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WOOD-SHAVING/HAY/STRAW problem.

sharkfur

Warren Scout
Hello fellow Bunny-buddies,

We have a bit of a problem around our household. We have an indoor bun, who is always free to stroll around when we are at home...so naturally, he jumps in and out from his cage. After cleaning up the house, floor, carpet etc... it takes about 10 minutes before everything is covered in wood-shavings and straw again. We are quite busy but trying to do our best to play and be with our bunny boy as much as we can...but understandably, it takes too much time to always clean up the bedding from all over the place...we would rather spend the time doing something else... playing...cuddling, etc...

so I'm just wondering, does any of you HAVE A NICE SOLUTION? or am I doing something wrong? I put wood-shaving in the cage, then cover it up with a layer of straws. How.. how do you guys deal with that? what do you put in their cages?
 
Wood shavings aren't recommended for bunnies as they can irritate bunny respiratory systems. The are also extremely messy as you've found out ;) they don't soak up much wee either. Straw doesn't have much nutritional value and is only really useful as insulation for outdoor bunnies.

Mine have run of upstairs and litter trays. The litter trays have a couple of newspapers in the bottom and then a big layer of hay. There is always going to be some stuff that jumps out when they do, occasional poop or bit of hay. I just sweep it up.
 
Mine is indoors, he has lino and blankets in his pen, and has hay in his litter tray and in a hay box/rack. We still get hay strewn about, but I think that is inevitable :lol:
 
I would put a litter tray in the corner he uses as a toilet. I use newspaper and Megazorb, topped with hay. Then you can position his hay rack over the litter tray, so he can poop and eat at the same time :D I would just use towels and blankets in the rest of his enclosure :)
 
Iggy bunny is allergic to saw dust but I dont remember a time that we didnt have hay on the carpet. Iggy will make little piles to sit a chew around the living room too.

TIny weirdo.

Hay on his litter tray does just as well as saw dust for us
 
I use underbed storage boxes as litter trays with aubiose and hay, and rarely get any kicked out. the only hay I have around the house is when I'm pulling it out of the bag and carrying it around the house filling up litter trays as I always drop bits. I've just gotten used to it :lol::lol:
 
I'm afraid that as you have an indoor bunny there is very little you can do about the mess other than either a) accept it and get on with it or b) turn him into an outdoor bunny.

I couldn't cope with the mess of an indoor bunny; when mine were poorly and had to come indoors it drove me nuts within a few days - and they were only in the utility room which has a solid floor and thus very easy to sweep/keep clean!

It's like having a dog and just accepting that dog hairs will get everywhere - you have an indoor bunny so hay/straw/wood shavings will get everywhere; it is inevitable and unavoidable.
 
Thanks for all the replies, bun-buds... :)
Oh, I know straw is not rich in good stuff, but he doesn't eat it, it's just the second layer of his bedding... :)


I use underbed storage boxes as litter trays with aubiose and hay, and rarely get any kicked out. the only hay I have around the house is when I'm pulling it out of the bag and carrying it around the house filling up litter trays as I always drop bits. I've just gotten used to it :lol::lol:
Oooooh, dear fruitandnutcake... this solution intrigues me :) Can you show it to me in pics, by any chance? :D
 
All of mine have 32L storage boxes lined with newspaper and just filled with hay, the only mess I find with my indoors and outdoors is the poos they flick out sometimes.

Also hay racks above the litter trays so the toilet behaviour is all contained to one place.
 
The outdoors -

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IMAG2479_zps4671f861.jpg


Indoors (well.. Leo anyway!)

IMAG2417_zpsaec8e8f0.jpg


I put around 10 sheets of newspaper on the bottom of the litter tray then just fill it with hay, they all get cleaned out every day. It minimises the mess for them and for me (I just sweep up stray hay and poo) and it's easy to come across newspapers, we have a lot family members who save them for us and my bf's mom actually found a whole stack that were undelivered at the recycle bins so brought them back :oops:
 
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Hi :wave: I use a big storage box thing, and put newspaper and then a small amount of the wood cat litter pellets with a load of hay on top.
 
Hi, I use an old outdoor hutch for my indoor bunny.

He uses the covered bit as his litter tray- so nothing falls out as it's behind a door. He has that bit with newspaper covered in hay. I just pull it all out at the end of the day and replace. I use the leftover hay that he hasn't eaten from the eating part.

I use the 'sleeping' part behind the wire as his eating bit, so just fill it up with lots of fresh hay. If an emergency he can be shut in there safely but most of the time he's free to hop in and out at his leisure, until my Dad builds his luxury run set-up (needs to be custom made due to my room not being a standard size and the walls keep going in and out!)

Underneath I've just put some fairly heavy duty carpet tiles that don't have long fibres so when he hops in and out and kicks bits of hay around I can just sweep the bits off at the end of the night. I spend about 10-15 minutes a day in total cleaning him out, including disinfecting, sweeping, changing all the hay AND sweeping the carpet, and that's including the time sweeping the carpet in the room that he freeranges in. (And I let him eat handfuls of hay off the carpet!)
 
no to wood shavings :wave:

mine have old towels, vetbed or fleeces and the litter tray has cat wood litter pellets topped with hay, they then have hay suppied in hay ball and hay rack which is topped up all the time
 
My indoor bun only has wood shavings and straw in his litter tray. We get a tiny overspill of straw from him going in and out but as the litter tray is on a hovverable rug thats fine. He does not have any straw or shavings anywhere else at all. His hay is in a short sided box again on the rug and yes he does spill that over but all is contained on this rug and gets hoovered up every day.

If you are covering the bottom of his cage with shavings and straw then he will drag it out everytime he comes out of cage. Does he use a litter tray or have a favourite toilet corner of cage that you could put a litter tray at and leave rest of cage free of straw/shavings??
 
I don't have ANY mess and have 5 indoor buns. I have large puppy pens for my buns, in which I use a dogs kennel for their sleeping area which is lined with vetbed. I have spare kennel size pieces of vetbed, and it is changed as necessary but always weekly. In the pens the bunnies all have large boxes you can pick up from supermarkets, and the hay goes into those. Yes there will always be bits of hay on the floor in the pens, but I don't mind that as there is none in our actual living area, and the pens get vacuumed with a hand held vacuum cleaner daily. I must confess to being a compulsive cleaner and really cannot stand any mess, or filth. I can't stand mucky bunnies, and so mine sadly have face washes in the morning with their flannels, and I love how people comment that the white ones look like they have all been washed with persil lol.
 
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