There’s no reason why you can’t house a rabbit indoors

It’s entirely possible to keep your rabbit indoors all the time. If you are prepared to spend a little time working out how you will house your rabbit and where you will put his rabbit hutch then there is no reason why you cannot house him indoors.

Young rabbit
Image via Wikipedia

An outdoors rabbit hutch needs to be fully enclosed to protect your rabbit from predators. However if you are keeping him indoors it is not necessary to have a fully enclosed hutch as there are no predators that are likely to attack him. Therefore you can design an indoors hutch with an open roof. This allows you to access your rabbit much more easily and also allows for ease of cleaning. We suggest a solid floor so that all mess can be easily cleaned up without damaging the floor of your room.

When looking for a good location for the rabbit housing avoid having it placed right near open windows, which can be draughty, in front of windows which get sun as these can get too hot in summer, and avoid anywhere near appliances such as gas heaters which can leak fumes.

It is possible to train a rabbit to use a litter box, or in other words to house train a rabbit. If you do so it is much easier keeping a rabbit indoors than if he makes a mess wherever he wants. If he has already been an outdoors rabbit and used a litter tray outside then use the same tray inside as he will most likely continue to use this as it smells right already. Make sure put the trade as far away as possible from any food or water source, preferably in a corner opposite to where the food and water is provided..

And remember that rabbits like to chew, and normally in an outdoors rabbit hutch you would place something for him to chew on such as a piece of wood. It’s important to do this indoors as well as he would chew on whatever he can find, which will probably be your windowsills if he is able to.

Much more dangerous is if he chews on any power cords and so, if your rabbit is to be out of his hutch from time to time make sure all power cords are protected with hard plastic sleeving.

And of course make sure he also has a private place to go into when he feels the need, or when sleeping. A box is a good way to provide this. Sometimes you need to cut holes at both ends of the box, as rabbits dislike entering an enclosed area with only one exit.

And remember, just like if you are housing your rabbit outdoors, when doing so indoors your rabbit still needs some fun things to do, so some rabbit toys such as old plastic containers or some cardboard boxes to chew on or maybe some toilet roll tubes will give him something to do.

And remember as well that if you have any other pets in the house such as a dog or a cat you must protect your rabbit from them.

There is no reason why you can’t house your rabbit indoors, you just need to spend a little time giving it some forethought.

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