How to Make a Rabbit Bed

Whether you're raising rabbits for fur or meat or simply want a warm, furry companion, you want your rabbit to be safe, happy and comfortable. Rabbits are a prey animal in the wild, and it is especially important for them to feel safe, as this will lessen stress levels. Bunnies like to hide and providing a nest box or sleeping box with good bedding will allow your bunny to de-stress in private and sleep comfortably. Rabbits can tolerate cold, but are sensitive to heat, so providing a warm bed isn't necessary.

Things You'll Need

  • Wooden box at least two or three times the size of the rabbit
  • Paper strips
  • Kiln-dried pine shavings -- from a feed store
  • Hay or straw
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Instructions

    • 1

      Place the bedding in the wooden box. Strips of paper from newspapers or shredded junk mail can make a good bedding for your rabbit, though you'll have to change it often when it starts to smell like ammonia.

    • 2

      Add kiln-dried pine pulp or shavings to the box as bedding. While some rabbit owners think that pine can be harmful to rabbits, others disagree and have used pine shavings as bedding for rabbits with no problems. The issue is the phenols in the pine, which gives pine its characteristic fresh odor. Kiln-dried pine pulp has been heated sufficiently to cook out the aromatic oils in the pine.

    • 3

      Place a bunch of hay for bedding in the box. Hay makes an excellent bedding, and your bunny has the added benefit of eating it if he needs a midnight snack. Straw can also be used, but hay is softer.

    • 4

      Use enough material for bedding that the rabbit can shuffle it around and burrow into it, for a further sense of safety and privacy. Whatever bedding material you decide to use, using enough to make bunny comfortable is important.

    • 5

      Clean the rabbit's bedding box about once a week or so. Change the bedding when it begins to smell like ammonia from rabbit urine, removing bits of uneaten food and messes the bunny may have made.