A few more questions!

[Picksgirl]

Thankyou to everybody for all your helpful info in my two previous posts.  I can see me collecting much needed info here from all you experts!!!!  The hepa filter is a perfect idea for my stedaughter’s allergies.  I think I will get two, one for the bunny’s room and one for my stepdaughter’s room.  The bunny I wish to adopt is available at a local humane society here in Ontario.  He has already been neutered. 

I would like to know where you all keep your bunnies; are they free roaming in the house or do you keep them in a separate room somewhere?  On a scale of 1-10, are they ‘smelly’ animals?  I do plan on hopefully litter training my bunny but I’m sure there will be many accidents.  Does their urine smell like a cat’s urine?  Is the odour the same for both male and female, neutered/spayed?  I’ve heard ppl mention the wood stove pellets for litter use.  Where can you buy these?

Thx for all your help.  I’m sure I’ll be back with more questions!!!!

 

[luvmybuns]

My bunnies are kept in the laundry room, which connects to my kitchen.  That is where we are most of the time.   I also like them there as they are beside a large window.   They have two floors by the window and two below.   They are in a 4 story cage, unless we are home.  When we are home, we have bunny proof areas, and they have free roam of those rooms.  I have a cat and dog also, so I don’t want them to be free roam yet. 

We clean their cages every night.  I don’t think they are smelly, as long as you keep them clean.  We use Woody Pet for our litter (which is like the wood pellets).  We get ours at an animal rescue that has a store in it. 

I do believe they smell in the beginning, but (I may be wrong) I think it is from them marking their area.  I notice after a month or so the smell is gone.  (The bunnies themselves don’t smell, but the area they are in does).   

I hope this helps some.  Have fun with your bunny.  Oh, last August I started with one bunny and now I am up to three.   They are just so darn cute.

[osprey]

Our bunnies live in a 3 story condo in our family room.  They are in their condo when we are out of the house.  When we are home, they are either free running in the family room/laundry room, or they are in a smaller (probably 6 feet by 10 feet) penned in area adjacent to their pen.

In terms of smell, they are quite clean.  They do not have to be bathed and their food is very pleasant smelling.  Theit litter box will get stinky from urine after a while, but a quick replacement of the litter and a scrub with white vinegar will easily get rid of the smell.  Their poops usually do not smell very much.

[MooBunnay]

Hello!

I have two bunnies in my bedroom, one in my living room, and four in the “den” area, and have no problem with smell at all. I think that covered litterboxes are key, because ocassionally a bunny will have smelly pee, but if you have a covered box you’ll never even get a whiff of it until you are changing the box. If you use a wood pellet, the smell even when you are changing the box is not very strong. Also aas luvmybuns mentioned, my bunny’s poops only smell if my two boy bunnies get to close to each other’s pens and start marking the territory around there. When your bunny first arrives he may mark the area with some smelly poops, but just put them straight into his litterbox, and after awhile he won’t need to mark anymore. This smelly poop thing CAN come back though if you ever have another boy bun in the house (even for a visit). To clean up the litter box and pee, use plain white vinegar as Osprey said. I have found that almost ALL my bunnies have done 1-2 territorial pees on their first day in a new place. Generally that pee is right i nthe corner of the cage. To clean it up: just spray with vinegar and blot with a paper towel, it comes off quite easily.

I would recommend the first few days keeping your bunny in a smaller sized area. This way you can monitor his litterbox habits, and reduce the area that he makes his territorial poops or pees on. Then once he’s proven to you that he knows what a litterbox is and how to use it, start letting him have supervised time out of that smaller area, and work up to free run in the future, once you identified all the things he can get into when running around!

