A series of questions…

[Samicles]

So most of these questions are about diet & care so I put it in this section. My bunny, Nimmy, had his first trip to the vet last week and we were given quite a surprise. I thought Nimmy was a girl and checked 4 or 5 times to make sure. But I’m wrong, Nimmy is a boy. I was honestly kind of frustrated about this, I don’t know why.. Just felt betrayed I guess. Took a couple of days for me to get over it, it’s been over a week and I’m still calling him a she sometimes. Anyways onto the questions…

• Broken whiskers… I’ve never experienced this before with a pet, but I noticed 3 of Nimmy’s whiskers have broken. Is this normal? Should I do something, like clip them down so the ends aren’t curly? I’m keeping an eye on him to make sure no more break. If more of them break I’ll have to investigate and find out what happened. 
• This morning Nimmy opened his cage on his own. Twice. The door of the cage is a little worn but it’s no more than 6 months old. Luckily I was in my room when he opened the cage, so it wasn’t a problem. But my fear is he’ll open it when nobody is home and get himself into some trouble or get hurt. So for now I secure the door with a hair tie. I was planning on buying a bigger cage around October/November but that’s going to be much sooner now because of the door. Any suggestions on brands or styles? Right now his cage is around 29L x 17w x 16h. I don’t have the tools to build a cage so unless tools become available I’ll be buying one. 
• STAINS! When I clean his cage (I do this weekly) I’m finding that the bottom of the cage and the litter-box are beginning to stain. I clean the litter-box twice a week and I’ll probably wind up buying another one soon cause it’s starting to get gross. Are those pet cage cleaning sprays actually worth it? They’re like $10 which is crazy. White vinegar doesn’t seem to work very well, are there other ways to clean it? I’m always super careful about what chemicals I may be using around Nimmy because I know how sensitive they can be to smells.
  • And I’m looking at used cages online, found a nice big one but there’s some stains inside. Any hope of lifting the stains?

• Before my vet visit Nimmy was eating Vita-Nature food. But now we’re switched over to Oxbox Young Rabbit diet (for some reason Petsmart only carries the Adult kind). Nimmy doesn’t really seem to like it. I’ve been mixing the old food with the new until the old food runs out and Nimmy will dig through to get the old food specifically. I just ran out of the old stuff today, and he hasn’t eaten the pellets.  I like the new food, it’s cheaper and healthier for him but if he doesn’t like it should I just give up and switch him back to the Vita-Nature?
• Huts, or hideaways whatever you may call them, the one that I’ve got for Nimmy is made of wood. And he just peed on it and some poop is smeared on there too. Can I clean it somehow? I know there’s wood cleaners but would that be safe around bunnies?

Sorry for writing so much, but thanks in advance for any help!

[Mocha]

– This usually happens with shedding during their molt. You have no reason to trim them, unless they start splitting until the base of the whisker.

– X-PEN! I love x- pens and so do my bunnies. They are cheaper than most cages (though you can make your own with NIC grids, and my bunnies love them, they have lots of room to run around are always happy.

-What do you mean you see stains? Is he peeing on the floor? What bedding do you use? I would clean his litterbox more (every other day). He might want you to put his litterbox where he is peeing. Use white vinegar/ water mixture to help remove the odor and break down the harded feces and urine. I don’t buy the petstore sprays. I try to stay as natural as possible. Is he neutered?

– How old is he? If he has a good healthy diet of hay, vegetables, and fresh water, you don’t need to be feeding pellets.

-Don’t use wood cleaner! Just use some water and sun dry it. My bunnies honestly don’t care whether there toys have their poop and pee on it.

Hope I helped!

[Hazel]

Concerning the pee stains, how long do you let the white vinegar soak in? What I normally do is soak a paper towel with vinegar (should be almost dripping wet) and place it on top of the stain (press it down gently so there are no air bubbles) and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. After that, it wipes right off. Works like a charm for me.

It’s normal that he doesn’t like the new food. VitaNature has a lot of junk in it that tastes great to bunnies. It’s the same as feeding your kid candy all day and then switching them over to a plate full of healthy veggies. Naturally they will hate it. Give him some time to get used to it, when he’s hungry enough he will eat it. I had the same problem with Oscar when switching him from Alfalfa to Timothy pellets, he hated the Timothy. Now he loves them and gets as excited about them as he was about the old food. Don’t go back to the Vita food, it’s bad for them.

[Pipje]

Forget about buying a cage!
You don’t need tools to build a NIC cage. Just something to cut the zip ties with, then put some linoleum flooring down.
X pens are perfect, no building required and cheap. I would attach one of these to his current cage asap then you don’t need to worry about the door as he can roam between the cage and xpen. Any cage you can buy in a store is just never big enough!

Do you line the litter box with newspaper? That should lessen the staining of the box.
But stains are stains, their pee can be quite strong and some stains just wont come out. Cleaning with vinegar is usually enough to remove the smell and worst of the stain.

[Samicles]

Whhhhattt I’ve been using white vinegar totally wrong. I never thought about letting it sit. I would always pour a little vinegar on an already soaked paper towel then just scrub away. And yeah I noticed him begin to nibble on the new stuff, at least he’s trying it.

And I saw this one tutorial on Youtube which required a lot of wood cutting and screwing together. I can maybe ask around for an electric screw driver and a drill and see how it plays out. I’d love for my bunny to have at least a two story cage, he loves jumping and climbing things. I’ll start looking into it again, I just found a tutorial that I liked. If I can get my hands on the tools without having to buy/rent them then it’d be perfect. And no I don’t line the litter box with newspaper, what I’ve done to prevent the wet litter from clinging to the bottom of the box is to put a thin layer of bedding under the litter. It also helps to soak it up but I’ll try the newspaper idea tomorrow night when I clean out his litter-box.

[LoveMyMoMo]

Since your bunnies are climbers, if a condo is too much work, I have an xpen, and then a Cottontail Cottage for my bunnies to climb inside their condo, they love it!
It might work for you too if you opt for an xpen!

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