Many of us with house rabbits choose to confine them to their rooms when we are out or asleep for their own safety. It's one thing to 100 precent rabbit-proof one room, but over a whole house there is so much unexpected catastrophes waiting to happen for a little fluffy beast - especially one who can and will squeeze into or jump onto something without properly assessing a safe escape route. Then when you let them out roaming, if you do hear a tremendous crash, or the sound of a scrabbling stuck fluffster, you can go running to the rescue.
But if you are going to shut them in somewhere, especially if they will be shut in at dawn and dusk when rabbits are naturally at their most active, you need to make sure that space is sufficient for them to run about and play. My own bunnies get a 120 square foot room, which seems like a decent space for them. The Rabbit Residence Rescue suggests a minimum space of 60 square foot if they will sometimes be shut in it, which happens to be the size of our spare room where RRR foster bunnies sometimes stay.
Bunnies like Tate are generally here in our house out of necessity, as in Tate's case where his fragile body wasn't coping with the outdoor temperatures at the Rescue. I try not to feel bad that I can only give them the minimum space as by the time they have asked me, the RRR team generally don't have any better options, so being stuck in a 60 square foot space for the time they are here is often preferable to the alternatives. As it has turned out, Tate has somehow managed to wrangle them lots of free-roaming time, so the foster bunnies have themselves a pretty sweet deal here and I dread to think of the demands for premium service the RRR staff and volunteers are going to have to deal with from them when they go back.
One thing I think they will be grateful for when they go back though is the improved view. They can't really see much outside of the spare room except sky (the window is high up the wall if you are a rabbit) and occasionally a grumpy-looking elderly lop glaring at them from down the hall.
"You know the problem, so get me a bigger box. I need to look out of the window to see if any of the neighbours are buying better carrots."
