So, last year I bought 5 chickens. Lovely ladies, very gentle and friendly to us, demand hugs when they’re running around in the back yard, etc. No kidding, they’re truly delightful.
Couple months ago, a friend at work asked if she could buy a chicken that lays blue eggs. I keep the chicken, she pays me for feed (like $2/month) and gets 2 dozen eggs/month. Good deal right? Except the new girl (who is even friendlier than the original 5) is at the bottom of the pecking order and she’s got some bald spots. It looks like the others have more or less accepted her now and she’s a regular producer, but she still gets bullied from time to time and it’s heartbreaking. I knew introducing a new chicken was risky, but I’ve seen it work before.
Last month, my ex bought a pet rabbit for my oldest daughter. I adamantly refused, when we were married, to get a rabbit–even a housebroken one–because we had rabbits when I was a kid. Damn near lost a finger to one of them once, no joke. Turns out, this rabbit is also well-disposed toward people and has dominated the cats at ex’s house. This amuses me somewhat, because these cats have historically been a major factor in wild rabbit population control. Rabbit also chews on stuff, which was my main argument against, and now Ex is at her wit’s end.
So, what insight does The Dope have on a rabbit and a chicken sharing a good-sized enclosure. Let’s call it a 3x8 foot wire enclosure with a 3 foot ceiling, and inside the enclosure is a 3x2 foot box 1-1/2 feet high, elevated off the ground. I think this all depends on the temperament of the lagomorph, but is there a mongoose/snake relationship between chickens & rabbits I’m unaware of that makes this a default disaster?
The first thing off the top of my head is that there might (might!) be a health problem if they eat each other’s food. Not sure if that’s true or not, but I understand that rabbits have fairly delicate digestive systems …
Mixing animals like that seems like it is inviting trouble to me. I think it is more likely that the chicken will cause problems for the rabbit because chicken poop is disgusting and some chickens can peck anything to death given enough time for infections to set in. That is just a guess though. The rabbit could hurt or kill the chicken too. They are a lot stronger have sharp teeth.
The truly responsible thing to do is give the rabbit the big cage and get a single chicken coop for the chicken. Chickens don’t need as much space as rabbits do.
I’m guessing you think that they’re both herbivores, (kinda-not-really, since chickens eat insects) or at least, they’re both prey animals, and you figure they can share an enclosure. That’s not necessarily true. I’d suspect there’s better than even odds that they soon take a dislike to each other, and start to attack each other. Animals don’t have the human urge for companionship to the point that, “we need each other, lets make the best of this situation” – they’ll just attack the “other.” Maybe different species can share a yard, but the enclosure … that’s what makes the prospect risky. You know rabbits can bite off a human finger … I think its likely it could hurt a chicken just because. And the chicken likewise.
Oh, I’m under no illusion that herbivore = docile snugglything. Hippos, bulls, elephants, mooses, and yeah even rabbits certainly seal the case that they’re pretty damned dangerous to meaty things, they just swallow the planty things. And I also know chickens are pretty good at controlling mouse populations and have no compunction about eating them. That’s why I’m asking this in GQ about this very specific combination of critters.
Ha, I saw the thread OP and immediately thought to a classic math problem given to Taiwanese (and perhaps Chinese) children back in the day: there are C chickens and R rabbits in a cage together, with H heads and F feet. Given H and F, solve for C and R (or vice versa).
Pet rabbits should be indoors. They suffer in hot temperatures without a burrow to retreat to, they can get fleas/ticks and cannot use meds like Frontline (poisonous to rabbits), they can lose anything that can stick out of the cage to predators, and wire cage bottoms can cause foot sores and even foot deformation.
Plus you don’t want a rabbit eating chicken feed. This can cause nutritional and digestive issues and may even be dangerous depending on how much is eaten.
K, I won’t do it. I had also forgotten about the significant wild rabbit population in my 'hood and potential issues with them interacting with a domestic. Now I’m wondering if it’s even a bad idea to let the bunny roam the back yard from time to time (in complete disregard of the hawk that lives in the tree next door).
But yeah…there’s a disturbing George Thorogood song to be written out of the thread title.
What we used to have, many years ago, was a wooden frame (rectangular, but three-dimensional, roughly six feet by six feet by two fee high) covered in chicken wire on five sides, but with the bottom open.
We would take it out and set it in the grass with the pet rabbit inside, and bring a book and a lawn chair for ourselves (I don’t want to leave an indoor animal that exposed unsupervised, and the rabbit might even dig out from under the enclosure if unobserved). We’d read our paperback and the rabbit would explore and nibble fresh grass and clover. Enclosure could be moved to new grass as necessary.
Quite correct except for the flea thing - true you can’t use Frontline or nearly all the flea meds out there - However you can use Revolution at the correct dose for the rabbit. Just so you know.