House Rabbit Community and Store
What are we about? Please read about our Forum Culture and check out the Rules.
The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.
› FORUM › DIET & CARE › Daily routines?
It has just gone 6.30 am here in the UK and I am about to start my morning routine.
I clean out all three litter boxes everyday and sweep the cages. I also get my son ready for school and myself ready for uni.
Now that I am into my studies again I am finding the routine tiring.
How often do you clean your rabbit’s litter boxes/ cages and what is your method?
I better get on but thanks for any replies
I use to clean everyday like you. One day I guess I was sick or something and just decided to add hay to the boxes instead of totally cleaning. I used carefresh as the bedding then I cover it all with hay. I discovered then that I didn’t need to do it every day but I do totally clean the litter boxes every other day. Mine live in a room so I vacuum once a week with my regular vacuum and then I have a mini vac that I clean up with once sometime during the week.
I hope you find a routine that helps so you aren’t so tired out. best of luck!
I do my litter box every other day, as for his cage for night time I will scoop any mess out most days depending on whats there and I actually fully clean the whole cage usually twice a week. I do vary it slightly depending on how it is, sometimes its messier than others so needs done more often. I also do mine after uni but that’s just my preference for not being a morning person lol
How do you guys not clean the litter box every other day? I have to clean mine 2 to 3 times per day!!
What is your set up?
Mind is a litter box lined with newspaper (maybe 3 to 5 sheets), on the corner she pees in i place 2 handfuls (spread evenly) of paper bedding. THis covers like 1/3 of the litter. On the other 2/3 i place hay. I have to clean multiple times per day because if I don’t, the previous bedding and newspaper is soaked and therefore won’t absorb any more urine.
Here is my routine:
Wake up around 6, feed pellets
7:00 AM change litter box, she likes to use the restroom after she has pellets so I wait
between 8 to 5 i’m at work
5:00 change litter when I get home
5 to 6:30 she gets to play around the home
6:30 eat
7:30 change litter if she has gone (if not no change)
7:30 to 11:00 free play
11:30 change litter (if needed) and refill hay before bed
3:00 (am) change litter and add hay (i wake up to use restroom so I check up on her and usualy have to change and refill hay)
Flopsie — get a bigger litterbox, put in more litter and more hay which should eliminate at least the 5:00, 7:30 , and 3:00 AM changes. I can’t believe you change litter and add hay at 3 in the AM, you are a slave! If I wake up in the middle of the night to “go”, I’d be so groggy that I’d probably end up going in the litterbox myself and dumping the fresh litter and hay in the toilet!
LizziAnn – I am not a morning person! I get up an hour later than I should, take a shower, feed the bunnies, get dressed, make a cup of coffee on the way out the door, work from “when I get there” until “when I leave”, come home, feed more pellets. Every evening, hubby empties and refills litterboxes, refills hay feeders, rinses and refills water bottles, and does a quick shop vac in the buns’ areas while I get bunny time. It would take me an hour to do what he does in 15 or 20 minutes! He plays with the bunnies toward the end of play time while I make salads (somewhere between 10 and 11:30), and we both brush bunnies during salad time. I head to bed somewhere around midnight or 1 AM. Weekends get bottles and bowls washed, salad shopping and salad wash/pack, a little heavier bunny cleaning. We have xl cat litterboxes, and go through a ton of litter and hay. Conveniently left out non-bunny stuff from the above!
I have a reasonably big cat litter box for bramble when he is out or in his pen. I don’t have a litter box in his cage because it would make his living space too small I clean his toilet corner out every day with a scoop. sometimes his litter box does need changed every day sometimes every other day but definitely not more than once a day. I cant wait till I get his new cage next week then he can have a litter box in there too
yea trust me, its not that i *want* to do it, but as i said, the pee soaks through and its a mess.
okay so I need some advice before i make a change. Currently, the reason I don’t have a ton of litter is because if I put a ton in, she likes to dig and mess around and it makes the hay get messed up and mixed in with the litter. Then it just gets nasty.
Of course, the solution would be to get one of those grates but the problem is A) i can’t find any or don’t know where to look and B) the BB store is either sold when i’ve wanted it.
Any tips of solutions? this would not only save me time but MONEY!
