and again. Very very simple.
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