Small area housing ideas

[iLuvMyLilBuns]

I'll be bringing my 2 1/2 year old holland lop indoors to live within the next few weeks He'll be in my bedroom, it's an average size. Not very big. I would love to just have him roam my bedroom and not have an "enclosure" for him but I've heard that having a cage especially at night is a good idea. He isn't litter box trained so I'm thinking I'll start with an enclosed space.
Is an x-pen the best idea or is there something better for a small area? If so, where did you guys purchase yours and which ones are the best? (links to them would be great)
My room is carpet, will that be hard with litter box training?
Can he potentially roam my bedroom with no enclosure?

I would rather not have an enclosure for him since my room is on the small side, if anyone has bunnies that roam free how does it work for you? I'm also a little worried about sleeping with him in my room since he's pretty busy/noisy. I'm such a light sleeper, I had a bunny in my room not long ago and I could barely sleep.

He's a very very sweet little boy and hates being caged up. He runs to me when he sees me and follows everyone around like a puppy. I've never had that bond with any of my other rabbits so I'm excited to bring him indoors! He shows no signs of aggression, just a little hormonal. I won't be bonding him anytime soon so I plan on neutering him later this fall.

Any advice or experience with housing a rabbit indoors in a small area would be great!

 

[iLuvMyLilBuns]

...?

 

[NatalieHinds]

I'd suggest getting a large/medium dog crate for his enclosure. I think an Xpen would be okay for him as well, but you need to think about what your bunny will be doing when you're sleeping. He could try to jump out/escape and get hurt or into things in the process. If he isn't litter trained you are risking your carpet to be peed and pooped on, so I think a dog crate would be the best fit.

 

[iLuvMyLilBuns]

Thanks! but I'm still leaning towards an x-pen.

 

[JBun]

Xpen will work just fine. Homemade C&C cages are good too. I would suggest covering the carpet, especially since he's not litter trained yet. A tarp may work if he isn't a chewer. If you need something more durable, textured linoleum makes a good flooring surface. Not easy to chew at if the edges are on the outside of the pen, and easy for clean up.

Depending on how destructive he is and how well you bunny proof your room, will determine how well letting him free roam will work. But it can work. Many people have free roam buns. But it's better to start with a cage til he is potty trained, and supervise play. Then when you are more sure about his habits and what sort of trouble he likes to get into, and your room is bunny proofed, then you will be better able to determine if free roam will work.

If he's active at night, sleeping might be an issue. Sometimes they can adapt to your routine and will settle down at night, sometimes not.

 

[Almi]

I'd personally go with a dog kennel too (I have a large one which I keep my bun in).

If you wanted to avoid having him locked up at night, you're probably going to have to put up with him jumping on you and making noise at night, no doubt. To help keep him from peeing on the carpet, put a litter box in every corner he has access to. Bunny proof everything. Cords, places he can get stuck, things he can ruin and get in to.

Really you're better off penning him up at night though.

 

[iLuvMyLilBuns]

Thank you all for the great advice! I've decided to start with an xpen with a tarp on the bottom and see how that goes. I found a few on amazon, is that a good place to purchase one? Here's a few I found but I'm not sure which one would be sufficient or if I should be looking somewhere else for one Any input or a link to a different one would be great Also it can't be very big because my bedroom isn't huge.

 

[hrmom26]

i personally would make a x-pen its cheaper and you can make it to fit your exact space i made loki's cage myself using zipties and the squares from a set of 6 shelf wire storage cubes , i have since enclosed it because like someone else said he could jump out and get hurt i will attach his finished cage pic as well so u can compare and he loves the newest one btw and i still let him out to run around with me daily so he gets his "me time " lol

here is a look at loki cage when it was more of a pen then the next his his cage today

 

[Almi]

I would get the last pen you posted, OP. I was looking at the dimensions on those and it looks like that's going to be the best size for your money, unless you needed something taller than 24" (IMO you don't).

I'm actually interested now, myself...I can have one of these in the basement and his dog kennel on the main floor, right? =D

 

[rachaeeelanneee]

24" is only two feet tall. We need to keep in mind how high buns can jump. My bun was in an xpen but started getting so excited when he saw me that he'd jump out. I would not recommend an xpen that short..

 

[Liung]

Have you looked at all into storage cube condos? They're great for giving your rabbit tons of room without taking up a lot of space! Most people suggest Neat Idea Cubes, which are made of wire squares 14" wide, but I had a lot of difficulty finding equivalents in Canada. Packs of 4 cubes were being sold for upwards of $70!! Finally I found 12" squares at $3 per 1 cube at Dollarama, and used the carpet squares also sold there at $2 per 4 squares to make the flooring! Voila, a cheap, space efficient bunny condo!! (Also tons of fun to put together)

I do find, however, that my buns had a hard time climbing down when the floors were 12" apart, so when I made mine I made sure to have at least one shelf at 6" between floors to help them, and that works perfectly for them.

(My buns already live in a 4' x 8' enclosure when they don't have free run of the entire bottom floor of our house, but there's no such thing as spoiling them too much, so I gave them this as well. It actually works out well, and allows my one bun to see over the enclosure walls if she sits on the top floor of the condo. She really enjoys being able to see what's going on.)

 

[Lexi01]

Storage cube enclosures are so great... I could not find anyone locally selling them !! I'm building one out of a dresser for indoor hutch, I started a thread on how to make it. My plan is that I can leave the door open and she can hop in to use the litter and hop out whenever and there's enough room in there to keep her enclosed comfortably when I don't want her out. There's also lots of ideas on Pinterest.

 

[Liung]

If you're in Canada, like I said I know Dollarama sells them. But I also recently found some in Walmart, in the storage aisle. I'd looked for them previously in the shelving aisle, but didn't find any. Then I went into the storage aisle to get a clear bin to DIY into an enclosed litter box, and lo and behold storage cubes!! Oh I was so mad. They weren't that much more than the ones I found at Dollarama, either, since Dollarama sells them as one cube each and I'm pretty sure Walmart sells them in packs of 3.

Otherwise, Lowes I believe sells them, though much more expensive. In Canada the most common brand seems to be "Honey Do" or something. In the US and UK you can get the NIC.

 

[Liung]

Especially if you're in the US you can always try Amazon.com

I found several there but they were gonna charge me $50 to get across the border. WHAT HAPPENED TO NAFTA?!

 

[Lexi01]

I tried all of those places around here but just looked at me like I was crazy haha

 

[Liung]

Yeah actually that was really weird for me, when I was first looking for them, in Walmart when I couldn't find them in shelving I asked a sales associate. He told me that they were a relatively small store, and don't carry everything, so he looked it up on their online catalogue for me. And he found nothing! Even though I personally found them in the storage section like two months later.