A wind storm almost utterly destroyed the one we were using as the goat shelter not long after it had been set up; flipped it completely over, bent legs, serious damage. The other frame we've been using as the rabbitry has held together reasonably well, though the repeated weight of rain and recently snow and ice has stretched the tarp in a couple places, demanding some creative and less than attractive fixes. About a week ago, I saw that the frame itself was finally giving out, and one of the horizontal bars was buckling.
Time to take more aggressive measures to at least lengthen the life on these things, because it's likely that the permanent rabbitry is another year away.
A friend of mine recently got out of rabbit raising for the time being; her rabbitry was smaller, like mine, and consisted of a number of cages, set up on wooden racks, in a similar tarp shelter. Because of my plans to somewhat expand my rabbitry to accommodate grow out space for the new variety I'm working on, adding her set up to mine would be very beneficial, so we discussed it and agreed on terms. I found transport for the works by way of another friend who has a car trailer, and we made plans to meet on Sunday to get her set up dismantled and moved back to my place.
I'm really excited to add her cage racks to my rabbitry; I've been needing something like that for quite a while, however, my rabbitry shelter will still need structural repairs, and hers is in need of a tarp cover. As the frames are the same size, I should be able to scavenge the old goat shelter tarp roof for her rabbitry frame. For my rabbitry frame, I will need to check around our property to see if we have a suitable substitute bar, and just outright replace that part; the tarp on mine is sagging in places, which I can minimize by tightening down with twine or rope, and then support from beneath as needed. NOT attractive, but functional, and that's what's required right now.
I'll post pics and do another post about this project as it goes :)