MyJuneAngel
Well-Known Member
I could use some advice. We have 3 rabbits. I'm not up on all of the breeds, but these are large rabbits. They easily outweigh our fat house cats and are there isn't a lot of difference between them and our Westie in size (our Westie is smaller than most Westies, but not unusually so). Our rabbits are housed in two NIC cages. One is 4x2x3 and the other is 2x3x3. We have two females in one cage and their brother (from a different litter) in the cage next to them. The females were litter mates who formed a close bond as tiny little kits and have been together since.
I feel like their cage sizes are sufficient. Our struggle is in keeping the cages clean. This is the chore of my 12 year old daughter but her dad and I often have to help because we have some dirty bunnies. We haven't been able to put anything soft into their cages at all. They have small gauge wire over the shelves. We tried putting tiles on the shelves and they would saturate them with urine so we gave up on that. The girls are cleaner than the boy for sure (he is scheduled to be neutered on Friday) but they still have their own messes. Thumper, our make, is ridiculous. He sprays everywhere, likes to go behind the litter box instead of in it, and never leaves litter (we use horse bedding pellets) or hay inside his box either. We made it so that he couldn't move his litter box to go behind it so now he gets up on the second level and from there will urinate down into the corner that he likes to use (his litter box is in this corner, he just prefers not to go in it for some reason). My daughter has trouble keeping up with cleaning and before we know it we have a pile of mushy rabbit feces and urine that has attracted flies and is horrible. As it is, we had to put a huge rubber mat under their cages and partly up the wall behind them as well as a piece of melamine behind the cage to keep the spray from ruining the walls. Granted, we do have our male next to two females. When we set their cages up this way he was just a baby, having not yet hit puberty, and we didn't really think it through.
Does anyone have any tips for building NIC cages that are easy to clean? We find it hard to access the corners of the cages and still have shelves and various levels for them to play in. I did see a NIC cage on Pinterest that had a door that was two panels wide and folded back. This may be an option but it still means climbing under shelves to clean up messes. I was convinced we'd take the additional levels out but now they have started using them so I hate to take them away.
We have a stack of leftover NIC panels that we can use to make changes to the current cages. I also found a whole set of panels at a local thrift store yesterday. The guy running the register didn't know what they were and just threw them in free with our purchase. I'm not opposed to making other modifications too if needed. I just can't figure out how to keep these guys clean!!
Here is a quick picture of the current cage situation. As you can see, it is very basic. I'd love to do more with the set up but not until we can get the cleaning situation under control. Even the girls' cage (right) is hard to keep up with.
I feel like their cage sizes are sufficient. Our struggle is in keeping the cages clean. This is the chore of my 12 year old daughter but her dad and I often have to help because we have some dirty bunnies. We haven't been able to put anything soft into their cages at all. They have small gauge wire over the shelves. We tried putting tiles on the shelves and they would saturate them with urine so we gave up on that. The girls are cleaner than the boy for sure (he is scheduled to be neutered on Friday) but they still have their own messes. Thumper, our make, is ridiculous. He sprays everywhere, likes to go behind the litter box instead of in it, and never leaves litter (we use horse bedding pellets) or hay inside his box either. We made it so that he couldn't move his litter box to go behind it so now he gets up on the second level and from there will urinate down into the corner that he likes to use (his litter box is in this corner, he just prefers not to go in it for some reason). My daughter has trouble keeping up with cleaning and before we know it we have a pile of mushy rabbit feces and urine that has attracted flies and is horrible. As it is, we had to put a huge rubber mat under their cages and partly up the wall behind them as well as a piece of melamine behind the cage to keep the spray from ruining the walls. Granted, we do have our male next to two females. When we set their cages up this way he was just a baby, having not yet hit puberty, and we didn't really think it through.
Does anyone have any tips for building NIC cages that are easy to clean? We find it hard to access the corners of the cages and still have shelves and various levels for them to play in. I did see a NIC cage on Pinterest that had a door that was two panels wide and folded back. This may be an option but it still means climbing under shelves to clean up messes. I was convinced we'd take the additional levels out but now they have started using them so I hate to take them away.
We have a stack of leftover NIC panels that we can use to make changes to the current cages. I also found a whole set of panels at a local thrift store yesterday. The guy running the register didn't know what they were and just threw them in free with our purchase. I'm not opposed to making other modifications too if needed. I just can't figure out how to keep these guys clean!!
Here is a quick picture of the current cage situation. As you can see, it is very basic. I'd love to do more with the set up but not until we can get the cleaning situation under control. Even the girls' cage (right) is hard to keep up with.