Our suburban homestead is set up so we utilize everything possible. Our garden produces food first, the waste goes directly into our 10X16 rabbit yard, as do all the weeds from maintaining the garden, this is our rabbits' main food source, with hay being secondary and pellets last. Waste not, want not.
I used a chain link dog kennel as the base for the rabbit yard, then strung chicken wire along the bottom to keep the little bastids from getting through the fence. We live in an area with very rocky soil, so all the rocks we tilled out of the garden line the rabbit yard fence on both sides to prevent them from burrowing out. I split the area in two, to allow the Timothy grass and Alfalfa to regrow as the other half is eaten down, this helps cut way down on the feed bill.
Another idea I had was the rabbits' fallout shelter
: , rabbits can overheat easily, so having a cool area for them to hang out in is a neccessity. I just dug down a foot, then lined bricks 6" high around the hole, laid some old pallet slats over the hole and put the earth I dug out of the hole back on top of the shelter. It's normal to see all 6 of our rabbits hanging out in there on hot summer days, they actually prefer it over the frozen water bottles we put out for them :thumb: It's about 20 degrees cooler in their fallout shelter than in the shaded areas of their rabbit yard.
Rabbits are burrowers by nature, so it makes sense that they'd prefer the earth shelter over the artificial shade, they've actually excavated their shelter down another 6" into the ground since I built it, giving them a 18" deep shelter, with an additional 6" of head room above the level of the yard.
Another thing we've done is built a rabbit tractor out of 2X4's and chicken wire, we move this around our yard and get double benefits, the rabbits eat free feed, and I don't have to mow the lawn :thumb:
Check out "Sweeper & MissAnnie's suburban homestead" thread stickied in the Farming forum, there's some pics that may help you out :thumb:
