Back in January we introduced a new member to our family. A pet rabbit called Snuggles. Snuggles was around four months old when he joined us, and he’s well and truly settled into our family.
Our children adore him, and I must admit so do I! When we first brought Snuggles home, we purchased a cage that was recommended to us by the pet shop.
However, within a few weeks it became clear that Snuggles would quickly outgrow it. With this in mind, I did some research and purchased a rabbit hutch. The rabbit hutch is currently indoors as it’s too cold for him outdoors, but during my research into suitable rabbit housing, I read a lot online about people using chicken coops as outdoor areas for their rabbits.
A chicken coop is an ideal outdoor space for a rabbit. They’re spacious enough for rabbits to run around and secure enough to keep them safe from predators.
I’ve recently teamed up with GardenSite to review their Boston Chicken House with Run. Currently priced at £199.99, (Normal Price £249.99), this Chicken Run offers a cosy home and spacious run for chickens, or in our case, our pet rabbit!
Delivery was quick and the coop was packaged well in cardboard to protect it during transportation.
The instructions are really easy to follow, with helpful diagrams. Each piece is individually numbered, as are the various screws.
The first thing I did was lay out all of the pieces, along with the screws. This is to make it easy to identify each piece, therefore making it quicker to build.
The first section to put together is the outer enclosed area. This part has a hinged roof with hook to open and close it. If you were keeping chickens in this house, this area would be perfect for collecting eggs. It’s also handy to check in on your chicken/rabbit.
Once you’ve put the sides and floor together, you can the roof. As mentioned above, the roof is hinged so it’s really easy to attach by simply screwing the hinges on.
The hook is already attached to the roof so it’s just a case of screwing in the ‘eye’ for the hook to go through to keep it shut.
Now that you’ve added the outer enclosed section, you can start to build the sides up. One of the sides has a door on with a little window so that you can see inside.
The door has a latch on so that you can open and close it easily.
This is what the inside looks like at this point in assembly.
Next we can add the next piece of flooring, before adding the final side.
This side has a sliding door on. Later we’ll add a handle to the sliding door so that it’s easier to open and close the door. The chicken house comes with a ladder, which is how access is gained to the house.
This is what the inside looks like now.
Next up, we’ll add the roof. Much like the roof on the outer enclosed area, this roof is also hinged so that it can open and close.
Now, we can add the sides to the outside area. This two sides that attach to the house already have screws in and they simply slide onto the house area. This means that the run can be easily attached and taken off if you need to move it around. All that’s left to do then is to add the roof.
Overall it took around two hours to put the Boston Chicken House together. It was very straight forward to do. The diagrams in the assembly instructions were very clear and easy to follow.
I really like that there’s a door on the run area, as well as on the house. Plus I like that both roofs are hinged so that you can simply lift them up and check on your pet(s).
The wire is very strong and the wood used is of very good quality. It’s also good to know that it’s been built from responsibly sourced timber.
You could either leave the chicken house as it is, or paint it. We decided to paint ours with Cuprinol Garden Shades Wood Stain in Forget Me Not. Our twins enjoyed painting it, and we’ve decided that we’re going to add some stencils in white to it as well at point.
I really like that the house itself is raised up off the floor. This means that it doesn’t get cold from ground frost during the colder months.
If you were to use this for chickens it does also come with some perches for them, but as we’re using it for our rabbit, I didn’t put the perches in.
The run area is great to offer our rabbit a wide and high area for him to stretch his legs and run around within a secure area.
As mentioned above you can access inside the house and run very easily. This helps to make cleaning, feeding and egg collecting a breeze.
Overall, we’re very pleased with the Boston Chicken House from GardenSite. I think it’s great value for money, easy to put together sturdy and an excellent size.
For the purpose of this review, we were sent the Boston Chicken House free of charge. All views and opinions are 100% my own.
