Stinky Garbage

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kherrmann3

kherrmann3

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
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Location
Waukesha, Wisconsin, USA
Why does bunny pee have to smell so foul! Ugh! Nothing else about a rabbit is stinky (minus scent glands)! Why!?

I have a garbage can in the bedroom for the rabbit's used litter. My room just has an "odor" to it. It's not like, "HOLY CRAP, THERE'S A RABBIT IN HERE!", but you can still smell them. It's vague, but you can still smell the ammonia from the urine (in the trash).

Here is my current "bunny-poo disposal" technique... If you can really call it a technique:
- There is a special garbage can JUST for bunny stuff and minor bedroom garbage (paper scraps, wrappers, etc.)
- It is a small, covered type of trash bin. It's the size you would see around an office.
- The lid has a little button that when you push it, the top springs up.
- I use garbage bags (some people don't - ick!)
- There is a box of baking soda in the bottom of the bin to soak up stink.
- There is a stick-on pouch of baking soda under the lid of the bin to soak up more stink.
- The bag is changed about twice a week.

My other cleaning habits are good, as well. I vacuum the bedroom 1-2 times per week to pick up the excess hair/stray poo. The hamster cages are changed weekly. The fish tank is cleaned monthly. I know it's not the litter pans, either. Those are changed daily, and the smell is only present near the trash can or right after you open it (pew!).

What else can I do to stop the stink? Like I said, it's not a terrible odor. It just smells like generic "pet" in here. There isn't a lot of ventilation in the apartment this time of year, but the ventilation from summer didn't seem to stop this, either.

Does anyone recommend those litter-box thingies for cats? I have no idea what they are called, but they stick to the back or top of a covered cat litter box. I think they have carbon or zeolite in them. As far as fish tank filters go, zeolite helps to catch or neutralize ammonia, so I would think that would work? I don't know what are in the kitty ones.

Any suggestions?
 
I take my used litter straight out to the trash bin outside. Now the outside trash bin reeks, but my house has no odor with four rabbits and three litter pans inside. The litter pans get changed every other day.
 
Same here except Tony is a bit smellier cause he's a buck and has buck smelling pee. He's in my teenage son's room tho so they can just be smelly boys together LOL!
 
I dump my used litter into a plastic grocery bag and then take it straight to the outside garbage can on our deck. I couldn't imagine keeping that in the house as it reeks.

If for some reason you can't take it outside right away, have you tried something like a rubbermaid storage container instead of a garbage can. You need something that has a tight fitting lid so it seals the stick in, not just a lid that covers.

Or if you have a garbage bag inside the can, tie up the bag between each use.
 
My used litter goes into a small (25 gal?) outdoor trash can in the guest bathroom. It does smell pretty bad in there. We originally kept it out on the deck, which really helped with the odor, but then the apartment office put up flyers in my building saying anyone who kept trash on their deck would be evicted, as it was a health issue.

Personally, I think keeping a can of used litter in the house is less sanitary than having it on the deck (it's not even a big can!), but those are the rules. So now we keep it in the guest bathtub, since we don't use it, along with two rubbermaid tubs, one with clean litter, and one with the hay crumbs that are always in the bottom of the box but are too small for the rabbits to eat. (We sprinkle the hay crumbs on top of the fresh litter when the box is cleaned.) It is sort of handy there, the mess is contained in the tub, and the box can be set on the (closed) toilet while it's being filled.

I think the odor has seeped into the plastic at this point, we usually air out the can for a few hours once a month or so outside, but it doesn't really help. It also doesn't help that the ventilation fan has just gone out in there, and we don't really want to call the handyman to fix it.

Well, I just typed all that and didn't really help any. I think the best answer would be to take it out right away, but I'm too lazy for that. (Also, we use the large size litter boxes, and my husband only likes to do litter boxes twice a week, so a grocery bag wouldn't be big enough. :shock:) I just live with the smell, but I bet it is unpleasant in the bedroom.
 
I normally have the garbage taken out every 3 days or so. I almost never take garbage out! lol The way our apartment is, I would have to take their little poo-poo bag out into the hall, down a staircase, outside, make a right and walk 50 meters to the dumpster. It's cold now, and I don't wanna! I make Will or Sean do it lol

I used to use the individual bags from the grocery store, but I had one too many rip. Also, we have those reusable shopping bags, so I never have many plastic ones left over.

Oddly enough, Toby smells less than Berry-Boo. Berry-Boo lets a TON of urine go, but Toby has neat little spots here and there in the litter box. It may also be my litter. Berry-Boo uses Yesterday's News and Toby has pine shavings (don't hurt me!) I am going to try switching him to something else as soon as the pine runs out. He eats everything else, so I stuck with pine (his one non-food litter).

The room doesn't even smell like urine. I don't get it. It just smells like "animal". You know how you can walk into someone's house and tell they have a pet? It's not overpowering or gross, it just smells like animal.

