What temp can a mini lop sustain?

I can't find accurate information.

What tempretures can a mini lop sustain?

And I don't mean 'comfortably' (we have a very healthy, well brushed, well feed, clean waster/playtime daily mini lop female who is 8 month old & not fixed) I mean what temps would cause her illness/death?

We live in Australia, it's currently 38 degrees & she is an outside rabbit.

I just moved her into her grass cage (where I have placed 3 frozen 1.25 litre bottles of water, as I read she could lay against them if she's hot?)

She's currently laying in the shade but no where near her frozen bottles. She can't possible be comfortable in this heat could she?

Thanks in advance.


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38! That is really hot. Rabbits are built to withstand temperatures on the cold end of the spectrum but they definitely do not do well in heat. If she prefers to lie where she's lying now, perhaps you could move a frozen bottle to her chosen spot. Have you checked on her to make sure she can move and isn't just collapsed there in heat exhaustion?

I don't know what temps would cause actual harm, but I would think 38 is quite unbearable for a human as it is, and we're not even stuck in a permanent fur coat.

38!!!!!!!!!!! I live in South Australia and in summer here it gets to 45 degrees. 38 is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY to hot for any rabbit. Either bring her inside till the temprature returns to 29 degrees or under or try this cooling system. Here's what I do for my piggies and bun Bambi ( both outdoors ). So I get quite a few light weight cloths, soak them with water and hang them over the hutch and peg them down. This keeps them cool by cooling down the air that blows into their hutch. Re wet the cloths every hour or so. Also I give them an ice pack and have a fan blowing onto the cloths.

While I largely agree that 38 is too hot for rabbits, when I was younger I had an exclusively outdoor rabbit who survived many hot summers. That doesn't mean he never got too hot though. If your rabbit is used to the weather, I would say that temperatures up to 35 could probably be handled alright, but above that, and in particular above 40 your rabbit MUST be brought inside or you risk death from heat stroke. It is particularly important when there are several consecutive hot days, where the rabbit has no chance to cool down and recover.

Is her breathing very rapid? Are her nose or paws wet?

Yea, that's pretty hot! It can get to 100 F where we live but ours are more acclimated to the heat. We still provide fans, ice and insulated roof over them to help.

We live in the Phoenix area and can get those hot temps too of around 120F.

One thing you will want to also bear in mind is that lops have a much harder time with the heat because they cannot lose heat through their ears the way up-eared rabbits can. Sustained heat is also a killer.

We house our rabbits indoors all year. Have you considered this? Many of us here on RO do house our rabbits indoors. If you are concerned about smell or mess, that should not be an issue if it is handled to your advantage. Mine are indoors in the family room and have free range. I assure you they do not smell and visitors don't know we have rabbits until they actually see them (since they cannot smell them).

Oh yes, Blue Eyes made a very good point about lop ears and heat loss for temperature regulation.

Make sure you have an area inside where you can bring her when the temperature does get too warm. Even if you can't have her in a living area and put her in the laundry or bathroom, it just needs to be somewhere she can be out of the heat on those really hot days (though don't freeze her with air conditioning either).

In mature rabbits would be in a hole in the ground or laying on the cool ground.