Different things to bed rabbits on....

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

I have a question for all you bunny owners, what is the cheapest, best thing to bed your rabbits on?

I bed my rabbits with White Shavings and I love using the white shavings, but I am looking for some other suggestions for the bunnies who destroy their cages (Minnie & Sippi!) in a few days by dragging the shavings out of their cages!!

So, is it alright to use newspaper, like straight from the mailbox? With the ink still on it? Or is that bad? I dont know if I'd be able to get newspaper that had no ink on it....

So, what does everyone else use? Also, is it pine or cedar shavings that are bad? I know Cedar are bad...but what about pine? I know some people bed on pine and have no problems...

Emily

 

[Bassetluv]

There's tons of great info here on litter boxes and bedding for rabbits:

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=12084&forum_id=17

I use Magnum horse pellets for Anna and Yofi's boxes (compressed wood pellets). Yofi sometimes leaves it alone, but often will dig out the box, spewing wood pellets all over the cage. I tried a plastic mesh to cover the pellets at first (forget who suggested it now) and it worked for a little while...until Yofi decided the liner was yummy, and he ate it. :grumpy:

Now I'm probably going to design a wire mesh to go over the top of the litter so he can't get at it...maybe tied down to the box with twist ties or something...

*I'm not sure newspaper would work very well. It wouldn't be absorbant like pellets or other litters, and the ink would tend to get all over the rabbit's paws. I'm also not sure that bunnies ingesting paper with ink on it would be good for them, if they were to constantly eat it (one of Yof's favorite things to chew up is newspaper, so I have to watch him).

 

[Sabine]

I am using compressed straw pellets and hay for bedding. The pellets are super absorbant and even have a sweetish smell when peed on

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Thanks for your input guys

Anyone else like to share? I really need some ideas on what to use besides shavings and loose items for my EL's cages.

Emily

 

[Sabine]

P.S. I also use grass mats and woven straw mats on parts where they are less likely to pee. My bedding material is in large plastic trays only and I just keep newspaper under the mats

 

[Luv-bunniz]

Sabine wrote:

I am using compressed straw pellets and hay for bedding. The pellets are super absorbant and even have a sweetish smell when peed on

"NEDZBED" by any chance? I just started using it and the smell was pretty nice and lasted for about 10 days after a bedding change and didnt let out any smell from pee!

I need a new type of bedding so far the beddings I have thought about are:

Fleece
Bath mats
Puppy training pads
Wood shavings (cedar is toxic, as is pine that hasnt been kiln dried if it hasnt already been said)
Newspaper changed daily (its ok to use if the ink is soy based)
Fax paper changed daily (the big rolls, easy to use and tidy)
Hay and straw
Plain plastic apart from resting pads and a litter box/hay tray - clean plastic as needed

Thats all I can think of for now..

 

[Sabine]

I used Oxbow straw pllets initially but they were horrendously expensive and I had to pay shipping costs on top of it. Then I discovered a similar product by Multifit. Pellets are somewhat bigger but it works just as well and works out only a fraction of the price I payed for the Oxbow pellets.

I think Multifit also does a rodent pad. I saw a little netherland dwarf resting on it in the shop and it looked very cosy but they didn't have it that day.

I used flece blankets after Coco was spayed but she pulled them all over the place and it was quite a mess. Vetbed doesn't work for me either. My rabbits just shred it

 

[TuckerBunz]

In our litter boxes we used the kiln dried pine topped with feline pine pellets, then I cover it with a layer of hay. I use the old hay that I've swept up off their floor. This helps make everything a little more compact and they don't drag things out AS much.

For the rest of the space I have linoleum on the bottom level then on their top levels I cover their grids with cardboard and then cover that with blankets, fleece, rugs, towels, etc..anything basically that they won't eat. Mine are pretty good about that type of thing though and don't really eat stuff like that.

I prefer the smaller things like fleece, blankets and towels because it's easy enough to take out and clean if it needs it.

 

[pinksalamander]

I use fleece blankets which I wash. Definitely cheapest - they cost nothing to buy and washing powder is probably nothing!

Fran :hearts :brownbunny

 

[HoneyPot]

Rabbits actually don't need any bedding at all. If they have a wire bottomed cage, they need a comfy place to rest their feet (like a towel or a mat), but if they have a regular, solid bottom cage, you don't need any bedding at all outside of the litter in their litter box.




When my guys had cages, they had choroplast floors and no bedding.

If you're talking about the litter box, I have diggers, so to prevent them from making a mess,I added a plastic knitting screen ontop the litter box which allows the pee to go through, the poop sits on top the screen and they can't get to the litter to dig it out.


Nadia

 

[Sabine]

HoneyPot wrote:

Rabbits actually don't need any bedding at all. If they have a wire bottomed cage, they need a comfy place to rest their feet (like a towel or a mat), but if they have a regular, solid bottom cage, you don't need any bedding at all outside of the litter in their litter box.




When my guys had cages, they had choroplast floors and no bedding.

If you're talking about the litter box, I have diggers, so to prevent them from making a mess,I added a plastic knitting screen ontop the litter box which allows the pee to go through, the poop sits on top the screen and they can't get to the litter to dig it out.


