Heat

Summer heat has hit Colorado and I am grateful again for my husband's wonderful construction skills. When he built the bunny room inside our barn, he insulated all four walls plus the ceiling and poured a concrete floor. I have three windows into the room that I can open for ventilation. And two doors on opposite corners of the room. He also plumbed in a water hydrant in a corner of the room, making watering sweet.

Then he installed a swamp cooler. If you're not familiar with a swamp cooler, follow this link. They work in dry climates like ours. Because the cooling happens through evaporation, a lot of moisture is pumped into the air. This is fine in June and July when it's been so dry but by August, we often open the doors just to dry the place out a bit.

But we've done all right with the extra moisture because we keep our feed and supplements in sealed plastic containers. The feed sacks are opened and poured into a trash can with lid. The supplements go in plastic ice cream buckets.

Even the hottest days, when the temperatures get over 102 degrees, we don't see our bunny-room temperatures go over 80. Admittedly, the bunnies still think they are suffering but we've never lost one to heat and they are able to breed all summer.

This year, for the first time in a while, we've placed a hutch outside. It's in the shade all day long and we like to put frozen bottles of water in the cages when the temperatures get into the 90's. Because of the shade, and often there's a slight breeze, those bunnies are doing pretty well, also.

I know other places have to use other systems for dealing with the summer heat, but that's our way and it's worked so far.