Chooks and bunnies

[dogsbody]

I had an interesting FB chat with a neice who tells me Little Bruv is planning to take on chooks and mix them in the same run as the bunnies.

I'm not convinced.

Anyone got any experience / advice?

(Did a search to see if it had been asked before, didn't find much except some great ideas as to what to do with enlarged courgettes)

[RichmondHens]

Many years ago when I was a young teenager I kept a rabbit in the chicken run and there were no problems. He did have his own hutch though which he could go in if he wanted, and the chooks got shut up in their own shed at night. They really didn't bother each other at all.

I think it's probably down to the disposition of each - you could get aggressive chickens that would happily peck a docile rabbit, or an aggressive bunny who would attack the chickens. So, it might work, or it might not.

I might add, you would need a pretty big enclosure to do this though. An ordinary sized rabbit run would certainly not be big enough for chickens, with or without the rabbits in it!

[lynda66]

i have Psycho .... so named because she launched a full scale aerial attack on anyone that went near .... think bunny from holy grail and you'll be on the right lines

anyway .... i had my girls .... and 12 meat birds and 2 ducks ..... i sectioned the run off for egg layers, ducks, chicks and psycho

she kept to herself mostly but after a couple of weeks the chicks started flying over cos her food was better than theirs ..... and she never batted an eyelid .... and she actually seemed to enjoy their company and a couple of times i found a chick in her house with her ..... and she stopped attacking me as well

as long as they have plenty of room i can't think of any reasons why not to house them together.

[lynda66]

oh yeah, the same rules apply as for introducing any new animals to a family

[OverWyreGrower]

I had 2 huge rabbits free-ranging in my bird pen (100sq m)... the chooks and duck never bothered them, as Lacey (the female) was larger than them...

I'd find them cuddled up together outside in the sunshine sometimes, and the hens really liked the rabbits hutch to lay in.

I think you'd either need Large Fowl and larger bunnies, or bantams and smaller rabbits. I have been warned in the past that a rabbit kick (even accidentally) could seriously injure a chicken (broken leg, broken wing), so I guess you'd have to take that into consideration.