I’ve gone through a few litter boxes already, not because they were worn out or destroyed by the bunnies, but because I keep trying to improve on the design ๐
The very first litter box that Buttons had was a cat litter box, roughly about 35cm x 25cm, and only 5cm deep. She was so small, I thought a shallow box would give her easier access. I put a few sheets of newspaper in the litter box, and some tissue over the newspaper so that her feet wouldn’t get dirty from the ink. It worked fine, initially… Then, as she grew, so did her pee-puddles. The tissue and newspaper weren’t absorbing her pee fast enough. I had to figure out a way to keep her feet from coming into contact with the paper & pee.
After a bit of hunting, I found some wire mesh with grids measuring 1cm x 1cm, and coated in plastic. The size of the grids allowed pee & even poop to fall though while keeping feet away from the mess below. And as the mesh was coated in plastic, it would be kind on her feet. So I bought some home, and bent it to fit snugly into the litter box. Again, it worked fine… until she grew even more and her daily poop-pile increased tremendously. Boy, can bunnies poop!
I upgraded to a similar-sized box that was deeper, and added the wire mesh to it. All was fine for a while, and then Buttons developed this habit of sticking her bum waaayyy to the edge of the litter box to pee. So then, I had to solve the problem of pee spilling over the box. I found some plastic pieces, bent them into an ‘L’ shaped urine guard and placed it to one side of the litter box. At that stage, the bunnies’ litter boxes looked like this:
Those litter boxes were placed in their cages. Their cage doors were left open all the time so that they could go back inside to feed and to answer nature’s call. After a while, I got tired of the sight of cages in my living room and decided to get rid of them (and I must say, the living room looks much neater and less cluttered without the cages there ๐ ) Now, I needed a litter box that was as self-contained as the cage. So I went to Ikea and got some big plastic boxes, big enough to contain a few day’s worth of poop, and also to hold their water bowl, food bowl and hay.
Their current litter box looks like this:
The wire mesh is great – I can hook the food & water bowls into the mesh to keep them in place. Hay is simply placed over the mesh between the food & water bowls. At night, when they get their salad, I remove their food bowl and place the vegetables there. The box is deep enough to hold 1 week’s worth of poo ๐ so I only clean their litter boxes every Sunday. I don’t have any problems with odor, probably because the bunnies have been spayed and neutered.
I also don’t need a urine guard anymore as the bunnies’ butts are lower than the edges of the litter box. Even though they lift their butts up to pee, its still not high enough to pee over the edge of the box.
I line the box with black garbage bags first, then newspaper, and lastly, a few handfuls of litter material over the newspaper (I’m currently using Woody Pet but I’m still experimenting with different litter materials). I tuck the sides of the garbage bag into the sides of the box, between the box and the newspaper (I hope that makes sense ๐ ) to keep it away from their mischievous mouths. And whenever I need to empty the box, I just have to pull out the sides of the garbage bags and the entire bag can be dumped into the rubbish bin.
Well, that’s as efficient a design as I can come up with for now. I’m still looking to improve the design, so let me know if you have any ideas!
Ever heard of feline pine? Its the same idea as compressed pine pellets, only not compressed and clumps like clay cat litter so u dont waste any litter thats not dirty. I love it, it’s great! I don’t know how your litterbox doesnt smell after not being cleaned for a week….anyway you really should clean it everyday. Flies can get into rabbits droppings and that would be very bad news for your bunnies. Here’s the link http://www.naturesearth.com/felinepinescoop/
Yes, I’ve heard of feline pine. Thanks for the tip, I’ll give it a try once I finish my bag of Woody Pet.
As for flies, I’m aware of the possible issues but I don’t have that problem here ๐ and well, the weather here is sunny and warm all year round. So I’m able to leave all my windows open. With proper ventilation, the bunnies don’t smell at all. Also, they’ve been altered, which in itself makes a great deal of difference in terms of odour.
Where did you find the mesh grids? Your litter box is genius!
Thanks, Ttina ๐ I bought the mesh grids from hardware shops.
Your toilet is cool. Gona modify my dog toilet to look something like that.
My rabbit is sort of toilet trained but the problem is every time he jump out from his little box, he will leave a piece of poo on the floor..
He has been neutered when he was a baby and yet he still leave his poo around my condo to mark his territory..
any idea how to stop him from doing the above? I have a puppy who likes to eat everything!
Hi June!
My bunnies are the same, sometimes they jump out of the litter box before the poop leaves their bum, and it ends up on the floor, LOL. Other than that, they have good litter box habits.
Is your bunny allowed to roam your condo throughout the day or only during his exercise time? If he’s allowed to roam around for limited periods of time, then I’m thinking maybe he feels the need to re-establish his territory each time he is let out because his scent could have become less prominent since the last time he was there.
I don’t have other pets besides rabbits, so I’m not sure if the presence of your puppy may contribute to your rabbit’s diligent marking. From my experience, the presence of a new bunny or an unbonded bunny does have that effect on my rabbits (Buttons and Yohji are not bonded to Hans yet, and they occasionally leave pee next to Hans’ play pen). Perhaps you could try giving your rabbit his own personal space, where the puppy cannot have access to, and see if there’s any decrease in markings?
Thanks for dropping by! ๐
Thanks for the advice. I was @ the SPCA events too. When I saw your Yohji and Hans’s pics, I melted. So cute!
My bunny (Mickey)only get to have his floor time every few days cause right now I am spending a lot of time with the puppy (Boo) in order to toilet train him.
Ya.. U are right. I notice ever since the puppy is here, he marks around the place more. I guess I need to let him come out more often for a longer period. Hopefully by doing this he will not have to re-established his territory.
I would like my puppy and rabbit to get along so not letting them hang out together is not an option.
Umm.. I am even considering buying a mattress and put in the study (this is where I keep Mickey’s cage) and sleep on the floor @ nite with Boo and let Mickey run all over us. Haha.. hopefully this will make him feel he is in charge and he doesnt need to mark his territory anymore. Another crazy bunny owner doing crazy thing for a bunny.. ๐
LOL, the things we do for our pets! But I don’t think it’s crazy.. I think it’s very responsible of you ๐ with pets of different species, it’s safer to monitor them when they’re out playing together.. more so when one of them is a fragile bunny.
Have a great weekend with Mickey and Boo, June! Hugs to them!
I am having a horrible problem. All of a sudden, my lop eared bunny of 2 years decides he does not like his litter box/hay. He just keeps kicking it all out into the cage and out onto the floor(he has full range of the room). I have tried changing the hay, position of litter box, litter box seperated from the hay… Last but not least, I have not changed the litter from pine. Do I need to change the litter? My last 2 bunnies love the Pine Litter?? This bunny is a real puzzle to me. Do not want to have to use the litter/wire liter boxes. He is used to having litter/hay together. Please help, I cannot tell what he is trying to tell me.
PJR
Hi Patty,
I’m not sure what your bunny is trying to tell you, either ๐ but I can think of a few things for you to try..
Is he a digger? If he loves digging, you could offer him a digging box filled with hay/shredded paper/phone book pages.. that may help to satisfy his digging needs.
If not, then maybe you could try placing a mesh/grid above his litter. Since he is used to having litter & hay together, then you could put the hay on top of the grid, hopefully that won’t make too much of a difference to him from what he’s used to. A grid would really help to prevent him from digging at his litter. Some bunnies (like my Buttons) have phases.. she goes into phases where there will be something that she absolutely has to do as often as she can, but once she’s out of that phase then she completely forgets about her little ‘mission’. Perhaps there’s a possibility that your bunny’s digging is just a phase for him.. with the grid in place, he won’t be able to dig his litter and hopefully in time, he will forget how much fun it was to dig his litter.. then you can remove the grid and he’ll be back to the litter & hay setup that he’s used to.
If all else fails, you could try changing his current litter box to a covered one. He’ll still be digging, but at least there won’t be much litter flying out from the box ๐
Pine litter is OK, provided it’s kiln-dried pine. Non kiln-dried pine or cedar wood shavings are not safe for rabbits, the aromatic oils released from pine/cedar have been said to cause respiratory disease (there’s an ongoing debate about whether this is really true, but it’s better to err on the side of caution, IMHO).
Hope that helps!
I was wondering what kind of set up do you have for Hans’ playpen? Been looking for a bird’s-eye-view-picture, but can’t find any in your blog.
I currently have my little boy in a cage (got him for about 12 days) and let him out for short periods during the day to play. He doesn’t have a litter box in his cage as it is rather small (it has those removable tray thingies.. but I don’t like the looks of cages anyway) and I was planning on introducing one to him in a play area. I’m moving to a new place next week and hopefully I can get his play area set up in my room, where he can ‘live’ in unattended, and be let out when someone’s around to watch him..
