Free Range Rabbit Keeping - How To Build An Artificial Warren 

Nice build & was worth the wait. Thanks for sharing folks :-)

Please give some updates on this project from time to time, as this is very interesting, I like the "warren" with entries exits and emergency holes, with less rabbits in your area I would assume lower numbers of predators? (stoat, mink, fox, cat, dog polecat, people, etc )... No lions, tigers, bears or anacondas I expect, so no risks there, take care friends coz we care ,Duncan & Rebecca

Interesting warren concept. I never thought I'd say this to a farmer but, you are so lucky to have such rocky soil, that should help keeping the rabbits contained.

A hexagon with 2 blocks per side will give you more space than a square with 3 blocks per side. It'll also make the internal doorways a bit wider, and give you an extra room. Covering it with the same sheet of ply might be a problem though. I've been thinking of trying something like this too, but for the wild rabbits living near me.

Thank you for this!! We have free range rabbits on 3/4 acre. We tried the bucket burrow system, but the American Chinchillas are too big, even for 7.8 gallon buckets, so they dug their own burrows around the buckets. Which was fine for a while, until we started discovering dead kits. The problem is, our water table here in the southeast US is very high, so when we get lots of rain, we lose all the kits to drowning. :( We are going to try this warren method and see how it goes. God bless!!

Very interesting to do this for rabbits. The same kind of thing they do for fish along the Gulf Stream along the U.S. They drop lots of pipe, or old subway cars from New York City and make artificial reefs. They produce tons of fish to eat, great idea and will work very well for rabbits I bet.

Love your vidio . They are some old school homesteading for sure. Very interesting.thank you for sharing

love this experiment. might want to plan blackberry bush as a wind break. and mulberry. so you can throw down the leaves and sticks from time to time so they have chew. works for cuy as well living fulltime outdoors.

This is very interesting! I hope to do something like this for my meat rabbits in the future. Right now I have them in a stall in our barn. We only have four does and a buck in there, so they're not overcrowded. We buried wire under a foot and a half of topsoil and they are happy to dig and be free of cages, but I wish I could let them free in our pasture to get fresh greens regularly! I can't wait to see updates on your project!

this is cool, it must be like when your a kid setting up hamster/guinea pig homes with all the tubes rooms. My only suggestion is use the sod that seems to be growing everywhere to make your rabbit houses if you need more. It's free and you seem to have some. A hundred or so years ago it was used here in the United States to make homes for people.

i keep brushpiles in the woods for the critters. we've had a problem with fishercats tho. thanks for the vid.

flemish aren't great meat rabbits or breeders. They grow slow and have bony carcasses. Their litters are also fairly small in numbers. Some breed of rabbits can have 14 kits in a litter.

Can you update us? I'm very interested to see what you found.

Marvelous idea,,, be interested in seeing how they do get on with the new digs.

Excellent plan, Tim. It's truly a luxurious home for the little fellows. Don't put them a laptop in there, though. If they see your video they'll be off. May your rabbits be as numerous as your bees!

You are so ingenious - build-a-burrow! (Bonnie)

Did you make a follow up video to show how it worked out?

I live in an apt in the city and watching videos like these makes me really wish I lived in the country. my job calls for me to live in the city but I would be just as if not more happy spending my days on a farm in the country. or maybe a cabin in the woods somewhere? unfortunately, I was born and raised by city folk in a major city so I don't have much faith in my skills, or lack thereof.

Looks great! The rabbits will probably do it themselves but putting some straw on the inside in the place you want the female to nest might be a good idea. Also, I might be worried that the wood might get gross pretty fast from urine and become unsanitary. Ideally, you want something you can clean easily.

Won't they eat all of your produce if they are left to roam about? Leave dangerous potholes around for your horse and other animals to stand in?

Nice!

Ingenious!

Spoiler alert the Rabbits started hunting the foxes....

Hi thank you for posting this! I would like to try this when I get moved out of this house.

Update on your experiment please.

Like someone mentioned below, would the composting of the organic and the wood interact to eventually collapse inward. are the upright slabs steady enough to stay upright. What about a more Square brick, those rabbits look a bit hefty to fit through the gaps but I know they are a lot of fur. Love their attack of the blackberry ( bramble) Is there concern that they might encounter wild rabbits and potentially acquire disease?

Do you have any issue with foxes? How do you prevent them getting into the rabbits?

