Rabbits are the pet most often bought on the strength of a hutch that is far too small. These are the specifications the book argues for, drawn from the House Rabbit Society, the Rabbit Welfare Association and LafeberVet.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Every link below is a search, not a product endorsement. The criteria come straight from the handbook; choosing the item is yours. We have not tested specific brands and will not pretend otherwise.
Rabbits have no footpads — they carry their whole weight on fur-covered skin. On wire mesh, a hard floor, or urine-soaked bedding, that tissue dies under the load. LafeberVet puts it in four words: avoid wire floors.
The House Rabbit Society standard is a 4 ft × 4 ft pen — about 16 sq ft — plus at least four hours of free-roam a day. The UK bodies go further: roughly 65 sq ft permanently available. A hutch alone is not housing.
Search Amazon →Solid, always, with something forgiving over hard surfaces. A blanket or cushioned flooring over a sheet of vinyl solves both the pressure problem and the slipping problem.
Search Amazon →Paper-based. Never softwood shavings, pine or cedar. Keep it dry — urine-soaked bedding turns a pressure point into a wound.
Search Amazon →One per rabbit plus one spare. A prey animal without somewhere to disappear to never fully settles.
Search Amazon →The staple, not a treat. Timothy, orchard, meadow, oat or brome — a rabbit should eat its own body size in hay every day. Never alfalfa for an adult: it is a legume, high in calcium, and tied to bladder stones.
Search Amazon →A supplement, not a staple. Plain and timothy-based: one colour, one shape, no seeds, no corn, no coloured pieces, no dried fruit. At least 18% fibre, preferably 20%+, calcium 0.4–0.5% for adults. Never a muesli mix.
Search Amazon →A quarter of a US cup per 5–6 lb of rabbit per day, measured rather than eyeballed. If your rabbit is not eating its body size in hay, cut pellets before you change anything else.
Search Amazon →Large enough for the rabbit to sit in comfortably, with the hay rack over it — put the hay where the rabbit already is.
Search Amazon →Small-animal clippers and a styptic powder for the nail you inevitably take too short.
Search Amazon →A hard-sided carrier that opens from the top. Lifting a prey animal out through a front door is a fight you do not need on vet day.
Search Amazon →Weight loss is the earliest sign of GI stasis, and it shows on a scale long before it shows in the animal.
Search Amazon →