The thing is, my dad’s not so keen on me keeping an animal in my bedroom, as I’ll be sharing it with my little sister. He thinks it’s unhealthy.. And the room will have the air conditioner turned on during the night, so I don’t know what kind of effect that’ll have on the rabbit. How does your Hans hold up in your bedroom?
I hope you won’t mind emailing some pictures of the current set-ups you have at home for all your buns. I need more ideas, ideas! =)
You can send them to s-t.a.r@hotmail.com . Thanks for your time! =D
tania.
Hi Tania, and thanks for dropping by!
You can see my setup for Hans in this post: https://furrybutts.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/bachelor-pad-20/ I prefer a play pen over cages, as there’s more space to work with and I can fit a nice, big litter box inside ๐
I turn the air-conditioner on during the night, too. Hans is fine with it, his coat keeps him warm and I have towels for him to snuggle in as well.
Rabbits are actually very clean pets, you’ll just need to convince your dad about that :p Once you litter train your little guy, and keep his litter box clean, hopefully your dad will realise how clean a rabbit can be and that it won’t affect your sister’s health to have the little bunny in your room (unless she is allergic to bunny fur).
Hi Furrybutts! Great ideas! Did you find the wire mesh grids in that shape or did you have to bend them to make that shape and fit over the box? I currently have a similar plastic box that I just put litter & hay in and boy is it a mess.
My Dutch bunny is very clean but my Mini-Rex has a poop & pee problem (and is neutered). He is overweight unfortunately & can’t reach his butt… He also pees right outside of the litter box. So I am trying to find a solution for that. I’ve also tried the smaller triangle-shaped boxes w/ 2 high sides but he is a bit too big for them. He is just too lazy to jump into the “big” plastic box LOL.
Hi Christy, and thanks for dropping by!
The wire mesh grids came in one long piece and I had to cut and bend it into the right shape.
LOL at your mini-rex! If it’s difficult for him to jump into a big box, maybe he would prefer a litter box with a lowered entrance? Hope you’re able to find a solution to his litter box problems ๐
Thank You
I have been search for a way to lift Luckie my troublesome baby off of his litter because he love to eat it. I have tried so many different litters, and litter boxes but nothing worked. Which as you can imagine has caused some issues including his being a rather large (fat) bunny and it is not easy trying to get a rabbit to loss weight when there is no way to get him to stopping eatting the litter that was causing the problem. So thank you, because your litter box idea is great and works well he is no longer able to eat his litter and Luckie is on his way to getting his girlish figure back.
I’m glad you liked the litter box idea, Sarah! Nose rubs to the soon-to-be-svelte Luckie ๐
I love this idea for a litterbox! I have searched & searched… Our rabbit 2-yr-old HUGE “mini” lop uses his litterbox like clockwork but has also decided the other corner of his new cage is also acceptable! I tried switching his box but he evidently wants to use BOTH corners on that end of his cage. I am thinking this may satisfy him! We just got a new Ikea, also, and this gives me an excuse to go visit. Which hardware store did you find the grating and in which department? What is it’s original use? I am having to look quick (and hopefully FAST) as I am having knee surgery Thursday and hope to have this in place by then! Thanks!
Hi Vivian,
I think I may be in a different country from you (Malaysia).. so I’m afraid I can’t tell you which hardware shop to go to, lol! I’m not sure what its original use is.. maybe to attach to gates and fencing to keep stray cats/dogs out of people’s houses. They’re sold in large rolls and I just buy them in as many metres as I need. I hope you’re able to find something similar where you live ๐
P/S: All the best with the knee surgery
Yes, I am in North Carolina (USA). I looked and looked and finally bought a rack for dishes that does sit down inside the bin and about 3 inches from the bottom, but I am still going to look for the mesh! Now if only he will use it. He uses his corner pan well, but also uses the other corner and gets his feet wet. THEN the thumping begins!! He throws urine everywhere trying to dry his feet! I am tired of mopping and cleaning! Hopefully this will work! (Watch him try to crowd his big behind into the 2 inches or so that is left on each side…. lol! Thanks for your help!
LOL, the mental image of him trying to squeeze himself into the tiny space is hilarious! That might just cause more thumping :p We’re glad to be able to help ๐
I love your blog!