Flopsie — I don’t put the hay down in the litterbox. My hubby made hay feeders for the buns — all the store ones were either too small or made a mess so we figured out what would work for us and he built them. The feeders are pretty big. We have two xl cat litterboxes in the “kitchen/bathroom crate (the only reason we still have the crate is for a place to hand the feeders and the plastic floor to making vac easier. We had to go to the xl cat boxes so that the side were deep enough to keep Moshi from digging all the litter out. Hopefully you can see the setup form this:

Flopsie- one of my buns doesn’t have a “litter box” it is an large 42 litre under bed storage box. Even with litter on the bottom and hay in it the sides are really high and it is far bigger than an XL cat box.
So glad I started this thread, this had been really interesting. I also use carefresh under the hay but I have just purchased a 30 lt bag of back2nature litter so that may help, I have no idea. Hopefully by Christmas everyone will live together too so only one litter box will need to be cleaned and that will help.
P.s Jackrabbit, I think I love you xD your first post haha.
WOW, wow and wow! After reading all the replies I just realised how lucky I am!
I really enjoyed the read LizziAnn – great thread!
LizziAnn – looked everywhere for one of those storage boxes after Manic_muncher posted about using one that had wheels and Bonnie riding the litterbox back and forth in her xpen. All the ones I found had sides that were only 5 inches tall so weren’t tall enough to keep the Moshster from emptying it. Is there a brand name on the one you got?
Every morning (depending on the day) I give Theodore his salad – romaine, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and cilantro – about 2-3 cups. I make sure he has lots of fresh hay, and check on his litterbox.
Usually, I clean his litterbox once every 3 days. This consists of taking his box out, saving any hay that’s still clean and dry and then dumping everything out into a trashbag and taking that out. I then spray the box down with vinegar/water solution and wipe it down so that it’s clean and dry, and then I replace the litter, which is currently Kaytee Clean & Cozy, which is a paper litter. Then I chuck a handful of clean hay on top of that, and refresh the basket attached to the side that hangs above the litterbox with fresh Oxbow hay.
I usually let him run around and get a bit of out time exercise during all this, or if I don’t need to clean his litterbox then I put his salad outside his x-pen and groom him. Once every other day, he gets 1 papaya enzyme tablet. Also, every other day I clean out his gravity waterer and refill it with clean water.
He stays in his x-pen for most of the day, sleeping, until I get home in the evening and give him his 1/8-1/4 cup of Oxbow pellets and hours of out time.
I’m not sure how you guys are cleaning so less but I’m jealous or envious! Does my bun have intense urine? Or am I being too nit picky on cleaning. Can someone show me a pic of how soiled the litter is when you do clean it? Sorry that might be too graphic or gross but I’m so curious.
Posted By Flopsie on 10/04/2014 9:40 AM
I’m not sure how you guys are cleaning so less but I’m jealous or envious! Does my bun have intense urine? Or am I being too nit picky on cleaning. Can someone show me a pic of how soiled the litter is when you do clean it? Sorry that might be too graphic or gross but I’m so curious.
Haha, that’s not graphic at all! I can post some pics here tomorrow when I clean it out.
Ok I’m curious.
What do you do when the hay gets mixed with the bedding or litter? Just allow it?
Jackrabbit, it’s actually a 32lt, my bad, the sides are 7 inches and it does not have wheels (that sounds funny though). It says Wham on the side lof it.
But you can get a 42lt I think it has the same sized sides and a 45lt with 10 inch sides (these are obv UK sites but at last you know what you’re looking for):
http://www.therange.co.uk/45l-plastic-storage-box-blue//the-range/fcp-product/49236
http://www.therange.co.uk/45l-plastic-storage-box-blue//the-range/fcp-product/49236
Flopsie, I just allow mixed bedding and hay, ain’t no body got time for that
Some dirty litter boxes:
LizziAnn, what do you have under the hay? Hmm mine never end up like that her box always ends up like a hay and litter salad with everything mixed -____-
that is back 2 nature litter. I only switched to it yesterday so this morning was the first time cleaning it out. I used to use carefresh but that is so expensive.
I don’t have an opinion on this new litter yet but it’s cheaper and I think it will last longer.
The pictures don’t seem to show how messy the litter boxes actually looked.
› FORUM › DIET & CARE › Daily routines?
