We have moved since I last updated our website. We no longer live in the country on seven archers. We now live in town and the rabbits are housed in our garage. I thought with them not being housed in an aluminium shed it wouldn't be as warm, I was wrong. It can get so stuffy and hot in our garage I can't hardly stand it and I'm hot covered in fur. Housing the rabbits in a garage and not in a shed with a dirt floor has forced us to take different cooling measures. We used to use misters and burlap sacks soaked in water to cool the rabbit but the concrete floor doesn't soak the water up like the ground. The first year after we moved we left the door between the house and the garage open. We used a fan to blow the A/C air from the house out into the garage. This worked alright but it got expensive to cool the house and the garage down. And as well as we kept the rabbits cleaned, with multiple rabbits the smell of rabbit urine wafted into our house.
Last year I bought a portable A/C unit for the bunnies. Let me say this was the best rabbit investment I have ever made. I don't have to keep it super cool just enough to keep the bunnies comfortable. We also keep fans on as a cooling measure. We no longer have to freeze water bottles or worry about misters. Our rabbits have becomes pretty spoiled.
May 28, 2017
Cooling measures have officially begun at our rabbitry. We pretty much have implemented everything to keep our bunny buddies cool and comfortable in the summer heat. From fans, to misters, to frozen two liter bottles that we freeze and place in the cages with them.
Last year we put ice packs under terracotta pans. The clay pans stay cooler longer and the rabbits can lay or sit on top of them. The other added benefit is that the ice packs take up less room in the freezer than the two liter bottles.
This year we plan on making two homemade air conditioners out of five gallon buckets. I saw the plans to make these last year but never got around to making them. I've heard pros and cons about these. One person that had tried it said that the unit only cooled his house down a couple of degrees. Another reviewer said that he noticed a drastic change in temperature. Our rabbit barn is all open so I'm curious to see if this little redneck air conditioner will work but even dropping the temperature a couple of degrees will help our fuzzy friends. I'll keep you updated after I try it out. Also here's the video where I found the how to instructions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxSLbpAwibg