This is a specific conversation about Rabbit housing — space and setup that works — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
Recurring eye discharge in a Lionhead is almost always made worse by the housing setup — specifically dust from hay, wood shavings, or low-grade bedding sitting right at face level. Before we get into that, I should say upfront: most hutches sold in pet shops are far too small. Rabbits need space for at least three full hops, room to stand completely upright, and separate zones for sleeping and toileting. For a rabbit with ongoing eye issues, the material and layout of the enclosure matters just as much as the size. Is your Lionhead kept indoors or outdoors, and do you have a rough idea of how much floor space you can give them?
She's indoors, it's just her on her own. I've got a decent-sized spare room corner I could use, maybe 2 metres by 1.5 metres.
inparticular.ai
That's a great amount of space, and indoors is genuinely better for a Lionhead with eye problems — you're not dealing with weather, outdoor allergens, or damp. The key question now is what she's currently sleeping and sitting on. Are you using wood shavings, paper bedding, hay as a base, or something else? And is the eye discharge watery and clear, or thicker and crusty?
It's mostly crusty, the vet said it's likely dust irritation rather than infection. She's currently on wood shavings with hay in a corner. The hutch is a standard wooden one from a pet shop.
inparticular.ai
Wood shavings are one of the worst offenders for dust — fine particles sit in the air at exactly the height a Lionhead's face is at when she's moving around. A standard wooden hutch also tends to trap dust and is harder to clean thoroughly. Given your space and her health issue, I'd move her into a Kavee C&C cage for rabbits. These are modular grid-and-coroplast enclosures — no wood, no dust-trapping surfaces, excellent airflow, and you line them with fleece rather than shavings. In your 2x1.5 metre corner you could run a 4x2 or even 5x2 grid layout which gives her proper room. The fleece liner is washable, produces almost no dust, and is genuinely transformative for rabbits with eye sensitivity.
I've not heard of those. Where would I get one and what about hay — she obviously still needs that?
inparticular.ai
Kavee sell direct from their own site but their cage kits are also on Amazon UK — search 'Kavee C&C rabbit cage' and you'll find the grid sets with coroplast bases. For hay, the trick is positioning: put her hay rack elevated and to one side rather than on the floor in the sleeping area, so she's not burying her face in it while she rests. Timothy hay is lower dust than meadow hay — Burgess Excel Timothy Hay is widely available and consistently less dusty than cheaper loose hay. Keep her fleece liner washed every 3 to 4 days and you'll notice a real difference in how often the discharge appears.
That all makes sense. Is there anything else in the setup I should change?
inparticular.ai
Two things worth doing: first, position the cage away from air vents, radiators, and any soft furnishings that collect dust — airflow matters but drafts don't help. Second, if you use a vacuum near her space, do it when she's out for a run and let it settle for 20 minutes before she goes back in. That alone reduces the dust spike she'd otherwise sit in. The Kavee cage plus fleece liner is the single biggest change you can make though — it removes the daily background dust load that's almost certainly driving the discharge.
