Help! Smelly bunnies!

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I put down an old blanket on the floor of the cage instead of the newspapers I used to use and noticed that there is a difference with the oddor , its still there but it isn't bad, once I clean up the litter box it's good.
I went looking for a different type of litter but all the stores here have the same type.
 
Hello guys,
So I have an issue I'm not quite sure how to fix.. I keep my bunnies' cage in my room , when I'm home I free them and they walk around until it's bedtime. But I've noticed that the smell of their urine and poop is spreading all over the house, is there any way I can fix that or at least avoid it?
I don't want to keep them outside because its too hot where I'm from therefore I'm scared they get a heat stroke or anything of that sort.

Any suggestions?

Hi, Just a thought.... we have a french lop that is free range, Billy. He has a large cage in our living room for bedtime and when we're out. We use a cat litter tray at one side of his cage, with a good wad of kitchen paper in the bottom. On top of the paper, I put a layer of straw... uncut and then hay. He poops one end and eats from the other ! There's newspaper on the cage floor, in case of any mishaps.. easy to pick up and change. Have done this for nearly 20 yrs with one bunny or another... NO smell. I change it fully every day... but you can just lift off the top layer of hay / straw to re-use, get rid of the yukky bits below, then just change the paper. Wipe the litter tray out with a good bunny disinfectant such as Johnson's every day before you put the clean kitchen paper in. Only takes 10 mins.. even with a bunny helping :)

Cleanliness can be the key... the cleaner it is kept, the cleaner they keep it. Billy and my others love a clean box... he boings up and down on it for ages, ferking around to see what he can find. And I clean his cage properly once a week. Only takes half an hour, obviously under Billy's watchful eye!

Also what you feed them can affect the smell. Billy has good quality hay... two or three different types for different flavours which he eats a lot of... and then Burgess Excel granules. He has a little celery, a small slice of apple at bedtime, the odd slice of tomato.. with pips removed... and I collect grass and dandelions from the garden. That's pretty much it.

Not sure if any of this helps, but it's worth a thought :)

Good luck,
Nette
 
Hi, Just a thought.... we have a french lop that is free range, Billy. He has a large cage in our living room for bedtime and when we're out. We use a cat litter tray at one side of his cage, with a good wad of kitchen paper in the bottom. On top of the paper, I put a layer of straw... uncut and then hay. He poops one end and eats from the other ! There's newspaper on the cage floor, in case of any mishaps.. easy to pick up and change. Have done this for nearly 20 yrs with one bunny or another... NO smell. I change it fully every day... but you can just lift off the top layer of hay / straw to re-use, get rid of the yukky bits below, then just change the paper. Wipe the litter tray out with a good bunny disinfectant such as Johnson's every day before you put the clean kitchen paper in. Only takes 10 mins.. even with a bunny helping :)

Cleanliness can be the key... the cleaner it is kept, the cleaner they keep it. Billy and my others love a clean box... he boings up and down on it for ages, ferking around to see what he can find. And I clean his cage properly once a week. Only takes half an hour, obviously under Billy's watchful eye!

Also what you feed them can affect the smell. Billy has good quality hay... two or three different types for different flavours which he eats a lot of... and then Burgess Excel granules. He has a little celery, a small slice of apple at bedtime, the odd slice of tomato.. with pips removed... and I collect grass and dandelions from the garden. That's pretty much it.

Not sure if any of this helps, but it's worth a thought :)

Good luck,
Nette
This was super helpful thank you! I'll definitely give this a try , specially because the items you mentioned are easy for me to find at home.

Thanks again! X
 
I'm by no means a bunny expert, but I always wondered why people say "bunnies stink, so I keep them outside." This worried me at first, but I have never been able to figure out what they are talking about. We have a 4 x 3 x 2 foot three level cage for two bunnies and it gets thoroughly cleaned once a week. We use the paper litter from Tractor Supply. We never have a powerful smell and our bunnies are fastidiously clean. They usually sit on the levels with the carpet which they do not pee on. They only pee in their box and never really sit in their box for long periods. Ajax our dwarf lionhead has white feet, which were yellow, especially on the bottom when we adopted him at 8 weeks. The bottoms of his feet are as snowy white as the rest of him.

Could her bunny's urine smell indicate a health issue? Or something specific she feeds them? Just a thought, though I'm not sure. I wanted to throw that out there.
 
When I first got rabbits, I recall being worried that so many people said that “rabbits stink, so I keep mine outside.” My two rabbits live inside exclusively in a 4 x 4 x 2 cage, with two upper levels covered in carpet, which is where they spend the bulk of their time. They bottom level is linoleum. They don’t sit much in their litter box unless it’s to pee or poop. And they go exclusively in their little box. No peeing anywhere else. Ajax my dwarf lionhead is white and black and when I adopted him at 8 weeks his feet were stained yellow from living in pee. Now, at age 3 they are as snowy white as the rest of him. They are fastidiously clean, which I thought most bunnies are.


Could there be a health issue that is making her bun’s pee more pungent? I don’t know, but tossing that out there, or maybe something that it eats?
 
I use feline pine pellets. My bunnies do really well with this and are indoors and I have a total of 8 buns in my tiny house. I clean out about once a week and we do well on this schedule. My buns do not nibble on the pellets but keep an eye on yours. I can't remember where I read it but I believe it is safe because of the way the pellets are created. Paper pellets don't work as well for odor control.

One other tidbit: ceccotrophes can smell gosh awful but usually buns eat them before they become a problem. If your buns are leaving a lot of those (looks like a tiny bunch of black grapes, very gooey, sticky and smelly) you may need to make a visit to your vet. I use "probios for dogs and other small pets" which my vet recommended when my buns were little. I had two that didn't learn to clean themselves up very well and the probiotics helped.
 
I use Yesterday's News which is a recycled newspaper cat litter. My little has a covered grate so my buns doesn't get her feet into her poop or pee. Been using this litter since I moved her from a small bunny cage to a revamped DIY large dog kennel. She spends much time sitting on it and munching on her hay. Its not often I get a smell from her poop but then I change it very regularly as it is a smaller style litter box that would fit in a corner of the kennel.
 
Just a little interjection that the wire grids are not too for their feet as they have such soft hocks, and also runs the risk of nails getting caught and ripping off. If you regularly change the litter there should be no issue with their feet getting dirty.
 
the only time i notice that my rabbits pee smells in when one of the females are pregnant or just had kits... not sure if that makes sense but that is what happens
 
I literally clean their cage everyday. I can tell the difference in missing a day. I know it’s not the most convenient, but it’s the only way I have found to virtually eliminate the “bunny smell.” I use paper litter with mine and only have to change that out once a week. I have found that if I don’t clean their cage daily, even though they have free range of the house, that they will not use their litter box. Mine just may be brats though. Lol they make a product called “odoban “ that I use to clean with and it gets rid of odors well... I don’t spray it around their eating area but do use it under their turf under their cage and it works great and from asks big around, is safe to use around pets.
 

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