Nadia

I also use the bedding material in the litter boxes only. I had considered the knitting screen but was worried they would make it their ambition to pull it apart. Magic is a rather destructive bunny and she'd see it as a challenge. I was going to experiment with two identical sise litter trays put into each other with holes drilled into the top to let the pee go through like a sieve. Haven't got around the drilling yet though

 

[Hayley411]

I can't believe no ones posted this yet but both pine and cedar shavings give of phynols which are very harmful to your rabbits. Well actually they are harmful to alot of animals hamsters, gerbils, mice, rats, dogs, cats, and humans. Pine and cedar shavings have been atributed to liver and kidney damage, even liver failure and a whole host of uper respitory infections. I would stop using the white shavings and yes even though it doesn't say they are pine on the bag, they are. Try using pellet stove pellets instead you can get them quite cheap $3.69 for a 40 pound bag. We use one bag a week fordrop pancages, and litterboxesfor 20 Holland lops.There is a very good article on pine shaving somewhere I'll have to find it.

~Hayley

 

[TreasuredFriend]

Our buns and sanctuary rabbits rest on carpet squares, rugs, or corn-maize mats. It doesn't take long to determine which fella/gal may want to chew fiber, hence, a change in what's soft and comfy to sleep on! Clean-up and vacuuming only takes a few minutes once a week to remove loose hair.

Plus the disabled gals have bath rugs which is easier on delicate limbs.

For the litter box: combination of aspen pellets or Yesterday's News recycleable litter and occasionally wood-stove pellets. Some of the arthritic buns object to the stiffer pellets and if someone's got sore hock concerns, I give them carefresh as a top fluffy layer or underline the thin cover of YN with newspaper.

HTH, sanctuary haven / foster mom Julie

OT: I was at PetCo yesterday visiting for Zupreem hay and noticed the hexagonal glass showcase with 3 neutered rabbits and the entire thing was filled with Carefresh. Wooh! has to be expensive that way!!
-- And the neutered trio licking each other with the Marshall Farm's turquoise ear dots must have a ball peeing and pooin' all over the bedding. !Party! Party! Because the TINY triangular litter box was undersized for any of the 3 bunn's backends.:shock: No wonder the Carefresh is their giant comfy-'gonal litter box. OT closure / return to bedding Q by Emily.

A foster boy w/ SRR (who's found his forever home as a sanctuary resident, Tan man Barclay) was kept strictly on newspaper with light layer of hay on opposite end of litter box. Soy ink is supposed to be the standard these days. Still, I opt away from the comic section, intense colors, and keep black & white print as a option for newspaper bedding. It tends to smell much quicker, and get saturated.

HTH,

 

[TuckerBunz]

Hayley411 wrote:

I can't believe no ones posted this yet but both pine and cedar shavings give of phynols which are very harmful to your rabbits. Well actually they are harmful to alot of animals hamsters, gerbils, mice, rats, dogs, cats, and humans. Pine and cedar shavings have been atributed to liver and kidney damage, even liver failure and a whole host of uper respitory infections. I would stop using the white shavings and yes even though it doesn't say they are pine on the bag, they are. Try using pellet stove pellets instead you can get them quite cheap $3.69 for a 40 pound bag. We use one bag a week fordrop pancages, and litterboxesfor 20 Holland lops.There is a very good article on pine shaving somewhere I'll have to find it.

~Hayley

I actually researched this quite a bit because I had heard conflicting reports. From everything I have read it all says that kiln dried pine is fine to use. The drying process reduces the compounds that cause the issues in regular pine.

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

White shavings don't smell anything like pine though. And besides that the only other shavings around are Cedar and actual Pine and I dont know if the pine is kiln dried or not. I've been using white shavings for as long as I've had rabbits and never have had any issues or anything.

Luv-Bunniz, how do I find out if the newspaper ink is soy based? :?lol.

Emily

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

pinksalamander wrote:

I use fleece blankets which I wash. Definitely cheapest - they cost nothing to buy and washing powder is probably nothing!

Fran :hearts :brownbunny

I will definitley have to look into using fleece blankets! They would probably get dirty really quickly with my bunnies, and urine soaked as well. But I could try them.


Emily

 

[tinymonster]

We just use newspaper-- anything else would be too expensive, as we like to change it often. We use shredded office paper for bedding, which seems to be working fine.

 

[TuckerBunz]

You know I was thinking of using some shredded newspaper because I'd really rather change mine daily. I put their hay in their litter boxes (in the one corner) so it'd be easier if I changed the whole thing daily.

Thing is mine are diggers and I'd be afraid I'd find everything all over the condos the next morning!

 

[Luv-bunniz]

Hayley411 wrote:

I can't believe no ones posted this yet but both pine and cedar shavings give of phynols which are very harmful to your rabbits.

If you re-read my post, I did. However you post is not 100% truthful. Kiln Dried pine is fine to use as the drying process gets rid of the phenols, cedar is toxic full stop. Stove pellets are actually usually made of pine.

 

[Sabine]

How would you know the pine shavings are kiln dried? Would it say it on the pack?