Rabbits kept in outdoor hutches often suffer from cold, predator stress, and inadequate social and environmental enrichment.
Rabbits in typical outdoor hutches suffer multiple welfare failures. Social isolation is highly stressful for a species that lives in groups. Small hutches prevent the binkying and running essential to rabbit wellbeing. Predator presence through the hutch wire causes extreme and repeated fear responses. Incorrect diet causes painful dental spurs that prevent eating. Rabbits hide illness as a predator avoidance strategy, meaning many die from treatable conditions that were not detected.