What has happened in the Warren?

We are often blessed with wild rabbits & have to defend the gardens with netting. One of the places they burrow is in the compost of used shavings from the stable. Perhaps this would be a substitute soil for you & likely available in large quantities.

If you can, Please update on this one - Thank you very much for uploading your videos!.

i know the soild is pretty solid but what if the rabbits try digging anyway and maybe did under the thing. it probably wont collapse but might leave some big holes

I assume this is where the surname Warren came from! people who used to look after bunnies! how fascinating! I'd be very interested to know what you are going to farm them for?

I think they'd dig out of there sin the floor is dirt. Maybe you should dig a trenc around it and fill the trench with stones so they couldn't dig out?

Hello from South Dakota, USA. Former keeper of rabbits, now ducks. If the rabbits are raised for meat, I'd suggest breeds other than giants, of which Welsh Giants are one example. The ratio of bone to meat is quite high. I have had Champagne d' Argents, Silver Foxes, crosses of the two, (my favorite) and Silver Martens. These were all raised in cages, and fed rabbit pellets and alfafa hay daily. As you are trying for 'free range' rabbits, you might go with an open bay sort of arrangement. The man from whom I bought the Silver Martens had a space about four feet by four feet, on concrete, closed at the back, (wall of the former garage), open at the top, and wired on three sides. (As an alternative to concrete, feed supply places sell heavy rubber mats meant for cows. Should be rabbit teeth invincible.) Wire height about 30 inches. He kept his feeders and waterers on the wire, straw bedding on the floor. Each space held one female. He kept a couple of males in cages overhead, but they could be in similar quarters. Two things, no, three things, wait, four things to keep in mind. Females in proximity to one another will fight. (A man who bought rabbits from me lost one to fights.) Rabbits will pick a spot in which to urinate, that spot gets very messy. Three, rabbits will chew on wood. Wood floors, walls, posts what have you. Four, to breed rabbits ,always take the female to the male. Females are very territorrial. Do it the other way round and there will be a fight. In my experience, free range and rabbits are somewhat exclusive. I suppose it could be done, but each female would need its own range. I strongly recommend Story's guide to raising Rabbits. Other breeds for meat are the white furred Californians and New Zealands. And while Bugs Bunny may have eaten carrots, he was not a rabbit, but a hare. Now your peas, and beans, and cabbages, and such like. Best of luck from someone with Irish from a grandparent.

Wow what a grate idea!!

I would like to ask you what is your plan with the rabbit colony-will you let them to reproduce freely, or it will be just a place to live for the young ones till they get adult? How can you avoid in-breeding(brother mating sister or father mating daughter)? I plan since my childhood to keep free-range rabbits, unfortunately I live currently in a city, but I hope after the highschool I can go out to a farm. I like your videos, they are great! Please keep making them! If I can ask you-could you make a spring upload with the baby goose if you will have any?

Lovely idea! Just never, never ever appear in the area wearing a yellow raincoat! Whenever I did so in inclement weather, the rabbits would be panicked into an insane mad frenzy, and scale the vertical 1 metre weldmesh walls to freedom before you could say Gee Whillickers. Once they're outside the fence, free range rabbit farming is a whole lot less fun. One thing I did find though, is that although the books say they are not social animals, they did endearingly pair up and marry for life (which could be tragically short if neighbouring dogs or the various rabbit-eradication diseases inflicted on Aussie bunnies happened by). I now have a single rabbit in a movable grazing cage, devourer of vast quantities of weeds such as docks, sow thistle, marshmallow, rhubarb leaves (which are not harmful to them) etc etc, producer of piles of rich plant fertiliser. When I had dozens of bunnies being regularly rotated over a bit of poor grazing, they improved it out of recognition. Must find Lavender another husband!

Rabbit poop is VERY GOOD for growing plants.

But how do you keep the weasels out?? How to protect them from these bad small creatures?

You should keep them on your house roof, they would keep the weeds down and the fox would not be able to get at them.

Update please

Wonderful presentation, Tim ! I very much enjoy all your videos. OMG !! You asked for advice... on the youtube !!! I shall refrain from doing so, yet shall send this specific link to friends Down Under and direct them particularly to 3:09 to see what they might have to say for you nice folks with the best of intentions. rc

Excellent video! I really enjoyed it.

You should try using a go pro to do videos

Good luck

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