Can I safely keep chickens and rabbits together?

[The Moonshiner]

How tired do you have to be to not be able to divide by one?

Betting there's gonna be a few too tired kids here.

 

[_-Captain BRM-_]

I successfully kept rabbits and chickens together. I had 4 rabbits and 6 chickens living together in the same coop. The shared one big run. The rabbits had a safe place on the bottom of the coop with a hole just big enough for them, but to small for chickens. On top of the rabbit house, the chickens could fly up to roost and how nesting boxes to lay their eggs. Each section had a door on the back to clean out the poop. I wish I had a picture of the setup since it's probably confusing the way I am describing it.

The biggest issue was feeding. I'm sure you are well aware that corn is not good for rabbits and that is a big ingredient in chicken food. We had to have the chicken food in a place the rabbits couldn't touch it and the rabbit food somewhere else.

The rabbits lived to be a good 5-6 years until they ran away when we were moving or died of illness. It's quite the hassle having the two together but they managed. Now we have enough room for the rabbits to have their own hutch and the chickens their own coop.

Good to know- did you deal with mud?

 

[_-Captain BRM-_]

What does your chicken tractor look like?

It's 8 x 8 and 4 feet highish. It would be a younger doe with 6 chicks, only being housed in the day together just so they can enjoy the outdoors. I often let me rabbits out to enjoy the grass and cut back on hay just because I can. I remove the bottom of dog kennels do they can get the grass and then I don't have to watch them, but the tractor is bigger and they love to run. I just have my chicks houses in it at the moment

I’d be worried about keeping the rabbits outside that they’d just run away. If you want to keep them outside you should keep them in an inclosed run with no way for them to dig under the fence. Personally though, I’d keep them inside.

Owning pets takes up space. If you want to save space pets probably aren’t the best thing to have.

Pets do take space but there is nothing wrong with doing our best to save it. It also would save on money instead of building a new tractor.

 

[SilverBirds]

Good to know- did you deal with mud?

Not really. It was deep littered, underneath a shelter, and it was on a hill so water ran down instead of pooling.

 

[_-Captain BRM-_]

Not really. It was deep littered, underneath a shelter, and it was on a hill so water ran down instead of pooling.

Did you have meat rabbits? I don't think I would ever house rabbits with chickens that would be pets or breeding stock maybe for meat but that would be a huge maybe and I also don't do meat rabbits lol

 

[SilverBirds]

Did you have meat rabbits? I don't think I would ever house rabbits with chickens that would be pets or breeding stock maybe for meat but that would be a huge maybe and I also don't do meat rabbits lol

They were pet rabbits. There were two Dutch and two mini rexes. The chickens and the rabbits rarely had any issues and everyone lived a long time. We THOUGHT that we had all girl rabbits but one was incorrectly sexed so we ended up with babies. We removed mom and babies when we found out she was pregnant and integrated them back together when the babies were older.

I know a lot of people hear said it was a bad idea and I see their concerns, but honestly there were little issues. I'd house the pets with the chickens over the breeding ones. Just to be safe.

Now that we have the space to house ours separately, I prefer it to keeping them to together but it can be done if needed.

 

[chantelle1116]

I love my rabbits and have VERY expensive breeding stock so I would never want to do anything that would harm them. It it safe to keep chickens and rabbits together? I'm picturing a rabbit cleaning chicken maure off and getting sick... Rabbits die from sicknesses very easy so I want to be extremely careful. Any thoughts on this? TIA.

@Kiki
@The-White-Elephant
@BenlynFarm
@EmmaRainboe

(And those are all the rabbit people I can think of rn lol)

Chickens can give parasites, mites, and injure the bunnies. They peck them and I had one bunny get a terrible abscess from being pecked on the head. While Diatomaceous earth can help with parasites from the poops of chickens, I found housing chickens with rabbits to be a problem.
Here's my story:
I raise Flemish Giant rabbits and operate a small animal rescue. Before I started my rescue, I had 5 chickens who had a huge coop and free roamed in the yard during the day. I responded to an emergency post for help on FB and brought home many rabbits. I initially housed them in the coop inside large dog kennels. It was a nightmare because the chickens would roost on top of their kennels and poop all over them. They would also peck the rabbits through the bars. So I moved the bunnies out and made them enclosures. That worked ok, but the chickens got angry and insisted to poop right in front of their gates and 2 of them kept flying over the side fence into the enclosure and throwing their food everywhere and pooping in their hay. I had originally wanted to let the rabbits have free roaming time in the yard, but the chickens pooped everywhere and the constant battle to keep the yard clean from them was endless. I ended up relocating the bunnies to the back porch of the house and setting them up in large runs. OHHHH the chickens were so angry. They were smart and jealous and knew that the bunnies were back there. Now, bear in mind, I gave the chickens the same greens the bunnies got and left over appropriate scraps so they were not being neglected. Until the day I moved from that house, those chickens tried everything to get to the back. They staked out the door to the house and would sneak in when I brought in the groceries, and they would jet through the side gate if it was left open for even a minute. LOL The rabbits never caused any issues. I have them housed in my home with me now. Chickens are loving life on my friends ranch.

 

[BenlynFarm]

I am no expert in this topic but overall it’s not the best idea in my experience over the last couple of months. I’m currently researching issues that rabbits can cause for chickens and ducks. Since getting rabbits, I’ve had a couple chickens and a duck fall very ill and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it is. My rabbits are not housed with the chickens or ducks, they are off the ground. However, the chickens and ducks were able to roams under the cages and eat the droppings. I just closed it off so they can no longer do that. When I first got rabbits, I only thought about the chickens making them sick and not the other way around . But hopefully I have fixed the issue. Just wanted to share for others contemplating having them together.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

I had a bad experience re: chickens and rabbits sharing housing.
When I did rabbits with my sister, we tried housing bantams on the floor under the hutches in our rabbitry. The idea was they'd help keep the dropped pellets picked up and would be able to raise chicks away from the bigger chickens.

This didn't go well. We had an issue with respiratory disease that went through the rabbits and chickens, even though there was plenty of ventillation and the rabbits did not go where the chickens walked. We think the chickens scratching up the substrate under the rabbits might have stirred up fungal spores or something, because nearly every rabbit and chicken that lived in that barn got the sniffles or worse.

My house rabbit didn't get sick. My large fowl chickens that lived in a separate location didn't get sick. We managed to treat everyone but whatever it was meant we wouldn't sell any rabbits or bantams until we were sure they were over it... And it was awful to see them all sneezing and wiping crusty noses. We lost about half of the chickens though. It was the worst!