Mini Lop Cage and Pen Size

The size mistake almost everybody makes

A Mini Lop is very often sold as a Holland Lop by people who do not know the difference, and the cage gets bought to match the wrong breed. Four and a half to six and a half pounds against two to four is not a rounding error, it is double, and the pen that suited the rabbit in the shop photograph is undersized within four months.

Buy for the adult. A Mini Lop is still growing at five months and finishes around seven. If the pen fits the bunny you collect, it is the wrong pen.

The floor matters more at this weight

Solid flooring, and here it is not a preference. Sore hocks, the pressure ulcer that forms on the underside of the foot, scale with the weight pressing down on them. A Mini Lop carries half again what a Holland does over the same small foot, and wire mesh or bare hard flooring is how it starts.

Vinyl or a washable mat as the base, then fleece or towelling over it. Check the undersides of the back feet monthly: you are looking for thinning fur or a pink patch at the heel, and if you find one you change the surface that week rather than next month.

The weight trap, which is a housing problem

This is the Mini Lop issue that comes up more than any other, and it belongs on a page about pens because that is where it starts. A Mini Lop will eat whatever is in front of it. A pen that is too small plus a pellet bowl that gets topped up rather than measured produces an overweight rabbit within a year.

An overweight Mini Lop cannot reach its own back end to groom. That leads to matted fur and soiled hindquarters, and in warm weather it leads to flystrike, which is as serious as it sounds and moves fast. The rabbit that cannot turn round comfortably in its pen is the rabbit that stops exercising, and the two problems compound.

Measure the pellet ration rather than filling the bowl. Hay unlimited. Put your hands on the rabbit once a month: you should feel ribs under a light covering rather than having to press for them.

Pen rather than cage

A wire exercise pen, 30 to 36 inches high, open topped, on a washable floor. At this weight a Mini Lop is not going anywhere over a 30 inch panel, but the taller panel gives you the option of standing the pen on carpet with a mat inside rather than clipping it down.

Open topped matters more for a heavier rabbit than people expect, because you will be lifting it in and out, and lifting six pounds of rabbit through a cage door at waist height is how both of you learn to dread it.

What goes in

• A large litter tray. Larger than you think. A cat tray rather than a corner tray, because a six pound rabbit needs to get all four feet in it.
• Unlimited grass hay, topped up daily.
• A heavy ceramic bowl for water. A bottle is slower and a Mini Lop drinks a fair amount.
• A hide with two exits, big enough to turn round in. Most shop-bought hides are not.
• Chew wood. Willow or apple, untreated.

Where it goes

A room you actually use. Mini Lops are the steadiest of the four breeds we raise and the one we most often suggest to a household with children, and that temperament only develops with handling. A pen in an unused room produces a rabbit nobody handles.

Interior wall, out of direct afternoon sun, away from radiators. The denser body of a Mini Lop holds heat longer than a Holland Lop's does, so this breed is the one we are most careful about on a hot day.

Common questions

What size cage does a Mini Lop need?

Around 16 square feet of pen as a minimum, with three hours or more a day of run time outside it. A 4ft by 4ft pen is the easy answer.

Is a Mini Lop cage different from a Holland Lop cage?

Bigger, and with more attention to the floor surface. The breed is roughly double the weight and that drives both.

Can two Mini Lops share a pen?

Bonded and neutered, yes, and they do well in pairs. Double the floor area if you do. Two rabbits in a single rabbit's pen is how bonded pairs stop being bonded.

Do they need a hutch outside?

No. We place indoors. An outdoor run for supervised daytime use in good weather is a different thing and perfectly fine.