Keeping Bunnies Cool In Summer?

[Ashley B]

First off, I would like to say that all ideas are GREATLY appreciated! I have a male Rex rabbit, and currently we are keeping him in our garage. It is cooler than outside, but a little warmer than inside our house. I am 13 so moving him inside would not work because of my mom. It is going to be near 100 degrees this week and I was wondering what ideas I can use to keep him nice and cool. I have a fan by him, but it doesn't seem to help much. Also I have some ice-cubes in his dish. In his cage I have a tile floor on the regular wire bottom. Any ideas on how i can do something else to keep him cool?


Thank You!
-Ashley

 

[BunMommaD]

Try filling a 2liter soda bottle with water and freezing it! Ly it down in his cage and he can lay up against it to keep cool... Our bun lives inside, but loves his frozen bottles on hot days

 

[Ashley B]

Haha okay! How long should I keep it in the freezer? Thank you! I'll give it a try!

-Ashley&Checkers

 

[BunMommaD]

We have 2 bottles for cookie and we put them in there til they are frozen solid... Maybe 24 hrs? Or so... And then give him one in the am, and then once it cools off at night take it back to the freezer and the next day give him the other one that was in the freezer all the day before we just rotate between the two to there is always a frozen solid one cookies loves to lay by it and lick all the condensation off of it too LOL

 

[caustin4]

Freeze the tiles that are on the bottom of his cage then put them back in.

 

[mdith4him]

Binky Bunny's website has a great article on keeping bunnies cool:

Binky Bunny

 

[Sweets]

Putting wet towels on the outside of his cage might make it cooler with the fan blowing air on the towels. we used to do that for our rats, guinea pigs, birds and bunny before we got air-conditioning. Also I read that you can wet their ears a bit to help them stay cool, my bunny doesn't like that though, he just get annoyed lol

 

[BunBuns Human]

Well one of the things that the boys do to cool off is to head for the hole that BunBun dug in the garden. The ground temp here is in the 70s.

Rabbits are able to solve a lot of their own problems if people let them. They ain't stupid.

I need to measure it, but it is longer than 6 feet.

 

[BunBuns Human]

And also what I just did to BunBun over the last few days, I took a pair of scissors and cropped the fur on his torso. Left it on his legs as it was too tricky to cut off.

Have to be real careful where the scissors are pointed, as he tended to squirm a bit.

He seems to be a lot more comfortable now.

 

[Ellie]

BunBuns Human wrote:

And also what I just did to BunBun over the last few days, I took a pair of scissors and cropped the fur on his torso.  Left it on his legs as it was too tricky to cut off.

Have to be real careful where the scissors are pointed, as he tended to squirm a bit.

He seems to be a lot more comfortable now.

Hm, that's an interesting idea! Is it okay to give your rabbits a haircut? Will it grow back okay?

I wet Buster's ears yesterday, and he was okay while I was doing it... but then he groomed his ears for like 10 minutes after! Not sure if that's a good thing or not.

 

[BunBuns Human]

Ellie wrote:

Hm, that's an interesting idea! Is it okay to give your rabbits a haircut? Will it grow back okay?

I don't see why not. He doesn't need it when the temps range from 78-95 F. He is still hanging out in front of the fan most of the time during midday,but he is definately more comfortable now.

He still has a big fat furry head and legs, but his torso is about half size.

I used to do the same thing for a chow mix dog that had real thick fur and our poodles in the old days.