Scamp’s New Rabbit Warren
If you follow Scamp’s antics, you probably know he lives in the kitchen. His private space is usually a box/tunnel, and for the last little while it has been a round tunnel with an upturned box over the top as a look out spot. Recently though, it’s begun to have serious structural issues. The roof is getting lower, and lower and lower. After consulting a structural engineer, we determined the issue to be – ‘the little monster has eaten the floor, 90% of the sides, two corners and part of the roof’. I believe this is the official term for ‘time to get a new box’.
The old warren – slight structural issues.
So we acquired a lovely new box:
The lovely new box
Unfortunately, we do need to be able to walk down the kitchen, you know for important things like cooking rabbit treats and transferring carrots from the fridge to the food bowl. So after a few days playing with the big box in the living room, we had to do a little DIY. We started by measuring the box and carefully working out a plan.
I’m trying out stripes this week!
Then Scamp went to work on making additional exits…
…. whilst I attacked it with a stanley knife.
I’m saving this bit for later.
The trouble with square tunnels is they have a habit of leaning, we often make our tunnels triangular by slicing one corner and overlapping two sides, but I’ve a different plan this time.
This tunnel would be perfect for a one-eared, three-legged rabbit.
First I sliced the corner and refolded, to give it double thickness walls, twice the chewing potential.
Getting better!
Then, using the spare bit of box from earlier, I cut two arches and posted the tunnel through the box.
A carefully positioned hole in the tunnel (which I’m sure Scamp will expand) gives him access to a nice snug hidey hole, and once the lid is closed the tunnel will help support the roof.
All done and in place
Very smart looking, if I do say so myself. Of course, how long it survives is the real test. I imagine it will have a few extra exits in no time!
Anyone else carefully craft warrens out of boxes?
Lovely work! I have never made a warren out of boxes, although I have used them as cord blocks, tunnels and meditation rooms for Mr. Mick’s amusement.
I do admire creative box to warren conversion — you think like a bunny!
I usually leave them the boring old plain boxes and let them design their own warren… Which means I let them chew whatever they like… I shall endeavour to be more creative like you in future!
That is amazing! I spend so much money on cardboard box concoctions but I am useless with trying to DIY cardboard. I don’t have the right tools.
Hi, Tamsin! Brandi from Etherbun here to say I LOVE your blog and am I new fan of your art and your Scamp. I am floored by how much he looks like an American Eastern Cottontail. Of course, he is bigger. Cottontails are kinda teensy I think. And they have more mottling in their coats. Of course, your Scamp and our cottontails ARE wild rabbits, so DUH, they ARE going to realy favor each other in appearance.
At the rabbit rescue here in Oklahoma, a pet cottontail was just soft released back into the wild. She loved her moma but her hormones were going nuts on her and she was just torn between her two worlds. She was not spayed because vets here will not spay a wild animal, even a rescued one kept as a pet, so she was suffering with wanting to go outside and find a mate. She hangs out at the rescue wich is out on an acreage and it is possible that she is now pregnant. Of course that was some time ago, so she might be a moma herself now. That is a very happy ending for a cottontail here.
Hi Brandi, thanks for commenting, I’m glad you love the blog 🙂 I love how pretty wild rabbits look and you’re right the Cottontails are very similar to the wild rabbits here. Scamp’s been neutered, though he was never too terrible with the hormonal behaviour just had a habit of marking – he’s now 100% litter trained.
Of course, the European rabbit is the same species as our domestic pets – in the UK we sometimes get rabbits in rescue that are crossbreeds where the domestic rabbit has escaped and got pregnant meeting a wild rabbit. Maybe that explains his behaviour, if you didn’t know from looking at him he was a wild bunny, you couldn’t tell. I’ve heard Cottontails behaviour can be quite different from European rabbits.
Oooo, cardboard boxes! I used to love them in my youth. Now I am ten I don’t do quite so much scrabbling. Well, when you have a whole house to keep in order you have priorities. I can snooze and dream about them though. Emptying my hay bag onto the sitting room carpet takes quite a lot of energy every evening but it keeps me fit.
Love, Harve
Lol, there I was thinking Scamp was just making a mess with his pile of hay, but obviously it’s part of his regular exercise routine, silly me. I’ll tell him to keep it up so he can be as fit as you when he gets to ten!
Scamp’s new bachelor pad inspired me to remodel the xpen. I used a nice sturdy box that an electric guitar came packaged in and cut some holes in it, then laid a nice cozy quilt under it and attached their old square hidey box holes to the new box holes and of course they have their crinkle tunnel. I replaced their second story plywood floor with something less wobbly. I gave them an old coffee table and the long guitar box is the stepping point, since the table is a bit high. I might go look for another one that is a little less high. They love the change and I do too. I also am saving boxes that look like great architectural elements for a warren!!! I am getting ‘the eye” for it…
It sounds excellent! I do find myself eyeing up boxes thinking, “well, that would make an excellent tunnel” or “that’s just not going to hold up to having a rabbit tap dance on top”.
Hi there, your write up on building a box with scamp had me in stitches. It is just lovely to see.