Bedding and habitat question!

[TanishaEileen]

Hello!

My father built a cage for my two bunnies I inherited about a month ago. Since then though, we have had babies! So I now have a total of 4 buns and i'm thinking that I will be keeping at least 1 of the babies, though honestly, probably both. Because i'm a sucker and its likely the only baby buns i'll ever have in this lifetime! as they were not planned anyway.

I've attached a photo of the cage. I am right now considering what kind of bedding I should place in there. Also since finding out we were pregnant I put the male bunny in the much smaller cage until the babies get bigger and mom is done nursing. Dad is getting fixed this week.

Now i'm mostly concerned about bedding. I have come to the conclusion that using hay is going to be my best option. I had a bag of pine I was using, though i've read that is not healthy. Any suggestions bedding wise would be helpful.

Also looking at this cage, i'm considering how I can make it work with either keeping 3 bunnies in there, or 2, or i'm not sure! all 3 levels are accessable to each other but that can always been changed. Any suggestions would be great! I know mom and buns will be left alone in the big cage for at least another month, so that gives me sometime to figure out how it will work out in the end.

Dad and mom love each other so i'd like to make sure they have a home togetherafter all is saidbaby bun wise.Also even any other suggestions for housing! My buns are kept indoors. Thank you!

dad is now in the red cage at the back there by himself!

 

[jcottonl02]

First of all- what a lovely set up! And gorgeous bunnies.
Secondly- NO PINE!!!!!!!!!! Get rid of it now.

As for bedding, I think it's what you prefer, and also whether they are litter trained.

For Benji I just have a bare-floored cage, with a pet-safe bed in it (but only the inside pillow), and then I have a permanent dog xpen attached, with a vinyl flooring. I have a litter tray filled with bunnysafe litter, a 'hay' pile, and then half of the floor is covered with a vetbed (a large, soft, thick, pet-safe carpet type thing).

The vetbed is like this absolutely amazing thing I discovered- no more messy hay that gets everywhere, but an easy to clean (machine wash), very comfy carpet thing that they can lie on.

I used to use hay to cover the floor area but it was so messy and I realised he really doesn't need hay! Half soft vinyl, half comfy vet bed, then a pet pillow in the cage.

This is an old picture- it's switched round a bit since then and there obviously no hay in the blue bit lol! Instead theres the beige bed thing and that's it.

That's the largest vet pet available (in the shop i went to anyway), but it's long enough for them to stretch out on and snuggle on.


If yours aren't litter trained then it may be harder- tends to leave you with lots of cleaning up to do and lots of scrubbing every few days. If they are litter trained its SO much cleaner and it's just the litter tray needing to be changed every day, rather than scrubbing the floor.




Jen

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

I use fleece in the cages as bedding. I get blankets that are 50X60 inches, Superstore have some for $6 each but you can find other ones around. They are easy to clean and not too expensive. They also mean no extra waste. Shavings have to be thrown out (or composted if you do that), fleece just needs to be washed. I have blankets that are 4.5 years old and still doing well other than a few holes.

For litter boxes, I use wood pellets. You can find them now at hardware store for around $5-6 for a 40 pound bag. They tend to be seasonal, so stock up now. You can also get them at feed stores as horse stall bedding.

With a multi level cage like that, keep the babies on the bottom. This is so that when they start coming out of the nest they won't fall down and not be able to get back to the nest.

The male will need to be kept separate from the female until 4-6 weeks after he is neutered to make sure he is sterile. After that point, you should still keep him away from the babies until they are a bit older. Males don't really have the sense that they are the father and could harm the babies. It could be good to wait until you can get the female spayed before introducing them again just to be safe.

 

[LakeCondo]

Korr_and_Sophie wrot

With a multi level cage like that, keep the babies on the bottom. This is so that when they start coming out of the nest they won't fall down and not be able to get back to the nest.

The male will need to be kept separate from the female until 4-6 weeks after he is neutered to make sure he is sterile. After that point, you should still keep him away from the babies until they are a bit older. Males don't really have the sense that they are the father and could harm the babies. It could be good to wait until you can get the female spayed before introducing them again just to be safe.

Exactly.

 

[TanishaEileen]

Thank you guys for your suggestions! Honestly my bunnies are not litter trained- they sort of supposedly came litter trained, at least momma use to use the litter. Once I upgraded cages though she stopped and dad never did but I think it was mostly a territorial thing.
I have bought some aspen shavings, because I realize pine and cedar are no good!! and I tried hay but honestly I find that the shavings do a better job of catching the waste just because I guess more absorbent.
I am trying to litter train mom again but it is hard as I don't let her out much since babies (she doesn't even wanna come out) and I have tried moving the tray where she goes but then she just goes somewhere else!! haha.
So back to the shavings until I can figure out how to get that done!!
I'm looking at some sort of plastic to put at the bottom of the cage on each level. Any recommendations there? I was thinking of even going to a home building store and just seeing if I can get sheets of hard plastic cut out for me, as I find the wood to be hard to clean!! we didn't stain it or anything either

 

[OneTwoThree]

They aren't litter trained because there is litter everywhere, so they go where the litter is

You can try plexiglass maybe to cover the wood floor?

Wood is gross like that, it absorbs everything.

 

[TanishaEileen]

OneTwoThree wrote:

They aren't litter trained because there is litter everywhere, so they go where the litter is

You can try plexiglass maybe to cover the wood floor?

Wood is gross like that, it absorbs everything.

I know what you mean! since switching to the hay I have noticed the wood sorta does the absorbing now, which is not what I want!! Yeah i'm thinking plexiglass or something similar to that which is easy to clean!

A lot of trial and error for the bunny home! I honestly thought that you needed to keep a rabbit in the bedding all the time but I realize now that is not the case!! You make a very good point about the litter training that could very well be it.

Though she is going in the hay to! That might be worth attempting, just putting the plexiglass and keeping only a small area with the bedding and litter box and see if that makes a difference instead of bedding throughout.

Also, I didn't mention it before, but she had the baby buns on the bottom shelf so I thankfully have not had to move them. They have recently opened their eyes and are moving around! dad got neutered last week so he is still seperate but given another few weeks and i'll introduce them again and hope nothing has changed. Cages are right next to each other

 

[OneTwoThree]

I was thinking this earlier but forgot to mention it, it might prove difficult if not nearly impossible to bond a foursome, so just something to think about when you decide if you're keeping the babies. And you might want to look into an xpen or 2, I know you have a gorgeous cabinet cage, but if it becomes too much to clean, I love my xpens. They take like, a minute to clean, and I just dump the litter every couple of days or so. And its lots of space for them, so I get to put in more toys/cardboard without taking up much room

If you do line it with plexiglass, or even linoleum, I would just put a bunch of hay in the litter box on top of the litter. They might pee on a little bit of it, but rabbits are great at foraging and finding good pieces, they wont eat gross ones.

 

[LakeCondo]

You might want to use towels as bedding. You can take any dirty ones out, rinse, wash, & dry them. And rotate them, so enough are always there.

 

[kjm84]

My bunny wouldn't litterbox train until I left his cage bare bottomed with only litter in the litterbox with hay. He'll poop and pee on the hay but he just eats around it, and I change it often/add fresh hay. So now he lives with paper bag lined bottom of cage (as I find it easier to clean up poops that didn't make it in box and hay), with litterbox in corner and fleece blankets on his shelves for comfort (where he likes to lay).