Traditional outdoor hutch keeping of domestic rabbits provides severely inadequate space, social conditions, and environmental complexity for what is actually a highly active, social species.
Traditional rabbit hutch keeping is one of the most normalized welfare failures in companion animal care. Small wooden hutches — the image most people have of rabbit housing — are incapable of meeting the welfare needs of a species that in the wild runs kilometres daily, lives in large social groups, and spends hours foraging. Rabbits in small, solitary hutches suffer from insufficient movement, chronic social deprivation, and lack of behavioral expression. Welfare-conscious rabbit keeping means large, enriched enclosures and at minimum one compatible companion.