You will need to take extra care this summer with your Angora rabbits due to the continued good weather we are having in parts of the UK. High summer temperatures can cause severe dehydration, over heating and health problems for animals especially woolly ones.
Top 10 approaches to keeping your Angora rabbits cool in hot weather:
- Clip them to remove the large long coats
- Use frozen bottles of water or frozen pads so they can sit by them to cool down
- Hang a wet towel in front of their cage or cover part of the hutch with a wet towel
- Ensure they are in a shaded location or add additional shade netting to the area and if necessary move hutches into the shade area if possible
- Ensure good ventilation and use additional fans to aid with moving air if possible
- Put them in larger more open cages
- Reduce the bedding down
- Provide a cooler surface for them to lie on like wire
- Provide more water bottles and you could put a ceramic bowl in as well
- Refresh water bottles with cold water throughout the day
Check on them regularly if you can throughout the day and if you notice any becoming floppy and limp (heat stroke) take them out of the hutch lay them on a cool surface and bathe with cool water on neck , try to get some liquid into them.