cages for bunnies?

[alisa9395]

ok, i am trying to look for a cage for my bunny, but i don't want to spend a whole lot. i have seen that you can buy dog crates that are wire, could you do that and then fix it up to where the bunny could not get out and fix the bottom also?

 

[dragynflye]

one of my buns lives in a wire dog kennel. it's bigger than most of the store bought rabbit cages out there. i think it would be fine as long as your bun gets LOTS of time out of the cage to run and play (mine is doing zoomies around the entire house as we speak!). have you looked into making your own cage? there should be lots of threads on using nic cubes to build your own cage or pen. a lot of people also use exercise pens, the kind meant for dogs.

 

[Watermelons]

I went the nic cube route, love it, picked up about 60 pannels for 45$ and i could make it to fit the area my cage was supposed to go.
The Wire kennels are great too, well the 2 largest sizes anyway, add a shelf or 2 in there and they will love it, however even used, they can be expensive. Luckily they have trays on the bottom so their easy to clean.
There are lots of wonderful ideas on the forum

 

[Marrie]

Agree with building your own. The NIC cubes here are cheapest at Bed Bath & Beyond @ 19.99 for 20 panels, the plastic sheets are $6 for the bottom. And they are expandable so as your bunny grows, the cage can grow with it!

The large dog kennels here are $60-$150

My cage atm is baby gate panels for the "cage" and hard plastic for the bottom (with towels over it to make it comfy), they were already at my house so cost was $0 and it is larger than any of the cages they had at the pet store.

 

[plasticbunny]

I like nic panels, but my cages are made from x-pen panels. I like the look of the x-pen panels more... maybe it's just me but I think they're easier to see through! They're a little pricier at about $75 for an XL pen. From my experience, dog crates are harder to clean, and bunny poops go flying everywhere through the bars, ha ha. I think it's much easier to just have them on the floor and sweep and mop to clean, rather than navigate a soiled dog pen pan through the bathroom door to rinse in the tub.

 

[kirst3buns]

I've used both the XL dog crate and NIC panel. I like the NIC panel cage better because I have made the door so that I can open the top separately from the bottom in case I don't want to let my bunny out. The wire dog crate had one large door and sometimes my bunny would sneak by in the morning when I only was tryint to put in more hay. When I was using the dog crate all the time, I made a bottom from coroplast and made sides for it that went up about 4 inches high so that it would contain any litter or hay that got kicked out of the litter box. I also rigged up a shelf so there was a higher level for the bunny. I think the XL dog crate is probably more expensive than the NIC cube panel cages, unless you can find one used. I also used coroplast in the bottom of my NIC cube panel cages.

 

[MsBunBun]

Making your own cage from NIC panels is the much cheaper option.

Pet stores overprice their premade cages, and the pet store cages arent even big enough. (usually)

 

[Yurusumaji]

Over in the Housing section of the forum there are cage threads for 2010 and 2011. Check them both out to get some ideas on what you want in a cage. There are lots of amazing shelf grid cages as well as homemade hutches and some store cages.

Most people build their own shelf grid cages. Shelf grid cages are easy to assemble, you can build them to fit a specific space, they're cheaper per square foot than a pre-made pet store cage and they're fully customizable so you can build it in a way that you like it and make it so it's easy for you to clean and maintain.