Housing rabbits indoors - protecting floor

Hi my 2 rabbits will be moving with me and will have to be indoor as there's no garden. There is a gravel drive but it's shared so probably not the best idea. There's space in the hallway, I thought I could use panels to block off a section for them but it's carpet and I'm worried about the floor. The only other option would be the kitchen/sitting room area which is wooden floor but there's no obvious space to put them. The thing with the hallway is its downstairs and the rest of the flat is upstairs so I wouldn't be around them so much, I think I might try and get them in the sitting room and just move things around a bit. If you house your rabbits indoors what do you use as bedding? How do you protect the floors?

I use wood pellets cat litter in the trays, it's heavy so stays in place well. I put hay in a rack above it - it's actually a cd rack repurposed! He has fleecy blankets for bedding. His room is laminate floor and I don't do anything to protect it. You could use large pieces of board on top of the carpet with non slip vynil on top, should mean the carpet is well protected. Or you could replace the carpet when you move. Or take it up and store it and put nonslip vynil down.

My floor is laminate but on the rug I use a big piece of thick waterproof fabric. I got it from ebay, I think i just searched waterproof material and I found some that is used for garden furniture, seats, gazebo's etc. and I got it in purple so it doesn't look out of place in our living room. With fleece they seem to enjoy digging at it and it's very easy for them to dig their claws in and bunch it up, this material is harder and heavier so struggle a lot more, especially if you pin the edges down (or tuck them under the rug in my case). I probably would still put puppy pads under it because the seller told me that if you leave a lot of liquid sitting on the fabric for a long time it can eventually seep through

As for their cage it has a plastic base so i just line it with puppy pads and there's vet bed on top. I use woodshavings in their litter trays, but they stick to my rabbits fur and end up all over the vetbed/rug so I always cover the shavings in hay

I'll have a look into that waterproof thing. I've been looking through the housing threads for inspiration but I'm still not sure how I want to house them! The idea is to litter train them and let them out when someone's home but how do I litter train them? They're both neutered and Beans is only 6 months old but Izzy's 10. Where do I start with that?

Alicia said:

I'll have a look into that waterproof thing. I've been looking through the housing threads for inspiration but I'm still not sure how I want to house them! The idea is to litter train them and let them out when someone's home but how do I litter train them? They're both neutered and Beans is only 6 months old but Izzy's 10. Where do I start with that?

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One way is to wait and see where they prefer to go. Your rabbits might wee and poo everywhere but usually there's a preferred area that's more dirty so you can stick a tray there. With my boys I wanted them to use the side of the cage further away from our sofa so I put their tray there and made sure there was only hay in the litter tray or in a hay rack next to the tray. There were lots of stray poo's to begin with and a few wee's, the important thing is to clear them up as soon as possible. Remove the pee'd on area and put any stray poo's in the tray. Over time mine have definitely gotten a lot better. Is Izzy pretty clean? Beans is still quite young so he might get better with a tray. When I first brought my boys home they poo'd absolutely everywhere and used to pee (outside their litter tray) at least once every hour, luckily they're much better now! Even if they become well litter trained whilst confined to the cage, once they're let out they might be too lazy to run back to their tray, or might feel the need to mark their territory. Especially with you having carpet, keep some puppy pads/thick kitchen roll in the living room and some spray that's designed to break down the smell/stain of urine on furniture/carpet, tesco do one. If you find they're using the same spot in the living room, you might end up having to give them a second tray. I don't know if this is just my boys, but anywhere with hay they will pee. I now try keep it confined to the litter tray area, but they quite often pee behind their cage if hay has fallen out on to the floor, and a few times they've jumped in to my hay storage bucket and wee'd inside it

My girls are based in my living room, with a large penned off area to themselves. Previously I had carpet, and now in the new place it's hard wood floor, but in both I've just put rugs down. (I'm super paranoid because I rent, but this has worked well!) Because they have grip, the girls are also happy to charge around.

They're super cheap from IKEA, and they have a rubbery bottom to them, so liquid takes forever to soak through, and it has to be a lot. Because they have their litter tray that they always pee in, I've never had an issue with leakage. IKEA seem to have changed the design (mine are grey with thin white lines) but it's called IBSTED and is £11 each :wave:

Oh and regarding bedding; they either sleep in a large wooden hut together, or out in the open on the rugs.

They also have a large grey plastic dog bed from P@H, which I double layer with free newspapers, then put hay on top of. I change it every second day, with no leakage or smell issues, and though this is called a bed and they sometimes decide to nap in it, it's their litter tray.

Good luck getting setup! I just moved and I know how hugely stressful it is moving just your stuff, let alone figuring out how to set the buns up, transport them and settle them in!

Mine are on laminate and I got a huge piece of bright orange visqueen which is slightly rigged, then old towels and pieces of blanket.

I have laminate in the room where the rabbits live, I bought a roll end of non slip vinyl / lino to go under their pen as the laminate is too slippy for them and I have a couple of big rugs in the room for when they are out. I would have a rug in their run but when I’ve tried that before they end up destroying the rug :?