Rabbit poop is marvelous because it is made of all organic material, neatly composted into little pellets. They are like little fertilizer pellet machines. Is there anyone around you can find to build your cages for you? Just be sure not to have the bottoms be screen, because it hurts their little feet.

I've looked at craigslist, but I suppose, in this ipad, smart phone, and video game era, trends like raising rabbits went out of favor. If I have to, I'll build the cage, but it's not something I look forward to. It may be a month or two before I'm ready to move forward on this project either way,.

I raise rabbits in 2x6 ft rabbit hutches. They are made with 2x4s and hardware cloth. They have plywood roofs covered with roll roofing. Make sure to cover your wood frame on the inside with hardware cloth because they can chew through the wood. I also leave hardware cloth on the bottom for the poop to fall through. It keeps the cages cleaner and wood bottoms will just rot here in FL. The bunnies develop callused feet and I haven't seen any injury from the hardware cloth on their feet. Some people just hang cages but I need something really sturdy here due to raccoons, possum, neighbor dogs, fox, etc. Plus the hutches are about a half acre back from the house.

The hutches are underneath a carport overhang and a huge oak provides further shade over the carport area. There are vermicompost bins underneath the hutches. The bins are made from treated wood but you could use redwood instead. The shade is really important for rabbits because they can really overheat here in FL during the summer. They love cold weather. I provide them with 2 liter bottles filled with frozen water in the summers for them to lie next to in order to cool off when the temps get really hot (upper 90's F). I don't raise mine for meat so I have cute semi dwarf rabbits that are part lionhead and/or pure lionhead. Dwarfs seem to make just as much manure as the big ones lol.

My plants really love the manure. You can put straight rabbit manure on the plants or wait and vermicompost. I do both. It won't burn your plants at all. I really get good blooming on my plants here.

Here is a link to vermicomposting under rabbit hutches.

http://riseandshinerabbitry.com/2013/11/17/rabbits-and-redworms-sustainability-above-and-below/

The first photo of the pure lionhead rabbit shows chickwire and plywood on the sides. Don't do that!! lol. That was our first hutch and we learned to use hardware cloth for better protection. The bunnies will chew right through plywood and so will hungry critters who want to eat them.

Thank you, Sultra, for that encouraging information. I definitely will consider a roofed hutch-type cage. A lot of things to think about.

So, I have bought a couple cages over the last few weeks, and just a few days ago, I got four rabbits: a pair of rexes, a New Zealand white female, and what is suppose to be a New Zealand female cross. It'll probably be awhile before I get a caging and roofing system setup that I'll be happy with, but they're OK until I figure everything out.

Instead of rabbit manure or compost, why not rabbit manure and compost? Manures can be used as an accelerant for compost and the compost becomes more nutrient rich as a result (be careful with horse manure unless you want a lesson in spontaneous combustion). I would also wager that manure and compost each bring different trace elements to the party. For example, if you just compare the habits of a chicken and a rabbit, the chickens injest grit to help break down their food in the gizzard, depending on what grit they use, the resulting fertilizer could have traces of calcium, iron, copper, zinc, etc. Rabbits aren't as likely to injest these things, though it is possible if their food drags across the ground. Plants tend to use these trace elements to build up their immune systems, so they are likely to get passed along when composted. As another example, if you made sure your tomato plants had plenty of calcium to prevent blossom end rot, then any surplus calcium when the crops are done would go to the compost. Do rabbits eat much of anything that includes calcium? Anyways, just food for thought.