Rabbit hutch flooring

Wire floors are ruled out. Published guidance for small pets states that cages with wire floors are not acceptable, and in rabbits standing on wire causes sore hocks — ulcerated pressure sores on the underside of the foot. Use a solid floor with absorbent bedding, a rubber or washable mat, or grass. If your hutch came with a wire floor, cover most of its area before the rabbit stands on it.

We cite the guinea pig guidance because it is the clearest published statement of the point and the mechanism is the same: a rabbit's foot has no protective pad the way a dog's does. It is fur over bone, and a rabbit stands on it all day. Wire concentrates load on a small area, the fur wears, and the skin underneath ulcerates.

Sore hocks, briefly

Pododermatitis — sore hocks — starts as thinning fur on the underside of the hind foot, progresses to a bald patch, then to a reddened area, then to an open ulcer. Once it is an open lesion it is a veterinary problem that treats slowly, because the animal keeps standing on it.

Wire flooring is the most common cause and not the only one. Excess weight increases load; a permanently wet floor softens the skin; and a floor with no soft resting area means the animal never gets relief. That last point is the practical one: even on a solid floor, a rabbit needs somewhere soft to sit.

What to use

How to cover a wire floor

Several budget hutches ship with a wire bottom over a pull-out tray, because it is easy to clean. The Aivituvin AIR15 is one we assessed. It needs fixing rather than avoiding, if you already own it.

1. 1.Cut a rubber mat or a sheet of vinyl to cover at least three quarters of the wire area. Not all of it — leaving a strip of wire over the tray preserves some of the drainage the design was built around.
2. 2.Weight it or fix it down. A mat a rabbit can pull up is a mat that will be under the rabbit rather than under its feet.
3. 3.Add absorbent bedding on top in the area the rabbit rests, so there is a soft surface as well as a solid one.
4. 4.Leave the wire strip over the tray as the toilet area. Most rabbits will use it, which keeps the resting area dry and the cleaning easy.
5. 5.Check the feet monthly. Thinning fur on the underside of a hind foot is the early sign, and it is much easier to fix at that stage.

Indoors: the specific problem

Indoors your floor is the rabbit's floor, and the two common household surfaces are both wrong in opposite directions. Laminate and tile are slippery, which is bad for joints and genuinely hazardous when a rabbit sprints and cannot stop. Carpet grips beautifully and gets eaten, and ingested carpet fiber causes gut obstructions.

What works is washable non-slip matting over whatever you have: rubber-backed rugs, bath-mat style matting, or rubber sheet. Buy two sets so one can be in the wash. This is a small recurring cost that people do not plan for and that determines whether indoor rabbit keeping is pleasant — see best indoor rabbit housing.

Outdoors: grass, and the dig problem

Grass is the best surface a rabbit can stand on — grippy, soft, and it allows grazing, which is a behavior rather than a feeding method. The problem is that a rabbit on grass digs, and a rabbit that digs under a run wall is gone.

The fix is the same mesh skirt that keeps a fox out: half-inch hardware cloth laid flat at ground level extending about 12 inches outward from the run perimeter, pegged down, and grassed over. It stops digging at the wall while leaving the rest of the run diggable, which is a reasonable compromise. Predator-proof rabbit hutches covers the security half of the same measure.