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Rabbits & Weather

It is very important to protect your rabbit from different weather conditions.

Winter- is not too big of a threat as rabbits have fur coats to keep them warm. As long as you protect from wind and drafts they should be perfectly fine. One of my buildings is open and has hanging cages. During the winter if I don�t have enough room to move the rabbits in there into one of my closed in buildings, I give these rabbits old nesting boxes or boards to sit on, so drafts don�t come up under them.
Remember to give your rabbits a little extra food, as they�ll be burning off extra energy to keep warm. It�s best to feed your rabbits in the morning or evening, especially in winter. Make sure it�s at the same time every day. They�ll also be drinking a lot more also.
You�ll want to make sure to check their water bottles a lot to make sure they don�t freeze. Especially make sure to check the nozzle where the water comes out. Sometimes the water won't be frozen, but the little ball where the rabbit drinks from will be. To reduce freezing, you can try putting socks over your water bottles. Just make sure the rabbit does not chew on it.

Summer- now this is what you have to worry about. Heat kills rabbits. They have fur coats that they can not take off when they get overheated.
The most important thing is to put the cage in a location where they�re not in the sun as this will kill the rabbit. For my rabbits, I have all my buildings in the shadiest part of my yard. Thanks to our neighbors� tall trees, my buildings are always in the shade.
One thing to watch out for during the summer is heat stroke. Also when a rabbit is really over heated they will get a bloody nose. Rabbits that you really have to worry about overheating are pregnant and nursing does as they�re carrying around more weight on them. In the 10 years that I have had rabbits I�ve only had this happen once. It was to a nursing doe.
A rabbit�s heat is regulated through their ears. When they get hot the veins in their ears will expand in a effort to cool themselves off.

Some tips to keeping your rabbits cool are:

Fans- it�s good to have fans blowing in your rabbitry as this keeps the air moving. You can even put a wet sheet in front of it so it will blow a mist at the rabbits.

Frozen water bottles- rabbits love to play with them, wrap their bodies around them, ect. It also cools down the area, like a mini air conditioner. If there is any plastic label around the bottle, make sure to take it off, or the rabbit will take it off itself and eat it. Another thing to worry about is that rabbits might start eating the bottle itself. My rabbits have never done this, but I know of someone else whose rabbits have.

Ice cubes- rabbits love to play with these. They will chew on them, move them around, ect. What I usually do with them is rub them against the rabbit�s ears which will put them in a trance. I then place the ice cube in-between their ears. Most rabbits will shake these off a couple seconds later, but I have had rabbits sit there 5-10 minutes with the ice cube still in-between their ears.

Wet towels- you can soak a towel and put it in the cage for the rabbit to lie on. Make sure the rabbit does not chew on it!

Sprinklers- I know that some breeders put sprinklers on the roof of their rabbitries which makes it cooler inside.

Spray bottles- I do not recommend spraying your rabbits with these to cool them off. When hot, rabbits try to stay still as much as possible to stay cool. When you spray them, it causes them to run around their cage to get away from it, making them use energy. So in the long run I do not find this very helpful. A better alternative would be to spray your hands then pet the rabbit that way it isn�t a sudden shock to the rabbit. Also, you can spray you fingers then massage the rabbit�s ears.

Dunking- this is for if you have a rabbit suffering from heat stroke or has a bloody nose. You dunk the rabbit in water up to the shoulders, then put the rabbit back in their cage. You want to make sure the water is not cold, as that will be a shock to the rabbit�s body and can kill it.

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