[5cats1bun]

I have my bun (now buns) in the a spare room. the all have very large cages ,one has a 3 story nic cage and has free run of the room, the others are more or less fosters (I’m gonna keep 1 maybe 2) they are all in a 2 level NIC cage at the moment but they are all very small and happy to be in something bigger then the small box they were living in when i got them! I wish i could keep them in a different area but my cats….they can’t decided if they want to eat them or are scared of them. I haven’t had any problem with smell with Rocky but I couldn’t tell you about the younger bun since I haven’t been able to smell since I got them (I have a bad cold and have had them for 5 days now)

[Deleted User]

My Connor has the SMELLIEST poop. It smells spicy, but we think his is a medical issue. I have not noticed ANY smell with Coney, who is a living room bun. Ocassionally his litter box will get an amonia smell if it has not been changed in a few days, but even then I only smell it when I am changing his box. I have one altered and one non altered bun and I don’t notice a difference in the pee smells. Coney is a very clean rabbit and will tell me when he wants his litter box changed, because he will drag it to the front of his bunny apartment, Connor on the other hand is not litter box trained and is being very stubborn to do so. He just goes where ever he wants. He also has a hard time washing his hind end so his rear tends to get slightly stinky, but I just give him a dry bath with corn starch baby powder, and he smells just yummy again.

[Scarlet_Rose]

When I am not home, the buns stay in the 3 story condo and when I am home they have free roam of the kitchen. I have a solid baby gate that hinges so it swings open and shut like a garden gate. Your step daughter might want to go get an allergy test at the Dr’s to make sure it is just the hay and not the bunny too that she is allergic too and get a script just in case.

[BinkyBunny]

My bunnies have a large pen in a whole room of their own.  They would actually be able just to have the room, but one of my bunnies doesn’t get along with the other two, so they are separated.  They share free roam time out in the rest of the house.  They each get one full day and night of  free-roaming every other day.  So jack and Rucy get to roam the house for 24 hours, and then Bailey gets to roam the house for 24 hours.    Their pens are very spacious so on their off roaming days, they have plent of space.

On a scale from 1 – 10 – I’d say a 2.  Most people don’t even know I have rabbits.  (and I have three)  Rabbit urine has more of an amonia smell.  Males are a bit more musky, but if they are spayed and neutered their urine odor cuts down tremendously!.  

Scarlet just posted a poll not too long ago about the best litter, and many of us have discovered "Aspen Supreme." I used Yesterday’s News before which I thought did an awesome job, but I was dumbfounded about how awesome Apsen Supreme ended up being when I tried it.   I do mix Yesterday’s News and the Aspen otherwise it’s too woodsy for me, but even that mixture bring the odor down to nil.

Regular woodstove pellets you can usually get at OSH, or some home repair store, you can also get "horse bedding" which is also wood pellets at a feed store.

[Scarlet_Rose]

Ooo, I got so focused on the roaming time that I totally forgot the odor bit! Oh yes the Aspen Supreme rocks with odor control! Osprey actually brought it to my attention as I was having a bit of an odor problem with the YN (Yesterday’s News) and now that I switched, I have no problem at all.

[PocketFaeries]

I am rather new here, but thought I’d chime in with my bunny’s living quarters, too.  

Finn has a large (4 foot by 4 foot) pen that is in his own room, our front parlor.  The room has pocket doors that we close if we are leaving Finn unattended, which confines him to his room.  Otherwise, the doors are open and, being only a week at our house, Finn has not gone very far from us anyhow.  S/he has the pen area mostly to create a safe bunny space for Finn to call home base, but it’s open and not restrictive, really. 

Finn is currently allowed to roam freely in his/her entire room, as well as our livingroom, which is where we spend most of our "family time" and it is adjacent to Finn’s room.  This works beautifully for us and for Finn…Finn can choose to join us (as is often the case), or choose to just chill out on his thrown (see pics in the lounge section).   I imagine that as s/he gets more comfortable and explores more areas, we’ll allow access to those places when we are home and supervising as well.

I think Finn really likes having a room that is all about the bunny! S/he is still quite young and we’ve only had the bun bun for a week now, so I’m sure that as Finn gets older and more inquisitive, we’ll be chasing a fuzzy white fur blurr around the whole house! LOL

[BinkyBunny]

PocketFaeries. You’re right, I bet Finn does like having a “bunny” place. Most bunnies like to feel the safety of “their” place. Not only that if they have a place of their own, they are less likely to mark up the house. Finn, being so young and not yet neutered, I’m sure his littebox habits may be challenging or will become challenging as he reaches sexual maturity. If that is the case, you may have to cut back freedom only temporarily until litterbox habits improve. (usually after neutered)

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