Keeping cages neat

[sibelabmom]

How do all of you keep your cages neat and clean? Every morning I remove the hide-hole and food and water bowls, dump the bedding and litter into the garbage, clean the cage with Clorox, then wash the hide-hole and food bowls and litter box. After that, everything goes back in the cage neatly with fresh water and food and bedding. Within an hour, the cage looks like I didn't do a thing. Since there are two rabbits in there, I've halved the amount of aspen shavings I put in there and started cleaning the cage twice a day. I don't really mind doing it, since it doesn't smell nearly as bad as cleaning up behind my dogs, but my girls appear to really be resisting the litter box. They'll sometimes urinate in it, but they are hopeless with feces at the moment. I keep picking it up and moving it into the litter box, but they aren't taking the hint lol. Is there any way to keep the cage looking decent for more than an hour, or is it hopeless and I should just accept it and move on?

 

[Watermelons]

Most people don't use bedding. Bedding everywhere confuses them and its like litter.... but in the whole cage! Getting them fixed may help with the poop, but those are dry and you can just vacuum them up.

 

[sibelabmom]

Really? No bedding at all? Isn't it uncomfortable for them to just lie on the plastic?

 

[stevesmum]

I think you're cleaning way too often and confusing them as to where they should "go". And I don't think it's necessary to bleach the whole cage every day either. I use a spray bottle of half vinegar half water and it does a great job. Removes pee stains in the litter box like nothing else. Having rabbits is not a neat and tidy venture, so I'd say accept it and just enjoy them.

 

[Ashlie]

With my rabbits in the start I would leave my rabbits in the house in the bathroom for a little while and after a little bit they did all of there business in the bathroom and no where else idk know if that would work with the litter box but hope it does.

 

[sibelabmom]

I didn't realize. My vet tech textbooks and teachers say that I'm supposed to clean the cages completely every day, so that's what I've been doing. I just want to do everything right by my babies. I'll try cleaning less often!

 

[Bville]

I don't think using bleach to clean the cage is safe. It's a pretty strong chemical. Vinegar is nontoxic so I think it's better to use. You can mix it with water or use it straight. I would clean out the litter box once a day or every other day and then clean the cage once a week. Messiness is different, that you may have to get used to. The hay just gets everywhere.

I agree that they don't need bedding all over the cage. It will confuse them as far as litter training. Don't worry that they will be uncomfortable on the plastic floor. They'll be just fine.

 

[sibelabmom]

I took out the bedding and replaced it with an old towel, and so far they seem to be okay with that. Now there are only aspen shavings in the litter box. We'll see how that goes.

 

[bunnyrose]

Hi sibelabmom-- I quote my mother decades ago when very young I asked her why i never got in trouble from coming home with my clothes all dirty. She said she figured that it was her job to start me out clean and if i came home dirty it meant I'd had a good time. But she'd done HER job! Same w the bunnies. You've done your job if you clean w vinegar once a day or every other day and they're just enjoying their day if they make a complete mess.
I agree with other post writers. Enjoy! Usually messmaking is fun to watch.

 

[sibelabmom]

LOL, I like your mom's viewpoint! The towel didn't work out very well either. With nothing in the cage, though, it seems as though there is a lot more fecal material that maybe is more obvious now that the bedding is gone, but between the two of them, I hate the idea of them lying on/sitting on feces when I'm not home. Since I've removed the bedding, feces gets mashed all over the floor of the cage or on their little paws; it just seems pretty gross. I do move the feces to the litter box, but wow!

 

[bunnyrose]

Fecal pellets are quite dry--u can break them apart with yr fingernails. Not so bad to have loose on a floor. But cecotrophs are mushy and they'd get stuck in fur, as in yuck. I wonder if the bunns r not eating up their cecotrophs.

 

[Blue eyes]

Be sure also that your litter box is plenty large. The larger boxes are better for odor control and don't require as frequent cleaning.

I clean out my litter boxes twice per week. There is no smell in between cleanings.

You can see photos at my site on this page to see what the cage looks like right after cleaning, and then another photo taken 4 days later. With litter trained buns, this is possible. (of course, I could sweep the cage floor in between litterbox cleanings if I wanted it nicer, but I don't bother)

The method described makes clean up easy - especially compared to all that you've been doing.

 

[flemishwhite]

Litter box training for our two baby Flemms seems to be on track. We have them in a living room pen at night and when we are not at home. They have a litter box in the pen. Their floor of the pen is lined with carpet tiles. They just naturally pee and poop in the litter box. When we turn them loose, we have two more litter boxes in favorite places in the house for them to use. When we change the litter boxes, we can see there's a lot of pee in the newspaper liners so we know they are using these extra litter boxes. This is not to say they will occasionally pee a little here and there..which I think is a marking phenomenon. We have mostly hardwood floors and leather furniture, so this occasional marking thing is not a problem. Our previous rabbit did this marking thing also, but she stopped after about 6 weeks. Hopefully, our two lovely little varmits will stop also soon.