I might try the diaper bags mentioned somewhere up further in this thread. I need cheap, though, being that I am unemployed... STILL! :grumpy:
 
What type of litter do you use? In the Midwest Shelter (with 140 bunnies) we use a compressed sawdust pellet and the odor control is really good. Now it does smell like bunnies, but if we used anything other than this horse bedding it would be 20 times worse.

Maybe try a different litter that controls the odor better? Hope that helps.

Laura


 
Nappy bags are extremely cheap! usually 100 for $1-$2 . I usually keep a little bin inside for pet rubbish daily (ie, pellet dust, stray peices of hay, knocked over pellets) and then all the litter tray stuff goes into a bin bag and gets thrown outside right after cleaning. Try spraying the floor around the bin with tea tree oil and water or something to mask the smell. I can't say I have ever had a problem with 1 rabbit, 4 guinea pigs and two rats in a 15x10 room. I just make sure they are kept clean and clean the floor regularly (I have a linoleum floor).
 
I use the bi-odor stuff.

Like I said before, it's not really a problem (pee-stink wise) until you open the trash can. It's more of a musty bun smell that's in the bedroom. I think it's from lack of ventilation? There is one window in the bedroom, and another in the spare room and one in the sitting room. They are all on the same wall, though, so the apartment doesn't ventilate well.

I think I will go and try to find those diaper-bag thingies. :)
 
kherrmann3 wrote:
kherrmann3 wrote:
Berry-Boo uses Yesterday's News and Toby has pine shavings (don't hurt me!)
Click to expand...
:p
Click to expand...

You need to change the pine shavings (if they aren't kiln-dried), not only are they toxic, but pine shavings let off stinky oils when wet.
 
As I said, I am going to try to change the his shavings. I have had no luck with other litters. He eats them. Not a nibble here, nibble there, but eats it. My vet has even said it is OK how I have it set up. Yes, my vet is rabbit-savvy.
 
kherrmann3 wrote:
As I said, I am going to try to change the his shavings. I have had no luck with other litters. He eats them. Not a nibble here, nibble there, but eats it. My vet has even said it is OK how I have it set up. Yes, my vet is rabbit-savvy.
Click to expand...
They make litter boxes with screens that go over them, so the rabbit can't touch the litter. You can find them at PetSmart or Petco.

I would be worth it to buy one, so you can change the litter. I will bet the pine shavings are playing a major role in the stink.
 
I'm not trying to be rude, but does no one read my posts? I said that the main stink comes from Berry-Boo and the Yesterday's News. Toby alone was never a problem, smell-wise. Since Berry-Boo has been around, that's when the smell started getting "worse".

EDIT: Sorry I'm being crabby, but I'm in the middle of a gay b*tch fight :grumpy: I'm a little on-edge.
 
I put my used litter into the garden so I'm not much help. But if you do choose to bag each pile of litter - please make sure you find bags that are readily biodegradable and made from recycled materials. There is so much junk going into the rubbish dumps as it is, and personally I don't think that any herbivore waste should go into mass dumping places (unless you have no yard or no way of getting it into the ground).

I use pine shavings too, ones meant for horses stalls, I actually like them and find them not stinky.
 
kherrmann3 wrote:
I'm not trying to be rude, but does no one read my posts? I said that the main stink comes from Berry-Boo and the Yesterday's News. Toby alone was never a problem, smell-wise. Since Berry-Boo has been around, that's when the smell started getting "worse".

EDIT: Sorry I'm being crabby, but I'm in the middle of a gay b*tch fight :grumpy: I'm a little on-edge.
Click to expand...

I am trying to offer help, like the others. I did real all your posts, by the way. I don't see how I could possibly be annoying you with the information I am putting out there. No one else mentioned the pine shavings putting off a smell. From my experience with pine shavings/all shavings in general....they stink, terribly, when wet.


If you dump ALL the litter from BOTH cages into the SAME garbage can....I bet the PINE SHAVINGS makes the trash/room smell stinky.

 
I was worried about the diaper bag thing too. I am going to see if there are Earth-friendly ones, and if not, I am just going to deal with the stink.

Michelle, how did you dispose of the used litter? Did you just dump it in a heap somewhere? I've heard bunny poos are good fertilizer, so I was thinking of giving some of it (nasty transportation :p) to my mom for her garden. I would think the urine would be bad for plants, though...

The way I have his litter pan rotation is like this:

Cage litter pan is cleaned in the AM (he only goes in there at night). The floor litter pan is changed in the PM after he is locked up for the night. Each litter pan is "full" for no more than 12 hours. My vet said that this rotation is safe because of the almost constant changing. The room is ventilated fairly well (the rooms don't get good ventilation to the rest of the apartment, though). Sean's room smells like him, our room smells like a bunny. Oh, and Febreeze :p Don't forget that lol
 
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