Wednesday, March 08, 2006

litter system for rabbits

For Kaphine (sorry, hon -- i don't know how this will help...)

http://tinyurl.com/n73ta

This is a four-part litter pan. Two identical litter boxes on the bottom, a sifting layer and a keeping-stuff-inside lid that locks.

For rabbits, clumping litter is a no-no. And we were going through a huge bag of Yesterday's News every two weeks. Ridiculous.

So, here's what we do:

plain box 1 sits on the bottom, unused for now
plain box 2 is immediately above it, lined with several layers of newspaper
locking lid is put UPSIDE DOWN inside plain box 2 to act as a spacer so that
sifting layer can be put on the top. [which means it doesn't lock. unless the buns are mental, they should eventually leave it alone as ours have]

This means the buns poop on the grid [which is gentle on their paws, btw], some of the poop drops below and all of the pee drops below, sopped up by the newspaper.

It requires you to change it daily, since there's no odor control, but it also means the buns don't stand in wet litter, should we be a little late to clean the box, and we're not going through tons of bags of litter stuff all the time.

To clean, take the top sifting layer off, slide it into a bag, rub through the bag on the underside of the sifting layer, to get the wee poops to come loose. Dump in bag.
Dump plain box 2's contents into the bag.
Line plain box 1 with newspaper, put sifting layer and locking layer in place and you can put it right back in the cage.
Spray plain box 2 with Nature's Miracle, or similar non-toxic neutralizer, rinse and place plain box 2 under plain box 1, ready for next time.
When necessary, spray and rinse the sifting layer as well with Nature's Miracle.

I don't know if it's that much easier, but it does go quite quickly and seems to be doing the trick.

The end.

[apologies to those who find the subject of bunny poo distasteful. it's quite inoffensive, really, and those of us with more than one rabbit probably find we're confronted with handling quite a lot of it. yes, you can put it in the garden as mulch, if you want. our city has a green composting program, so the newspaper and poo are getting recycled on a grander scale.]