outdoor, free-range rabbits

Question
I want to keep rabbits but i do not want to keep them caged. We keep chickens like this at the moment and they always go into their hutch and are locked in at nighttime but roam free in the daytime. With the chickens we kept them penned in for a couple of weeks before letting them free so they knew where home was. Would this work with rabbits? Would they come back to their hutch during the night? Or would they run off?

Answer
It is not safe for rabbits to be free-range. There are way too many predators that consider rabbits to be prey. Feral dogs, cats, coyotes, racoons, skunks, birds of prey, and even rat can kill rabbits.

They will also not come back to their hutch like chickens will. If they are not killed or run of, they will form burrows in the ground around the property.

A cage is a rabbit's home. It is important to have it. Now, that does not mean the rabbit cannot spend a lot of time outside of the cage, but if you want rabbits that are more free, they need to be in the house. You can litterbox train them and rabbit-proof the house. Then they can spend much of their time outside of their cage. When inside where they cannot for burrows or run off, many rabbits will go back to their cage whenever they need privacy. However, it just doesn't work that way outside.