We unfortunately lost a couple animals to the heat this year. It has caused us to take a look at how we house them and some of our routines. I wanted to write this post to help others lower the chances of losing any of their animals to heatstroke.
Besides making sure to keep your rabbits supplied with fresh water all day long, here are 4 other methods to help your rabbits beat the heat.
1. Keep the cages out of the direct sun
Rabbits are very hardy creatures but also very fragile. And as I have heard some say recently, they just look for ways to die. Being in direct sunlight in temps over 80° is going to be one of those ways to die.
Even with cold water and somewhere cool to lay, being in direct sunlight will push a rabbit’s internal temperature to dangerous and sometimes deadly levels.
Be sure to provide shade of some kind to help your animals lower their internal temps throughout the day. You can do this by stretching tarps over the cages, providing hiding places (one of ours burrows into his hay bedding), building a roof, keeping the cages inside a structure such as a barn or shed, or putting something solid on top of the cage.
2. Provide frozen water jugs to lay against
I have a supply of milk jugs, juicy juice bottles, and even a couple water bottles that I store in my freezer. By 11 am, each rabbit has one of the larger bottles or 2 of the smaller water bottles in their cage as a way to help them stay cool.
They like to lay next to the frozen containers where the air is cooler. They also like to lick the cold condensation off the jug/bottle as well.
On really hot days, I would recommend checking your rabbit air conditioning about every 2 hours and once they have sufficient melting, swap them back into the freezer and place new a.c. bottles in the cages.
Do keep in mind that rabbits like to chew. So be sure to remove any labels and always search the containers for holes at every check.
3. Rabbit Popsicles
This is one I have just learned about and I look forward to putting it into play asap.
Essentially, you take whatever your mold is going to be – plastic ice cube trays, muffin pans, silicone molds, etc – and loosely fill them with treats for your rabbit. Here’s a short list of filling ideas:
- Spinach
- Celery
- Apple chunks
- Dandelion leaves or flowers
- Plantain
- Broccoli
- Banana slices
- Marigold
- Nettle
- Peppermint
- Small amounts of pineapple
- Non-iceburg lettuces
Once you have your treats in your chosen mold, add water to fill and place in freezer.
As rabbits love to eat treats, be sure to not overload their diet with these. To be safe, limit them to one of these per day and try to offer a variety of different fillings throughout the week to help ensure they are still getting a balanced diet.
4. Mist the area around the pen with water
I don’t know about you, but when I get next to water when it’s hot, I can feel a difference in the temperature of the air.
Research has shown that “in a dry climate on a calm day with temperature in the 110° range, a properly designed and installed perimeter line mist system will be able to drop the temperatures by 30° within a few feet of the mist line. The system will provide about 15° of cooling six to eight feet from the mist line, and about 10° of cooling ten to fifteen feet from the mist line. The further away from the mist, the less cooling provided.” (1)
This is one of the big projects that I am hoping to install next year, as we won’t be able to add water to our barn this year. Still have to install concrete floors as the previous flooring (not concrete) was not maintained by the previous owner and has deteriorated. Don’t want to install a mister system with dirt floors as that would make a horrible muddy mess! Add in wet rabbit poop and it just wouldn’t be pleasant all the way around.
In the photo caption above, I linked the YouTube video to a very nice backyard mister setup using a spigot, mister sprayers, and an oscillating fan. This would do very nicely to help keep the rabbits cool even on the hottest days in a non-humid climate.
If you can’t set up a mister system, try using a garden hose over the solid roofs of your rabbit setup or even on the ground around your setup. Even if you wet the around 6′ – 8′ from your rabbits, you will still be able to provide some temperature relief and sometimes just a 5 difference is all it takes to save your buns from lethal summer temps.
How do you keep your rabbits cool in the summer heat?
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