Rabbit never goes in hutch

[whaaatthe]

I've had her nearly 4 years, at first she would go in her hutch but for years now she has free run of the garden. When it gets to this time of year though I worry about the cold, there is no chance of her letting me pick her up put her in. Would she be ok roaming the garden if she wants?

She's got a normal sized hutch, a small hutch and two rabbit houses that she can go in. A few months back I decided to buy a new hutch to see if she would bother but nope

I would try again to put her in the hutch at night, I had a free roaming rabbit so can understand, but what about foxes?

I thought the advice these day was to bring them in in the winter now?

No, you don’t bring them indoors for winter if they normally live outside Pristine . They build up thick winter coats and bringing them inside can make them really poorly and they overheat.

OP, have you tried getting into a feeding routine so she heads back to her hutch for her pellets and veg? I definitely wouldn’t like to leave her free roaming overnight with the risk of foxes etc.

You have to work to train them to go in with food, only ever feed something high-value like their pellets inside the place you want them to go. It doesn't take them long to work it out! Mine would go inside at great speed when they heard their pellets hit the bowl.

I definitely wouldn't recommend letting her roam unsupervised. Foxes, cats, even birds of prey like owls, can cause injury or catch rabbits. Foxes and cats will hunt during the day and can turn up out of nowhere if you've been fine for months, even years. I only saw a fox in my old garden once, and it was at 3am chewing on the front of my old hutch.