My Little Fertilizer Factories & Their Recycled Houses

This is our rabbit colony.

We have four houses, but only three are visible from this angle. Currently we have four males and three females, starting from the two original "females" we acquired last fall. Yeah, right.

All the houses are made from recycled materials, with the exception of some wire we bought new.

The cage at right came from my father-in-law, who also supplied our initial pair of "ladies." It's built from an old wire spool with a few interior boards removed to create a protected inner room.

Our five new rabbits were born in that room, discovered when I attempted to clean the soiled litter.

I use an old spatula to lift and pull the refuse out and that day when I slid the blade under the cover, out popped a few tiny, long-eared heads.

The housing unit to the left was my first attempt at a rabbit cage. It's built on a shipping pallet with 4"x4" legs made from treated posts I had left over after another project.

The floor is covered with rabbit wire, the back and right side walls plywood scraps, and the left wall has a wire opening similar to the front, which folds  down all the way across the front for easier cleaning.

Clover, the black bunny here, is the mother of our little brood.

The unit to the right began it's life here on the the homestead as a chicken tractor. When the rabbits began maturing we realized we needed more space - yesterday!

I covered two pallets with wire, installed a side door for better access, and placed a failed dehydrator box inside for additional shelter. A Sheet metal scrap serves to keep rain off the sheltered interior box.

The blocks this sits on were a chimney in my wife's great-grandmother's home.

Here's another view of the chicken tractor house. Two of our three young boys live inside. A third was in residence but he is much larger than his brothers and became a bit too aggressive. We named him Attila the Bun, and he now lives alone in the spool house where he was born.

As you can see, we value recycling materials more highly than we value pretty out here in the sticks. Function is king, aesthetics only matters if it's convenient.

Here's Midnight and Red peaking out the maintenance door of the chicken tractor house.

Like most young men, they tend to leave their, ahem - "stuff" - scattered everywhere.

The big white rabbit to the left is Big Daddy, a.k.a, Crimson. We tried putting him in with his boys a few weeks ago, feeling bad about the fact that he lives in such a relatively small cage, but after so many months alone he couldn't handle himself and even little Red was torturing him relentlessly. We try to give him extra dandelions, violets and kitchen greens to make up for it.

On the right you see Crimson's old girlfriend, Clover (named for Joan Jett's version, not Tommy James & the Shondells, cause Joanie rocks!)

The two little brown bunnies with Clover are her girls, and are not yet named. We really like all the rabbits, but we never planned to have this many, so we're thinking of trading or selling a few of them to keep a good genetic mix around the place.

We have no plans to eat anyone unless things get really ugly, but it's good to have options.

Finally, meet Attila the Bun, who is almost as big as his father, and not yet six months old. He's aggressive with the other rabbits, but very friendly with those who feed him.

Guess he knows who his friends are. He also has the best personality of any of his family. I think we'll keep him.