Apartment Bunny Accommodations

[tofu]

Hello all! I am moving myself and my two house bunnies to San Francisco into an apartment and I’m interested in seeing how others who live in dense urban areas set up and tackle things like habitat set up as well as cleaning and smells

I clean my bunnies litter boxes every day currently because I’m sensitive to the smell of their pee so I keep it as low as possible. Currently because we live in a house in the country I’m able to put their soiled bedding and poop in a big compost pile for the garden but will obviously not have this luxury in a busy city. I also will be living with my roommates in closer spaces so I want to reduce the smells of pee and hay as much as I can, as well as keep things tidy. I am still of course planning on them being free roaming, and locating their pen either in my room or in a corner in the kitchen

I’m curious to see what other people have done with these problems in similar settings and what your set ups or routines are like. Any advice helps!

[Louiethebunny]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>My family and I live in a condo and my room as a finished basement, my bunny free roams there. Lots of people with smaller apartments opt to free roam because there’s not a lot of space and free roaming is easy in a small area. Every other day I dump his litter into an 8 gallon bag and toss it.</p>

[DanaNM]

I’m in an apartment also, and I’ve done boxes two ways. San Francisco has city wide composting, right?

We used to have a plot at the community garden, so I would compost everything (I use pine pellet litter but I think all bunny safe litters are compostable). During that time, I used a litter box screen, and every 2 days I would dump all the hay and poop from the top of the screen into a 5 gal bucket with a lid (which also had our veggie scraps, coffee grounds, etc), and then scoop out the pee-soaked bedding into the bucket as well. I would do all this in the kitchen so I could sweep up afterward. I would also top up hay in the kitchen so I could sweep up. I keep my hay in a big plastic bin.

After a few years we gave up our garden plot, and our city doesn’t do composting. We have a cheap source of pine pellets and hay, so I switched to the lazy version where I just take the entire box to the trash bins and dump the whole thing every other day.  Now when I top up the hay I usually just get the bin as close to their box and hay rack as possible.

Thinking you could prob use the 5 gal bucket system since you likely have composting available to you? Or I imagine you could just take the whole box down to the compost bins, but depending on how easy they are to get to it might be easier to use the bucket so you don’t have to venture down to the bins so frequently?

Having a big litter box helps keep everything contained. I think most of the mess comes from me topping up the hay vs. the buns actually spreading it around. I use pine pellets plus a fluffy layer of hay and there really isn’t any smell I can detect with dumping it every other day (and I’m in a studio apartment so in the same room as the box all the time).

There are these rubber brooms that seem to work really well for cleaning up hay on carpet. I have a hand one that helps for keeping things tidy between vacuuming, but I think a full size one would be great.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[prince dorian the bun]

I’m in a duplex, so maybe a tad more room. It’s has a 2nd 3/4ths bathroom which doesn’t have heat so we use it as the bun room. It makes it easy for the whole litter issue. It is right next to the kitchen though, so if it smelled bad that be an issue. I have two litters, one a big cat box and a smaller one that’s just a tupperware container… I just give them a base layer of yesterdays news litter, then fill rest up with hay. I spot clean every other day, though if it looks/smells like it needs it I’ll just do it. I usually just toss the dirty hay and pellets in a paper bag and run it down to the compost bin (we have city pick up, not sure about SF) once the bag is fuller or if it seems to smell, usually it doesn’t as long as I roll the top of the bag. Hay is not really an issue outside of his room, he cleans it all up himself. But shredded cardboard is a pain, so I have his messy toys under the table where the TV is, I have placed a plastic mat under it to make clean up easier since room has carpet. It also stops him from messing up the carpet in that area (I have done the same for a corner he really liked digging in). It’s the stuff for high traffic areas, came in a roll on amazon. If your litter area is carpet, this I think would be great for under. It is a bit slippy, I have a little mat on top the play area spot, but the slip discourages digging so I left as is for the other corner.

Oh and if you have roommates I would think having stuff in your room will be better. Also I know Dorian hates certain kitchen smells and though he usually likes to help me cook will go escape when I make anything spicy. I am not sure about your buns, but between them making smells and not liking the smells people making it doesn’t seem ideal. That’s just me though.

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