Dig Box

[Spock]

Spock likes to dig. He digs on paper bags. He digs on clothes. He digs in my hair (ouch!). I am thankful that he is a digger, rather than a chewer.

However, he has started digging in the cat's litter box. Beside's being gross, I also worry about him ingesting the cat's clay clumping litter. He does not eat the litter, but you never know... He loves that litter box, and will sit in it for ages. He uses it to pee too, despite having his own private litter tray.

I would like to make him his own dig box, to try keep him out of the cat poop. Any ideas on what I could use? Sand, maybe? I've tried paper, but he doesn't care for it.

 

[Tally943]

I made one for patrick. I just got a big cardboard box with torn up paper and hay. Maybe if Spock likes the feel of the litter so much you can get something similar, like sand? I wish I could help more but my rabbits arn't allowed around the cats so I don't have this problem

 

[lovelops]

I bought Lady one of the cat scratch boards. I found it in the Walmart and it was only $10.00. I put it in the bottom of a box and she likes it when she plays with it. I gave her a box also filled with papers and things and she seemed to think it was the new litter box and started peeing in it!

Vanessa

 

[Bindi]

Mine have a dog basket that I covered the bottom over on and filled with a thick layer of chinchilla sand. My first rabbit loved it- she used to roll in cat litter as well.

 

[JBun]

I would strongly suggest NOT letting your bun having access to your cats litter box. Not only is there a risk of a bun contracting toxoplasmosis from your cats feces, but cat litters can be very dangerous to rabbits. They are dusty and can cause respiratory problems, but also clumping litters are extremely dangerous to rabbits if ingested, as they can cause a blockage to occur, which can be fatal.

 

[Imbrium]

Providing a dig box will NOT keep him out of the cat box - rabbits will not be deterred by anything short of blocking access.

When I tried to free-range my bunnies, they insisted on camping out in the cat box an awful lot, though thankfully they didn't dig at all. I worried a good bit about the cat poop (and their tendency to eat cat food, both of which contributed significantly to my decision to go back to keeping them in a massive x-pen), but had NO concerns about the litter causing problems because I use the same bunny-safe wood pellets in the cat box that I use in the rabbit boxes. Both our young cat and our stubborn-as-hell 15 year old cat didn't care a bit when I switched them from clay litter to the wood pellets (some cats are extremely picky, but the vast majority have no issue with the switch). They actually make a cat litter called "feline pine" that's the same as what I use, except that I buy pellets marketed as horse bedding from a feed store for a fraction of the price that pet stores charge for the "cat" stuff .

As for a dig box, there are tons of different options. I opted for this:

I really wanted a pool with a slide, but couldn't find one cheaper than $35; I ended up cheaping out and going for a $13 pool. The site I bought it from is a distributor who sells to numerous retail businesses - they offer free site-to-store shipping to any store they distribute to, so I didn't have to pay shipping. I brought a power drill, put a hole in the rim of the pool on either side and used rope to secure it to the roof of my sports car. This was in December; I got a ton of weird looks on the way home even though it was 80F+.

I filled it with a mix of topsoil, hardwood mulch and sand; Home Depot sells two types of play sand and the first was dusty enough that I didn't feel it was safe but the other was much better. I used non-toxic, egg-based tempera paint to dye the sand green . (There's not nearly as much sand as you might think, as I hadn't mixed it in when I took the picture so it was all on top.)

The one issue with dig boxes, regardless of what you make them out of or fill them with, is that bunnies almost always use them as pee boxes in addition to digging in them... so if you make a dig box, be prepared to have to de-peeify it on a regular basis ><

 

[Tally943]

Imbrium, I just got a X-Pen the other day and Patrick hopped over it without a problem. Its a little war we have going on , me trying to keep him in a playpen and him trying to escape. I would like to do the X pen thing instead of the hutch they are in now , but I am worried it would never keep Patrick in. :/

 

[Imbrium]

How tall is the pen? Pens are available in heights up to 48'' - I've never heard of a bunn who could jump a four foot pen. A particularly ingenious and athletic bunny could potentially climb out, but that can be thwarted with zip-ties and poster board. [On a side note, it's quite impressive to watch a 3 lb bunny scale a 4' pen!]

 

[Tally943]

Patrick gets into these weird modes , like he sees/hears something that I don't and starts jumping around like crazy. It has only happened twice but the first time he went under the bed and calmed down , the second time he just kept going and I don't know what would have happened if I didn't catch him. (theres a big stair case in that room ) So if he gets into that mode when I am not around , there is no doubt he could get out.

The x-pen I have now is this one: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000H8YTJI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 , I would have gotten the larger one but this one was in my budget..

 

[Spock]

Keeping him further contained is not an option. The apartment is very small and I refuse to make his environment any smaller. Spock is only let out with supervision (if we age gone less than 45 mins or so, he usually stays out). He is Not Allowed in the cat's litter box, but sometimes he manages to sneak in there.

We will be changing out the litter to a rabbit safe variety, once the kind we currently have is used up.

I love the kiddie pool, but it's a bit large! haha.

 

[Imbrium]

Yeah, sometimes there's not much you can do, heh. Can the cats jump higher than the bunny? If so, maybe you could build or find something to put the litter box on so that the bunns couldn't access it and the cats can. Failing that, switching to a rabbit-safe litter and staying on top of scooping the poop from the cat box as soon as possible will go a LONG way towards rendering it reasonably safe for him when he does get in there.

@Tally - I really think a taller pen would help; the most budget-friendly way to get one is to modify the current pen! If you have extra NIC grids, you could zip-tie them onto/around the top of the pen to add another 14 inches. If you don't, something as cheap and simple as cardboard from old boxes would likely do the trick. If they're taped/glued/stapled together in a way that makes a continuous circle and then zip-tied to the pen in a way that makes the cardboard circle extend up like 8-12'' higher than the pen, I bet that would fool him. While he could theoretically plow right through flimsy cardboard, he won't think from ground level that it would be safe/effective to do a flying leap into the cardboard to break through it so chances are very high that he wouldn't even try. It's an effective optical illusion and all it costs you is a handful of zip-ties and some packing tape!