Switching rabbit from wire cage to solid floor

Making the switch away from a wire-bottom cage is genuinely one of the best things you can do for a rabbit's long-term health — wire floors are hard on their hocks and cause real discomfort over time, so your Blanc de Hotot will absolutely thank you for it. Rabbits are often underestimated as pets; they need generous space, a diet that's 80% hay, enrichment, and ideally companionship — and the enclosure is the foundation everything else builds on. Getting this transition right at age three, before any sore hock issues develop further, is smart timing. To point you in the right direction: is your rabbit kept indoors or outdoors, and are you looking for a pen-style setup, a hutch with solid flooring, or something more like a free-roam arrangement?

Perfect — a large indoor pen on solid flooring is exactly the right direction for a Blanc de Hotot. They're a medium-sized breed, typically 4–5 kg, so you need real floor space, not just something marketed as 'rabbit-sized.' Before I point you to the pen itself, a quick question: does he currently have sore hocks at all, or are you switching as a preventative measure? And what's your flooring like at home — hardwood, carpet, tiles? That affects what you'll want to put down underneath him.

Good instinct catching it before the hocks become a problem — and laminate is worth taking seriously because rabbits struggle to get traction on it, which causes stress and can lead to injury when they sprint or turn quickly. For the pen itself, I'd go with the Midwest Homes for Pets Exercise Pen. It's 60 inches tall so there's no jumping out, gives you well over 4.5 square metres when fully open which is genuinely spacious, and the panels interlock so you can reconfigure the shape to fit your room. Crucially it sits on your floor without a base, so you control the surface underneath. Pair it with a large jute or seagrass mat inside — they're natural, rabbit-safe to chew, and give him proper grip on the laminate. For the sleeping area, a wooden hide or tunnel keeps things cosy without wire. The Midwest pen is the backbone of the whole setup — everything else follows from having that space right.

It's a fair question — no pen is completely escape-proof against a really motivated rabbit, but the Midwest holds up well in practice for most. The panels connect with double-locking clips, and at 60 inches high a Blanc de Hotot isn't going to clear it. The weak points are the panel joints at floor level if he pushes persistently, so the simple fix is to cable-tie the bottom of each join — takes five minutes and makes it significantly more resistant. A few owners also place a piece of furniture against the outside of one panel just to anchor the whole structure. If he's a digger rather than a pusher, laying a rubber-backed mat that extends right to the pen edges stops him getting underneath. In three years of use it should hold up well with those small adjustments.

That setup will be a real upgrade for him. One thing worth doing in the first week or two is placing some of his familiar-smelling hay and a used piece of bedding inside the new pen before you move him across — it makes the new space feel less alarming and speeds up settling. Blanc de Hotots are bright, curious rabbits and once he realises the pen means space and freedom rather than confinement he'll take to it quickly. Good luck with the transition.