Designing a new Hutch for rabbits and need your help!

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xnimmyx

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Hello, I'm currently in my final year as a Product Design student and I'm planning to design a hutch that will be able to fit any size of bunny with extra extensions that can be purchased to add to the hutch. However, ill need some research so was asking whether anyone could help me by answering some questions that would be able to help me with this design. These are the questions that i wanted to ask:

How many Rabbits do you currently own?

How long have you owned your rabbit/rabbits for?

Do you own a Hutch for your rabbit/s? If yes, what kind of Hutch and what is the estimated size?

Have you ever faced any problems with the you own or previously owned? (such as Rabbits escaping, chewing the hutch, etc)

Have you ever had the need to buy a new hutch? If yes, why?

Do you own a run for your rabbit? If yes, did you build it yourself or did you buy it?

Have you faced any problems when you are trying to clean your rabbits hutch?

While owning your rabbit, have you had to make any adjustments to the current hutch to meet their needs? (such as adjusting the sizes of parts of the hutch)

Do you face any problems when trying to feed your pets?

Are there any other animals in your area that are dangerous to your rabbits? if yes, what are they?


Thank you very much for answering these questions. They will help me immensely for designing my product. Any other information that you can provide me will also be greatly appreciated. :)
 
I would suggest you begin by taking a look at the following thread on this forum:
http://www.rabbitsonline.net/showthread.php?t=87073

You will see that the bulk of us house our rabbits indoors. There are some that live in climates that can work with outdoor housing and those that do, often have much more than just a hutch. Indoor housing, however, is what most advocate. In fact, any rabbit rescue in the US I've seen prohibit their adopters from housing the adopted rabbits outdoors.

Not sure what you may be thinking in terms of design for outdoor housing, but the following two pages can give you a better feel for what us rabbit lovers would consider acceptable and not acceptable. Especially don't miss the second link because it shows "unacceptable" hutches that may surprise you.

http://pinterest.com/catcatxx/rabbit-housing-wall-of-fame/

http://pinterest.com/catcatxx/rabbit-housing-wall-of-shame/
Scroll down a bit on this page to get to some potential surprises.
 
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I had never seen that wall of shame / fame pinterest! That's really useful!
I don't think there is a single hutch without at least a run attached that's acceptable. Like Blue eyes said, most people here have indoor rabbits. Mine have their own room (about 15 m²) and they definitely use all of it ^^. I'm not fond of the hutch thing because it often lacks space (a rabbit needs to have a litter box, a bowl for water, a bowl for food, a hiding place like a little cardboard house and still have the space to hop around and lay down) and that if the rabbit is kept in a cage / hutch he has to be out of it for at least 5 hours a day (the bare minimum) and to be able to get in and out of his cage on his own. Most rabbits don't like being handled and rabbits are regularly accidentally killed while being handled, so any type of accomodation that makes it mandatory for you to grab the rabbit to get him in and out is bad in my opinion. To put the rabbit outside also means that people generally won't have a lot of interactions with them. It's a pain to go outside half a dozen of times in the winter to feed the rabbit, clean his hutch (which are often really hard to clean thoroughly), and pet him a bit. The RWAF produced this a few years ago to inform people about rabbits' living accommodations. The song is pretty horrendous, but the message is still relevant :[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4z_Mrg-lpc"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4z_Mrg-lpc[/ame]
 
Thank you very much for the feedback, I really appropriate it. ^_^

Just to let you know here in England over 56% of rabbits are kept outdoors. In fact mine are kept outdoors to, however I keep mine in my old garage so they have never been confined to a hutch.

Over the years I have acquired a lot of knowledge around keeping rabbits hence why I have decided to design a more suitable rabbit home for outdoor rabbits.

If you know anyone else that could answer these questions for me, it will be much appreciated.
 
Did you see the links from my prior post? They show examples of suitable outdoor housing (one link) and outdoor housing that many "think" are roomy, but actually are not (other link).

BTW, the video that Aki attached is from a UK site.
 
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