 

[Blue eyes]

^^^ Yes. Fully litter trained rabbits will urinate 100% in the litter box(es) and will have occasional poos outside the box regularly. Only the rarest of buns are 100% when it comes to the poos. Thankfully, poos are dry and odor free.

Some rabbits (like perhaps those of Flemishwhite - though hers are still young so that may change) do well with extra litter boxes outside their cage/home base. Mine seem to do just fine with one box which is in their cage. Their cage door is open all day long but they return to their box as needed.

 

[Azerane]

Like others have suggested I think you're cleaning much more than necessary. I clean Bandit's litter tray daily or every other day. At the same time I sweep his cage with a dustpan and broom depending on how much it needs it. Then I only clean the cage completely once a week. Since poop doesn't really get mushed in anywhere, it's mostly just fur and hay bits that need to be swept or vacuumed up. I'll clean the litter tray with vinegar but I don't always use it to wipe the whole cage out since the floor stays pretty clean.

 

[flemishwhite]

^^^ Yes. Fully litter trained rabbits will urinate 100% in the litter box(es) and will have occasional poos outside the box regularly. Only the rarest of buns are 100% when it comes to the poos. Thankfully, poos are dry and odor free.

Some rabbits (like perhaps those of Flemishwhite - though hers are still young so that may change) do well with extra litter boxes outside their cage/home base. Mine seem to do just fine with one box which is in their cage. Their cage door is open all day long but they return to their box as needed.

Our previous house rabbit, Bunny, evolved into the perfect house pet. She had only one litter box in the house, it was in the bedroom. She liked to sleep in our living room with us in the evening. If she needed, she would run into the bedroom to her litter box and then come back to join us in the living room. She knew when I was going to bed, often she would follow me to the bedroom. My wife stayed up later, and if Bunny decided to stay up later, she would follow my wife to bed. Similarly, for our morning wake ups.

I'm trying to introduce the Flemm babies to being house rabbits. A lot of success, but even though they are copiously peeing in their litter boxes, they will still pee a little bit here and there. My previous bunny did this for about 4 to 6 weeks and stopped. Hopefully, this will be the situation!!!

 

[flemishwhite]

Fecal pellets are quite dry--u can break them apart with yr fingernails. Not so bad to have loose on a floor. But cecotrophs are mushy and they'd get stuck in fur, as in yuck. I wonder if the bunns r not eating up their cecotrophs.

I don't regard bunny poops as being all that dirty. They are hard dry little pellets, and when I scooped up a bunch in the palm of my hand and smelled them, they had a herb like smell with a onion/sulfur overtone. The important gut bacteria for a rabbit is the bacteria that transforms cellulose into glucose. If you get this bacteria on your hand in then in your mouth, there is no problem.

Cecotrophs: Vegeterian animals like cows, etc, regurgitate the contents of their stomach that performs the cellulose to glucose transformation. Chewing their cud is the description. They rechew the stomach contents and reswallow. For rabbits, the cellulose to glucose transforming stomach is the Cecum...it's located at the juncture of the small intestine and large intestine. In humans, it's a vestigle organ known as the appendix. For rabbits, they cannot regurgitate the contents of the Cecum..the contents have to pass out through the large intestine and then out the rectum. A healthy rabbit will know when the Cecum pellet (Cecotroph) is coming and will immediately bend over and eat it. The Cecum pellet is not poop....it's regurgitated stomach contents. For the first several years of bunny ownership, I didn't even know this. It was only when, as an older bunny, she developed spinal stenosis and couldn't bend over to eat the cecum pellet that we knew. The cecum pellet is a problem. Because bunnies don't regard it as poop, they will leave it anywhere if they can't eat it. This can smoosh up in the hair around their rectum, also stain carpets and cloth furniture. For Bunny, we started giving her Metacam, an anelgesic, that relieved back pain, and she went back to eating her cecum pellets.

My Flemmish babies are white haired. If you look at there butts, they are perfectly clean...perfectly white. They are eating their cecum pellets without problem.

Cecum pellets contain liver enzymes. They look black, but if bunny is eating a lot of green vegies, you can see that they are really dark green. Because of the liver enzymes, if you smoosh up a cecum pellet in your fingers, it has a nasty vomitous smell to it. But the bunnies eat these things!!!