The Original Westley’s World Snuggle Box
When folk come to realsie that the housing they have for their rabbit is unfortunately not big, secure or safe enough etc. the first and understandable question they ask is usually 'So ... what should we use?'
Unfortunately an acceptable answer to that question has been tricky to provide because commercially available housing is both woefully inadequate in both size and quality, and acceptable alternatives are few and far between. This has been really frustrating for both us and bun's owners as well.
To this end WW; with the help of some willing and wonderful volunteers, we have spent hundreds of hours working on a project to design and produce plans for a housing unit/snuggle box that meets the following criteria -
* Meets WW's minimum Housing Guidelines for a sleeping/snuggle area.
* Is roomy, solid, warm and weatherproof.
* Is as straight forward to construct as possible.
* Has an efficient design, minimising waste.
We used the outdoor Snuggle Boxes that I built for two of WW's Rabbitat Rescue enclosures, the indoor Snuggle Boxes I built for use in the Rabbitat and for my rabbits, as well as the smaller boxes built by Janine Wadham for her rabbits as inspiration -
The result is a design that we think it is a really good alternative to commercial housing. It uses just two sheets of 17mm-18mm of ply and meets minimum size criteria that we recommend for housing in our Housing Guidelines file. It’s your choice re untreated, treated, marine ply etc. Untreated ply will need to be well protected from the weather; either under cover or well painted with high quality exterior grade enamel paint. Edges will need to be protected from chewing if using treated/marine ply and/or oil based paint.
Here is the Snuggle Box!
There are a few ways you can go about obtaining a Snuggle Box.
You can -
* Follow the cutting plans and build it yourself from scratch at home. The plans are free for you to download.
* Take the plans to your local Hardware store - Bunnings, Mitre10, Placemakers etc and have the ply sheets cut out following the cutting plan then take the pieces home and put it together yourself. You'll need to use a trailer.
* Take the plans to your local Hardware store - Bunnings, Mitre10, Placemakers etc and have the ply sheets cut out following the cutting plan then employ a handyman to put it together for you.
* Employ a handyman or builder to make it from scratch.
* Purchase a kitset from Westley’s World - pick up available in Hamilton.
* Purchase a completed SB from Westley’s World - pick up available in Hamilton.
You'll need to paint the box with high quality exterior grade enamel paint (as mentioned above) to weather proof it and sit it on some runners/skids as shown in the photo above, or a pallet to keep it off the ground.
This is what the plans look like. There are comprehensive cutting and construction instruction here - Snuggle Box Cutting & Construction Guide and here is a link to a PDF of the full set of plans for you to use - Free Snuggle Box Plans
The plans and Construction Guide are free for you to access. They are the result of hundreds of hours of voluntary work by multiple volunteers. Our goal is to make it easier for everyone to have access to quality housing for their rabbits.
Of course - you may choose to use our plans as a concept upon which to base your own individualised Snuggle Box. You could make it bigger, add 'corridors' as I have in the boxes I built for those in WW's Boarding Rabbitat. These boxes are wider than the basic Snuggle Box design so there is room on either side for the hallways into the box.
If you build a Snuggle Box we’d love to see it so please email some photos to WW so that we can ad them to the Gallery below!
Here are some examples of Snuggle Boxes that have been inspired by the WW Snuggle Box concept/plans -
If you would like to make a donation to WW as a thank you for the work that has gone into developing these plans you can do so via email using the contact button on the Home page.